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The Kromer House (Polish: "Dom Kromera") is a 16th-century building that never actually belonged to Marcin Kromer. Built in 1519, only seven years after Kromer's birth, the building belonged to the wealthy Chodorów family.
Today the building houses a cultural museum that includes a number of important folk artifacts, art, and coins. The oldest exhibits include axeheads and related neolithic artefacts, as well as Roman and Byzantine coins, and medieval ceramics and weaponry. Other exhibits showcase historical weaponry and the day-to-day life of townspeople throughout history.
The city walls date back to the beginnings of the 14th century, when approximately 1,200 meters of walls protected the city. During the course of history, the city's defense systems altered to reflect the changing technologies of war, and today there remain only fragments of the original defenses. These fragments can be seen near Corpus Christi Church and the hospital of the Holy Ghost.
Of the seventeen original towers, only three remain standing:
In 1964, the foundations of one of Poland's best-known barbicans was discovered near Corpus Christi Church.
During the course of history, there existed three separate castles in Biecz. Currently, only the ruins of one of these remain. Of the other two castles, one was built in the current location of the Franciscan church, while the other was located on land owned by the hospital.
Only the foundations remain of the Gothic royal castle on nearby Górze Zamkowej (literally "Castle Mountain"). The castle was built on the foundations of an early medieval gord. Built in the 13th century, the castle was made of fortified stone, and served as field headquarters for Polish kings and princes.
The entire hill was surrounded by a rectangular defensive wall. The northern gate was guarded by a tower, bridge, and gates. The southern wall was protected by the Ropa River.
The castle ceased to be considered an important line of defense during the second half of the 15th century. In 1475, King Casimir IV Jagiellon ordered the castle's demolition. Large pieces of stonework and related ruins were scattered across the nearby countryside as late as the 19th century. Today, all that is visible is the foundation of the castle, which has been preserved for posterity.
There are 3 bus stops and one railway station. There are 4 schools. The main industries are trade, services and tourism. There is one cinema.
Bobowa (, "Bobov") is a small town in Gorlice County, southern Poland. Administratively part of the Lesser Polish Voivodeship, it is situated west of Gorlice and south-east of the regional capital Kraków. It was formerly a village, but was granted town status on 1 January 2009. Bobowa is also located on a railway line running from Tarnów to the border with Slovakia at Leluchów.
It is not known when the village of Bobowa appeared on the map of Poland. It probably was a Slavic gord, destroyed in 1240 (see Mongol invasion of Poland). Bobowa received Magdeburg rights town charter in 1339. By 1346, the town already had a parish church, and Bobowa at that time belonged to the Gryfita family (Gryf coat of arms). In the 1460 register Liber beneficiorum by Jan Długosz, one can find the information of Bobowa’s stone parish church, as well as two smaller, wooden churches. The town still belonged to the Gryfita family, and according to Długosz, it had three owners - Mikołaj, Jan and Gietko Gryfita. Furthermore, Bobowa had a court and wójt, who in 1467 was a man named Jan Lempart.
In the mid-16th-century Bobowa emerged as a local center of the Protestant Reformation, and some time in the early 17th century, the town was purchased by the Jordan family. In 1740 its owner was Stanisław Łętowski. Following the Partitions of Poland, Bobowa in 1772 became part of Austrian province of Galicia, where it remained until late 1918. In 1934, the government of the Second Polish Republic stripped Bobowa of its town charter due to its depopulation. Bobowa regained its town status on January 1, 2009.
The Jews were brought to Bobowa by Michał Jaworski in 1732 in order to improve the town's collapsing economy. A synagogue was erected in 1756 serving the needs of 44 families. In 1900 the Jewish population of Bobowa numbered 749. Before the Holocaust in Poland, the town was home to a "yeshiva", notable as a historic centre of Hasidism, created and led by the tsadik of the Bobov dynasty.
It was also the home of Gen. Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski who became "President of Poland for a day" in 1939. During the Second World War Bobowa became a "concentration village" where the Jews from the surrounding area were imprisoned. The General's brother Kazimierz was the mayor and was able to save at least one Jew. Almost all were finally killed. One of the few survivors, Professor Samuel P. Oliner of Humboldt State University, California, describes these events in his autobiography "Restless Memories". He devoted his academic career to the study of altruism, having himself been rescued by a Polish peasant woman called Balwina.
