History of Galicia (Eastern Europe)

Celtic costumes par in Przeworsk culture (3rd century BC), Archaeological Museum of Kraków.

Germanic costumes par in Przeworsk culture (2nd century), Archaeological Museum of Kraków.

Stater coin, of Alexander the Great (336-323 BC) from Trepcza/ n. Sanok

The region has a turbulent history. In Roman times the region was populated by various tribes of Celto-Germanic admixture, including Celtic-based tribes – like the Galice or "Gaulics" and Bolihinii or "Volhynians" – the Lugians and Cotini of Celtic, Vandals and Goths of Germanic origins (the Przeworsk and Púchov cultures). Beginning with the Wandering of the nations, the great migration coincident with the fall of the Roman Empire, various groups of nomadic people invaded the area:

• 3rd century BC - 2nd century AD: Anartes (west part),
• 2nd – 5th centuries: Vandals (Przeworsk culture, =Hasdingi, Lacringi);Bastarnaes; Goths and Gepids (Wielbark culture)
• 2nd – 5th centuries (east part): Scythians, Sarmatians
• 4th – 5th centuries: Huns
• 5th century: Avars
• 6th – 8th centuries: Slavs
• 6th – 9th centuries (east part): Bulgars (later Slavicized), Hungarians, Pechenegs
• 10th – 13th centuries (east part): Cumans, Karaites
• 13th – 14th centuries (east part): Tatars and other Turco-Mongol peoples from Central Asia

Overall, Slavs (both West and East Slavs, including Lendians as well as Rusyns) came to dominate the Celtic-German population.

In 891–892, the territories of the White and Red Croats came under the control of Great Moravia, a Slavic state. The region of what later became known as Galicia appears to have been incorporated, in large part, into the Empire of Great Moravia. It is first attested in the Primary Chronicle in A.D. 981, when Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus' took over the Red Ruthenian strongholds in his military campaign on the border with the land of the Lendians, incorporated into the Duchy of Polans, and the land of the White Croats, ruled by the Duchy of Bohemia.

In the following century, the area shifted briefly to Poland (1018–1031 and 1069–1080) and then back to Kievan Rus'. As one of many successors to Kievan Rus', the Principality of Halych existed from 1087 to 1199, when Roman the Great finally managed to unite it with Volhynia in the state of Halych-Volhynia, the Kingdom of Rus' or Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. However, the Hungarian claims to the Ruthenian principality (Regnum Galiciæ et Lodomeriæ) turned up in 1188. Despite the anti-Mongol campaigns of Danylo of Halych, who was crowned the king of Halych-Volhynia, his state occasionally paid tribute to the Golden Horde. Danylo moved his capital from Halych to Kholm, and his son Lev moved it to Lviv. Danylo's dynasty also attempted to gain papal and broader support in Europe for an alliance against the Mongols, but proved incapable of competing with the rising powers of Great Duchy of Lithuania and Poland.

At the start of the 13th century, the Galician-Volhynian prince Roman Mstislavich became the main military ally of the Byzantine Empire led by Alexios III, who referred to him as “igemon of Galicia”. Roman also married Alexio's niece, the elder daughter of the overthrown emperor Isaak II. The relation with Byzantium helped to stabilize Galicia's relations with the Russian population of the Lower Dniester and the Lower Danube.[1]

A succession wars were fought in the years 1340–1392 concerning succession to the rule of the Principality of Galicia–Volhynia. After Boleslaw-Yuri II was poisoned by local nobles in 1340, both the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland advanced claims over the principality. After a prolonged conflict, Galicia–Volhynia was divided between Poland (Galicia) and Lithuania (Volhynia) and the principality ceased to exist as an independent state. Poland acquired a territory of approximately 52,000 square kilometres (20,000 sq mi) with 200,000 inhabitants.[2]

After 1346, the region comprised a Polish possession divided into a number of voivodeships. This began an era of Polish settlement among the Ruthenian population. Armenian and Jewish immigration to the region also occurred in large numbers. Numerous castles were built during this time and some new cities were founded: Stanisławów (Stanyslaviv in Ukrainian, now Ivano-Frankivsk) and Krystynopol (now Chervonohrad).

Galicia was many times subjected to incursions by Tartars and Ottoman Turkey in the 16th and 17th centuries, devastated during the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–54) and the Russo-Polish War (1654–67), disrupted by Swedish invasions during The Deluge (1655–60) and Great Northern War of the early 18th century.

