The importance of the peasantry also meant that from the very beginning the Ukrainian national awakening was synonymous with populist and what would later be called “left wing” opposition to the Russian and Polish-speaking merchants, landowners and aristocracy. For that reason, it rapidly gathered strength following the emancipation of the serfs across imperial Russia under Tsar Alexander II in 1861. Freedom for the peasants was, in effect, freedom for Ukrainians, and a blow to their Russian and Polish masters. The pressure for a more powerful Ukrainian identity was, even then, also pressure
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