After the war Grand Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam (1907 – August 2, 2000) re-established the Bobov Hasidic dynasty in America. He was the son of Rabbi Ben Zion Halberstam (1874–1941) of Bobowa, who died in the Holocaust. Initially based in the neighbourhood of Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, it now has branches in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn; Monsey, New York; Montreal; Toronto; Antwerp; London and Israel and is under the leadership of Rabbi Shlomo's son Rabbi Ben-Zion Aryeh Leibish Halberstam.
Kozy (German: "Seiffersdorf, Seibersdorf, Kosy (1941–45)"; Wymysorys: "Zajwyśdiüf") is a large village with a population of 12,457 (2013) within Bielsko County, located in the historical and geographical south-west region of Lesser Poland, between Kęty and Bielsko-Biała, and about 65 kilometres south-west of Kraków and south of Katowice. It is the largest village in Poland (by comparison - the population of Opatowiec, the smallest town in Poland, is only 338). The village name translates to 'Goats' in English, and has an area of 26,9 km2.
Since 1 January 1999, following Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998, Kozy has been part of the newly established Silesian Voivodeship (province); between 1975-1998 it was formerly part of the Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship. The village is well connected with the nearby city of Bielsko-Biała. It has a railway transport station, and lies on National Road No. 52. Kozy is the centre of the administrative district of Gmina Kozy.
The village settlement was first mentioned in 1326 under two names "Duabuscapris seu Siffridivilla" in Latin, translated as "two goats or goats village", recorded in the parish Peter's Pence list, deanery of Oświęcim, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kraków.
In old Polish the village was known as "Dwyekozy" ("Dwiekozie"); "two goats", and consisted of two settlements - "Upper Kozy" ("Kozy Górne"), and "Lower Kozy" ("Kozy Dolne").
Kozy was historically located on lands held by the Silesian Piast branch of the Polish royal Piast dynasty. The village was in the Duchy of Oświęcim, located in the historic region of Upper Silesia. From 1327 the duchy was part of the Bohemian Crown lands (Kingdom of Bohemia). In 1457 the duchy was sold to the Polish king Casimir IV Jagiellon and returned to the Kingdom of Poland. In the accompanying document issued on 21 February the village was mentioned as "Dwe Kozy". Kozy was a privately owned village, owned by such wealthy noble families as Mikołaj Szłop of Dębowiec during the 15th century and from the early 16th century became part of the House of Saszowski estates.
A few years later, in the First Partitions of Poland (1772), the Duchy of Oświęcim and thus the almost deserted village of Kozy, was annexed by the Habsburg Austrian Empire, as part of the Austrian Partition. Until November 1918, the Duchy of Oświęcim remained part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria crown-lands of Austria. During the 19th-century, Kozy revived once again as one of the most affluent villages of "Oświęcim Land", famous for its skilled stonemasons, carpenters and loom weaving cloth makers. The 16th-century parish wooden church, was demolished in 1899, paving way for the new neo-Gothic style church. The 16th-century church ceiling murals, however, were preserved and transferred into the collections of the National Museum in Kraków.
According to an Austrian census in 1900, the population of Kozy was 3,693, 403 buildings, and an area of 1,358 hectare (13.58 km2); 3,646 residents were Roman Catholic, 1 Greek-Catholic, 40 Israelite, and 12 residents of other religion. 3,688 declared Polish- and 8 German-speaking, and 6 declared other language. In the Second Polish Republic (1918), the lands of Oświęcim and thus Kozy, were reincorporated into Poland's Kraków Voivodeship at the end of World War I. During World War II, it was a local centre for the Polish resistance Armia Krajowa (Home Army). After the war, Kozy belonged to the administrative district (gmina) of Biała Wieś, and in 1954, it emerged as a separate administrative district Gmina Kozy.
In June 1979, Pope John Paul II's papal visit to Poland encompassed various papal motorcade trails. One such trail planned with the Vatican, was from Kozy to , where Pope John Paul II began his journey from the Church of St. Simon and Jude Tadeusza in Kozy.
Kozy currently has three twin towns and sister cities
Brzyska is a village in Jasło County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Brzyska. It lies approximately north-west of Jasło and south-west of the regional capital Rzeszów.
The village has a population of 1,900.
The Battle of the Vistula River, also known as the Battle of Warsaw, was a Russian victory against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary on the Eastern Front during the First World War.