In 1859, following Austrian military defeat in Italy, the Empire entered a period of constitutional experiments. In 1860, the Vienna Government, influenced by Agenor Goluchowski, issued its October Diploma, which envisioned a conservative federalization of the empire, but a negative reaction in the German-speaking lands led to changes in government and the issuing of the February Patent which watered down this de-centralization. Nevertheless, by 1861, Galicia was granted a Legislative Assembly or Galicia Diet. Although at first pro-Habsburg Ruthenian and Polish peasant representation was considerable in this body (about half the assembly), and the pressing social and Ruthenian questions were discussed, administrative pressures limited the effectiveness of both peasant and Ruthenian representatives and the Diet became dominated by the Polish aristocracy and gentry, who favoured further autonomy. This same year, disturbances broke out in Russian Poland and to some extent spilled over into Galicia. The Diet ceased to sit.

By 1863, open revolt broke out in Russian Poland and, from 1864 to 1865, the Austrian government declared a State of Siege in Galicia, temporarily suspending civil liberties.

1865 brought a return to federal ideas along the lines suggested by Agenor Goluchowski and negotiations on autonomy between the Polish aristocracy and Vienna began once again.

Meanwhile, the Ruthenians felt more and more abandoned by Vienna and among the "Old Ruthenians" grouped around the Greek Catholic Cathedral of Saint George, there occurred a turn towards Russia. The more extreme supporters of this orientation came to be known as "Russophiles". At the same time, influenced by the Ukrainian language poetry of the eastern Ukrainian writer, Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainophile movement led by Anatole Vakhnianyn and the Prosvita society arose which published literature in the Ukrainian/Ruthenian vernacular and eventually established a network of reading halls. Supporters of this orientation came to be known as "Populists", and later, simply as "Ukrainians". Almost all Ruthenians, however, still hoped for national equality and for an administrative division of Galicia along ethnic lines.

Galician Sejm (parliament) in Lviv.

In 1866, following the Battle of Sadova and the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, the Austrian empire began to experience increased internal problems. In an effort to shore up support for the monarchy, Emperor Franz Joseph began negotiations for a compromise with the Hungarian nobility to ensure their support. Some members of the government, such as Austrian prime minister Count Belcredi, advised the Emperor to make a more comprehensive constitutional deal with all of the nationalities that would have created a federal structure. Belcredi worried that an accommodation with the Hungarian interests would alienate the other nationalities. However, Franz Joseph was unable to ignore the power of the Hungarian nobility, and they would not accept anything less than dualism between themselves and the traditional Austrian élites.

Finally, after the so-called Ausgleich of February 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into a dualist Austria-Hungary. Although the Polish and Czech plans for their parts of the monarchy to be included in the federal structure failed, a slow yet steady process of liberalisation of Austrian rule in Galicia started. Representatives of the Polish aristocracy and intelligentsia addressed the Emperor asking for greater autonomy for Galicia. Their demands were not accepted outright, but over the course of the next several years a number of significant concessions were made toward the establishment of Galician autonomy.

Galicia in 1897

From 1873, Galicia was de facto an autonomous province of Austria-Hungary with Polish and, to a much lesser degree, Ukrainian or Ruthenian, as official languages. The Germanisation had been halted and the censorship lifted as well. Galicia was subject to the Austrian part of the Dual Monarchy, but the Galicia Diet and provincial administration had extensive privileges and prerogatives, especially in education, culture, and local affairs.

These changes were supported by many Polish intellectuals. In 1869, a group of young conservative publicists in Kraków, including Józef Szujski, Stanisław Tarnowski, Stanisław Koźmian and Ludwik Wodzicki, published a series of satirical pamphlets entitled Teka Stańczyka (Stańczyk's Portfolio). Only five years after the tragic end of the January Uprising, the pamphlets ridiculed the idea of armed national uprisings and suggested compromise with Poland's enemies, especially the Austrian Empire, concentration on economic growth, and acceptance of the political concessions offered by Vienna. This political grouping came to be known as the Stanczyks or Kraków Conservatives. Together with the eastern Galician conservative Polish landowners and aristocracy called the "Podolians", they gained a political ascendency in Galicia which lasted to 1914.

This shift in power from Vienna to the Polish landowning class was not welcomed by the Ruthenians, who became more sharply divided into Russophiles, who looked to Russia for salvation, and Ukrainians who stressed their connections to the common people.

