Stepan Kachala
Encyclopedia
Stepan Kachala (1815 – 1888) was a Ukrainian politician and writer.
Born in Firlejów near Berezhany
, he graduated from a gymnasium in Berezhany and then the Lviv
seminary. In 1842, he became a Greek-Catholic priest.
In the late 1860s, a Galician priest, Father Stepan Kachala, made an inquiry into the causes of the Ukrainian peasant’s poverty and then for
mulated a social program that the Greek Catholic clergy as a whole soon
adopted for its own. He did not find the roots of the peasant’s poverty where secular investigators have suggested these roots lay: in the
inequitable terms of emancipation, in the transition to a money economy,
and in the absence of factory industry to absorb the surplus labor in the countryside. Instead, Father Kalacha found the peasant guilty of vices that led to his impoverishment: drunkenness, prodigality, and sloth. As antidotes to these vices, he suggested, among other things, abstinence, thrift, and enterprise.
From 1861, Rev Stepan Kachala was a Ukrainian representative to the Galician Sejm, and a head of the Ruthenian Club (Ukrainian Руськiй клуб, Polish Klub Ruski) in the parliament in 1883-1888.
Born in Firlejów near Berezhany
Berezhany
Berezhany is a city located in the Ternopil Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Berezhanskyi Raion , and rests about 100 km from Lviv and 50 km from the oblast capital, Ternopil. The city has a population of about 20,000, and is about 400 m above sea level...
, he graduated from a gymnasium in Berezhany and then the Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
seminary. In 1842, he became a Greek-Catholic priest.
In the late 1860s, a Galician priest, Father Stepan Kachala, made an inquiry into the causes of the Ukrainian peasant’s poverty and then for
mulated a social program that the Greek Catholic clergy as a whole soon
adopted for its own. He did not find the roots of the peasant’s poverty where secular investigators have suggested these roots lay: in the
inequitable terms of emancipation, in the transition to a money economy,
and in the absence of factory industry to absorb the surplus labor in the countryside. Instead, Father Kalacha found the peasant guilty of vices that led to his impoverishment: drunkenness, prodigality, and sloth. As antidotes to these vices, he suggested, among other things, abstinence, thrift, and enterprise.
From 1861, Rev Stepan Kachala was a Ukrainian representative to the Galician Sejm, and a head of the Ruthenian Club (Ukrainian Руськiй клуб, Polish Klub Ruski) in the parliament in 1883-1888.