To face the threat from Silesia, the Russians withdrew men from East Prussia and from the front facing the Austro-Hungarians The geographical barrier that separated the bulk of the opposing armies was the Vistula River. The Russian corps marching north to fill the gap moved along the east bank of the Vistula, which protected their left flanks. The troop movements involved both the Southwest Front commanded by Nikolay Iudovich Ivanov and the Northwest Front under Nikolai Ruzsky. Their movements were poorly coordinated.
To guard the crossings for their Fourth and Ninth Armies, on the west bank of the Vistula the Russians deployed the 75th Reserve Division (Fourth Army) at Radom, as well as the group of General Delsalle, consisting of the Guard Rifle Brigade, 2nd Rifle Brigade and 80th Reserve Division, at Opatów-Klimontów. Both groups were screened by the Cavalry divisions of the Corps Nowikow.
On 28 September German Ninth Army began a meticulously planned advance toward the Vistula River. German XI, Guard and Austro-Hungarian I Corps marched in heavy rain toward Delsalle's group. Because German Army wagons were too heavy for the woeful Polish roads, submerged in several feet of mud, they used light Polish carts hired along with their peasant drivers. As they advanced they improved the roads and bridges so they could support heavy artillery and adjusted the rails to the narrower European gauge. (The Vienna-Warsaw line was already European gauge.) Explosives were cached at road and railway bridges so they could be destroyed if necessary.
On 6 October, Dankl's First Army cavalry had reached Sandomierz, and though the Russians lost 7000 of General Delsalle's infantry killed or taken prisoner near Opatów, the remaining forces had withdrawn across the Vistula. On 7 October, Archduke Joseph Ferdinand's Fourth Army captured Rzeszów, while Svetozar Boroević's Third Army advanced towards Przemyśl. On 11 October, Austro-Hungarian troops captured Jarosław, and 5000 prisoners, but once, again, the Russians were able to withdraw across the San River.
The Austro-Hungarian First Army, which was taking over the German right flank, was unable to defend the crossings over the Vistula. The Germans claimed that they deliberately allowed the Russians to cross, then intending to engulf them. According to the Austro-Hungarians they arrived too late to prevent the crossings. In any event, the Russians were able to bring enough men quickly over the river to force the Austro-Hungarians to retreat to a line ,to the west. According to Max Hoffmann, the third ranking member of Ninth Army Staff, they pulled back without alerting the nearby German units—they escaped only because they were warned by a German telephone operator. In fact the Austro-Hungarians did properly inform their allies
According to Buttar, "Both the German and the Austro-Hungarian commanders attempted to emphasise that they had been forced to retreat because their allies had not delivered what was required. Despite taking an estimated 12,000 Russian prisoners, First Army had lost over 40,000 men, and had failed to eliminate any of the Russian bridgeheads across the Vistula." On 30 October, the Russians reached Łódź.
The Germans calculated that until extensive repairs were finished the furthest the Russians could advance over the devastated countryside was , so they would have some weeks respite before the Russians could invade Silesia, but they had been forced back. They portrayed the withdrawal as a strategic maneuver, and had succeeded in blocking an enemy advance into Germany for weeks, while their army was trying to win on the Western Front. The retreat "… filled the Russian army with confidence in its strength to deal with Germany". Now Russian troops had beaten both Germans and the Austro-Hungarians. But they dissipated their advantage by indecision about their next move and confusion in their administrative arrangements
On 1 November, Hindenburg was given command of all of the German forces on the Eastern Front. Mackensen was promoted as commander of the Ninth Army, the majority of which was deployed by rail to Thorn, so as to threaten the Russian northern flank. Yet, for the Austro-Hungarian forces, in the words of Buttar, "All the gains of the October campaign were to be abandoned, and a new line would be held through the winter, running along the Carpathians and then to Krakow."
Order of battle on 1 October 1914.
Russian North-Western Front. Commander-in-chief – Nikolai Ruzsky
The Cherven Cities or Cherven Grods (, ), often literally translated as Red Cities, Red Forts or Red Boroughs, was a point of dispute between the Kingdom of Poland and Kievan Rus' at the turn of 10th and 11th centuries, with both sides claiming their rights to the land.
Originally, the name "Cherven Cities" probably identified a territory between the Bug and Wieprz rivers. Its name is derived from Czerwień (cf. Proto-Slavic "*čьrvenъ" "red"), a "gord" that existed there, possibly on the site of the present village of Czermno. The first mention of the "Cherven cities" is given by the "Primary Chronicle" (12th century), when Volodymyr the Great captured them from the "Lyakhs" (Poles) in 981.
