This article presents a conceptual analysis of the promotion of Ukrainian national unity within the context of establishing modern Ukrainian national identity in the Eastern Galicia of the XIX century, spreading Ukrainophilism among the local Ruthenians through the prism of competing national and political aspirations. The author focuses on the relations among the Ukrainian public figures in Galicia and Naddniprianschyna, Ukraine-Poland relations in the region, the policy of Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires regarding “the Ukrainian issue”. In terms of chronology, the article covers the period from the beginning of folk studies in Galicia, the activity of the ‘Ruthenian Triad’in the 1830s to the 1890s-early XXth century marked by dramatic changes in public consciousness and the crystallization of the concept of Ukraine’s political independence and national unity (i.e. “sobornist“).