Both Vienna and the Poles saw treason among the Russophiles and a series of political trials eventually discredited them. Meanwhile, by 1890, an agreement was worked out between the Poles and the "Populist" Ruthenians or Ukrainians which saw the partial Ukrainianization of the school system in eastern Galicia and other concessions to Ukrainian culture. Thereafter, the Ukrainian national movement spread rapidly among the Ruthenian peasantry and, despite repeated setbacks, by the early years of the 20th century this movement had almost completely replaced other Ruthenian groups as the main rival for power with the Poles. Throughout this period, the Ukrainians never gave up the traditional Ruthenian demands for national equality and for partition of the province into a western, Polish half and an eastern, Ukrainian half.

Economic immigrants from Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy 1890, modern Prnjavor (today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Beginning in the 1880s, a mass emigration of the Galician peasantry occurred. The emigration started as a seasonal one to Imperial Germany (newly unified and economically dynamic) and to Bosnia and then later became a Trans-Atlantic one with large-scale emigration to the United States, Brazil, and Canada.

Caused by the backward economic condition of Galicia where rural poverty was widespread, the emigration began in the western, Polish populated part of Galicia and quickly shifted east to the Ukrainian inhabited parts. Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, and Germans all participated in this mass movement of countryfolk and villagers. Poles migrated principally to New England and the midwestern states of the United States, but also to Brazil and elsewhere; Ukrainians migrated to Brazil, Canada, and the United States, with a very intense emigration from Southern Podolia to Western Canada; and Jews emigrated both directly to the New World and also indirectly via other parts of Austria-Hungary.

A total of several hundred thousand people were involved in this Great Economic Emigration which grew steadily more intense until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The war put a temporary halt to the emigration which never again reached the same proportions.

The Great Economic Emigration, especially the emigration to Brazil – the "Brazilian Fever" as it was called at the time – was described in contemporary literary works by the Polish poet Maria Konopnicka, the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko, and many others. Writer Osyp Oleskiv was instrumental in redirecting Ukrainian migration away from Brazil towards Canada, although the first arrival, Ivan Pylypiv, had been a few years earlier.

Kingdom of Galicia 1846–1918

During the First World War, Galicia saw heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and the Central Powers. The fighting began in 1914 when the Russian Army advanced into the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia and German East Prussia. The initial attack on East Prussia quickly turned into a defeat following the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914 but the second incursion was completely successful. Under the command of generals Nikolai Ivanov and Aleksei Brusilov, the Russians won the Battle of Galicia in September and began the Siege of Przemyśl, the next fortress on the road towards Kraków. By the end December 1914, the Russians controlled almost all of Galicia. However the victory was short-lived, the Russians were pushed out of Galicia in the spring and summer of 1915 by a combined German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish offensive.

In 1918, Western Galicia became a part of the restored Republic of Poland, while the local Ukrainian population briefly declared the independence of Eastern Galicia as the West Ukrainian People's Republic. These competing claims led to the Polish-Ukrainian War. Upon reclaiming its former territories and seeing a much greater threat from a Communist Russia, Poland made common cause with Ukrainian administration in Kiev, the Ukrainian People's Republic against Bolshevist Russia. During the Polish-Soviet War a short-lived Galician SSR in Ternopil was established. Eventually, the whole of the province was recaptured by Poles and divided into four voivodeships, with capitals in Kraków, Lviv (Lwów), Ternopil (Tarnopol) and Stanyslaviv (Stanisławów).

The Ukrainians of the former eastern Galicia and the neighbouring province of Volhynia, made up about 15% of the Second Polish Republic's population, and were its numerically largest minority. Poland's annexation of Eastern Galicia, never accepted as legitimate by most Ukrainians, was internationally recognized in 1923. This attitude, among other local problems, contributed to growing tensions between the Polish government and the Ukrainian population, eventually giving the rise to the militant underground Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

In the western part of Galicia, Rusyn Lemkos formed the Lemko-Rusyn Republic in 1918, initially attempting to unite with Russia, instead of Ukraine. As this was impossible, they later attempted to unite with Rusyns from the area south of the Carpathians, in an attempt to join Czechoslovakia as a third ethnic entity. This effort was suppressed by the Polish government in 1920, and the area was incorporated into Poland. The leaders of the republic were subsequently tried by the Polish government; they were later acquitted.

The emblem of 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galicia".