In early medieval times, whether the Cherven Cities were inhabited by the Early Slavic tribes of Lendians ("Lyakhs") or White Croats, and a territory independent from both Poland and Kievan Rus', is part of a wider ethnographic dispute between Polish and Ukrainian-Russian historians.
Cosmas of Prague (c. 1045 – 1125) relates that the Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia controlled the land of Kraków until 999. In support of Cosmas, the foundation charter of the Archdiocese of Prague (1086) traces the Eastern border of the archdiocese, as established in 973, along the Bug and Styr (or Stryi) rivers. Abraham ben Jacob, who travelled in Eastern Europe in 965, remarks that Boleslaus II of Bohemia ruled the country "stretching from the city of Prague to the city of Kraków".
In the 970s, Mieszko I of Poland took over the region: the "Primary Chronicle" infers this when reporting that Vladimir the Great conquered the Red Cities from the Lyakhs in 981. He took over the Red Ruthenian strongholds in his military campaign on the border with the land of Lendians. Nestor reports in his chronicle that: "Volodymyr marched upon the Lyakhs ("Poles") and took their cities: Peremyshl (Przemyśl), Cherven (Czermno), and other towns".
Lemkivshchyna or Lemkovyna (; /"Lemkovyna"; , "Lemkivshchyna") is a region in Europe that is traditionally inhabited by the Lemko people. While the Lemko are a distinct ethnic group, they consider themselves to be part of the broader Rusyn and/or Ukrainian communities. Lemkovyna mostly stretches along the border between Poland and Slovakia covering some western territories of Ukraine.
The region forms an ethnographic peninsula long and wide from the Ukrainian border within Polish and Slovak territory. The Lemko region occupies the lowest part of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains—most of the Low Beskids, the western part of the Middle Beskyd, and the eastern fringe of the Western Beskyd. It includes the higher elevations of the Carpathians of modern-day Poland, extending to around the Poprad River to the west (see: Ruś Szlachtowska), and extending to the east as far as the region around Sanok, where it meets the Boyko region. The corresponding latitudes of the adjacent highlands of present-day Slovakia are also included by some in the description of Lemko-land.
Previously a frontier area under the nominal control of Great Moravia, Lemkivshchyna became part of Poland in medieval Piast times. It was made part of the Austrian province of Galicia due to the First Partition of Poland in 1772. Parts were briefly independent under the Lemko-Rusyn Republic and Komancza Republic, and later annexed to Poland.
After the deportation of Lemkos from the northern part of this area in 1946, only the southern section, southwest of the Carpathian Mountains, known as the Prešov region in Slovakia, has remained inhabited by Lemkos.
The landscape is typical of medium-height-mountain terrain, with ridges reaching and sometimes . Only small parts of southern Low Beskids and the northern San river region have a low-mountain landscape. A series of mountain passes along the Torysa River and Poprad River—Tylych Pass (), Dukla Pass (), and Łupków Pass ()—facilitate communications between Galician and Transcarpathian Lemkos.
The vernacular architecture of the Carpathians draws on environmental and cultural sources to create unique designs.
Vernacular architecture refers to non-professional, folk architecture, including that of the peasants. In the Carpathian Mountains and the surrounding foothills, wood and clay are the primary traditional building materials.
Because most Ukrainian, Rusyn, and Romanian people are Eastern Christians, their building techniques have traditionally incorporated religious considerations into their buildings that are distinct from their Western Christian and Jewish neighbours.
Firstly, all churches are divided into three parts (the narthex, the nave, and the sanctuary) and include an iconostasis (a wall of icons). The outer shape is often cruciform (cross shaped), but will always include a central dome and often several other domes. Parishioners face east during worship and there are no pews.
The main door and windows of the home face south (as in passive solar design), and icons and other religious paraphernalia are displayed in a special icon corner, usually on the east wall.
East-Central European synagogues are noted for their unique all-wooden design.
Details vary from locale to locale but the majority of homes in this area have traditionally been a single-storey rectangular plan; one or two rooms; a central chimney; a gable, hipped-gable or hipped roof; and plastered and limewashed exteriors.