In 1939 the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht approved a plan (Fall Weiss) with details of future attack on Poland. In the plan, military brigades from Galicia played the role of a Fifth column, to attack and demoralize the Polish Army in the rear, if resistance from Polish troops were stronger than expected.[7] In early summer of 1939, Germans (Wilhelm Canaris, Erwin von Lahousen), with the support of activists from OUN (Richard Yary), created a Ukrainian Legion under command of Roman Sushko, that had training camps in Germany, Austria (St. Egyden am Steinfeld, Kirchhoff) and Slovakia. With the help of the Ukrainian Legion, German intelligence Abwehr planned, after the defeat of Poland, to create a pro-German Ukrainian state in Galicia and Volhynia. From intelligence reports, the USSR was aware of these plans and actively tried to counteract them in diplomatic negotiations. Finally, in the immediate diplomatic prelude to the Second World War, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed, which divided Poland roughly along the Curzon line. According to its terms, Germany had to scrap its original plan for the Ukrainian Legion. After September 17, 1939, all territory east of the San, Bug and Neman rivers, approximating the former territory of East Galicia, was occupied and annexed by the USSR. This territory was divided into four administrative districts (oblasts): Lviv, Stanislav, Drohobych and Ternopil (the latter including parts of Volhynia) of the Soviet Republic of Ukraine.

Jews who did not adopt Soviet citizenship were deported to Siberia and northeastern European Russia.[8]

In 1940–1941, the Soviet authorities conducted four mass deportations from the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic, inhabited by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, Lithuanians, Russians, Germans, Czechs, and Armenians, along with Poles. Approximately 335,000 Polish citizens were deported to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and the north-east of European Russia, by the NKVD. According to general Vasily Khristoforov, the director of the FSB archives in Moscow, exactly 297,280 Polish citizens were deported in 1940.[9]

The total number of deportees from Western Ukraine was 198,536 people – it should be treated as the minimum of documented casualties:

• February 1940 – 89,062 people (approximately 84.8% Poles, 13.8% Ukrainians, 1.4% Jews and others) deported to the north-east of European Russia, Siberia, and Kazakhstan;
• April 1940 – 31,332 people (approximately 70.6% Poles, 25.0% Ukrainians, 3.0% Jews, 1.4% Russians, Germans, others) deported to Kazakhstan;
• June–July 1940 – 67,049 people (approximately 84.6% Jews, 11.0% Poles, 3.3% Ukrainians, 0.4% Germans, 0.7% others) deported to Siberia and the north-east of European Russia;
• May/June 1941 – 11,093 people (mostly Ukrainians, also Poles and others) deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.[10][11]

After June 22, 1941, the period of Sovietisation came to an end when Germany took East Galicia during Operation Barbarossa. This was a period of massacres. Evacuating Soviets decided to summarily kill the mass of people waiting in the prisons for deportation to the Gulag even if their fault was petty crimes or no fault at all. When Wehrmacht forces arrived in the area, they discovered evidence of the mass murders committed by the NKVD and NKGB, including mass killing of Poles and Ukrainians.[12]

After the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, in June 1941, thousands of prisoners have been murdered in mass executions in prisons (among others in Lviv) and during the evacuation (so-called death marches).

On June 30, 1941, Yaroslav Stetsko declared the "Act of Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood" in Lviv, and became the Prime Minister in the Ukrainian government.[13] The act was accepted by Andrey Sheptytsky, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, on July 1, 1941.[14] This was done without approval of the Germans, so they arrested many OUN-B activists, between 6 and 11 July 1941. Finally, Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko, Roman Ilnytsky and Volodymyr Stakhiv were sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and Galicia was subsequently incorporated into the General Government as Distrikt Galizien.

As Germany viewed Galicia as already partially aryanized and civilized, more non-Jewish Galicians escaped the full extent of German intentions than many other Ukrainians who lived more eastward. Despite the more lenient extent of German control for some of the Galician population, many Galicians, especially Jewish Galicians, were deported to concentration camps, much like elsewhere in Ukraine.

Most of the 500 000 Jews (around 12% of the population) were shot on the edge of common graves or killed in Belzec.

Conflicts in Galicia and Volhynia between Poles and Ukrainians also intensified during this time, with skirmishes between the Polish Home Army (AK), Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), German Wehrmacht, and Soviet partisans. These conflicts included the massacres of Poles in Volhynia, and within Galicia, revenge attacks on Ukrainians and Operation Vistula. Despite these warring factions, and despite Ukrainian Galicians joining the UPA and supporting its anti-Soviet, anti-Polish, and anti-German policies, some also joined Germany in its fight against the USSR, forming the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien (1st Ukrainian). The Division SS "Galizien" was commanded by German and Austrian officers (Walter Schimana, Fritz Freitag) who were delegated to the division.