Materials used were those that could be procured locally, including wood (usually oak), mud, straw, fieldstone, lime, and animal dung. Roofs in densely wooded and hilly areas are typically clad in wooden shakes or shingles, while flatter and more open areas have traditionally used rye straw.
In the late 19th century two types of construction predominated, horizontal log construction, and frame and fill construction. Log walls were common in areas where wood was available. In places with very poor timber or with an extreme timber shortage post and sill or wattle and daub techniques could also be used.
For horizontal log construction, logs needed to be notched in order to hold together. The simple saddle notch is the easiest and therefore common. Dovetailing is used by people with more experience in woodworking.
Many peoples in this area plaster their log homes inside and out to keep out moisture, improve insulation, to hide imperfections in construction, and for general aesthetic value. Traditional plaster is made of clay, water, dung, and straw or chaff. Several coats may be applied to create a smooth finish, and then coated with lime and water to produce a pleasing white colour and protect the clay from the rain.
Thatched roofs are traditional, but have been declining in popularity for over a century because they may pose a fire hazard. Dirt floors are common, and are made hard by washing with a dung mixture, although wooden floors are preferred.
Typically the long wall of a house is between and and the side wall between and . The centre of the home is dominated by a traditional clay oven (Ukrainian: "pich" or "pietz")
Walddeutsche (lit. "Forest Germans" or "Taubdeutsche" - "Deaf Germans"; - "deaf-mutes") is the name for a group of people of mostly German origin, who settled between the 14th and 17th century on the territory of present-day Sanockie Pits, in southeastern Poland. The Walddeutsche peopled migrated to the Pit region which was previously only sparsely inhabited because the land was difficult to farm.
The term "Walddeutsche" – coined by the Polish historians Marcin Bielski, 1531, Szymon Starowolski 1632, Bishop Ignacy Krasicki and Wincenty Pol – also sometimes refers to Germans living between Wisłoka and the San River part of the West Carpathian Plateau and the Central Beskidian Piedmont in Poland.
The Polish term "Głuchoniemcy" is a sort of pun; it means "deaf-mutes", but sounds like "forest Germans": "Niemcy", Polish for "Germans", is derived from "niemy" ("mute", unable to talk comprehensibly, i.e. in the Polish language), and "głuchy" ("deaf", i.e. "unable to communicate") sounds similar to "głusz" meaning "wood".
In the 14th century a German settlement called Hanshof existed in the area. The Church of the Assumption of Holy Mary and St. Michael's Archangel in Haczów (Poland), the oldest wooden Gothic temple in Europe, was erected in the 14th century and was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 2003.
Germans settled in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland (territory of present-day Subcarpathian Voivodeship and eastern part of Lesser Poland) from the 14th to 16th centuries ("see Ostsiedlung"), mostly after the region returned to Polish sphere of influence in 1340, when Casimir III of Poland took the Czerwień towns.
Marcin Bielski states that Bolesław I Chrobry settled some Germans in the region to defend the borders against Hungary and Kievan Rus' but the arrivals were ill-suited to their task and turned to farming. Maciej Stryjkowski mentions German peasants near Przeworsk, Przemyśl, Sanok, and Jarosław, describing them as good farmers.
Some Germans were attracted by kings seeking specialists in various trades, such as craftsmen and miners. They usually settled in newer market and mining settlements. The main settlement areas were in the vicinity of Krosno and some language islands in the Pits and the Rzeszów regions. The settlers in the Pits region were known as "Uplander Sachsen". Until approximately the 15th century, the ruling classes of most cities in present-day Beskidian Piedmont consisted almost exclusively of Germans.
The Beskidian Germans underwent Polonization in the latter half of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century.
Important cities of this region include Pilzno, Brzostek, Biecz, Gorlice, Ropczyce, Wielopole Skrzyńskie, Frysztak, Jasło, Krosno, Czudec, Rzeszów, Łańcut, Tyczyn, Brzozów, Jaćmierz, Rymanów, Przeworsk, Jarosław, Kańczuga, Przemyśl, Dynów, Brzozów, and Sanok.
The name "Galicia" is the Latinized form of Halych, a principality of the medieval Ruthenia. "Lodomeria" is also a Latinized form of Volodymyr-Volynskyi, that was founded in the 10th century by Vladimir the Great and until the partitions of Poland was known simply as Volodymyr (). King of Galicia and Lodomeria was a medieval title which King Andrew II of Hungary adopted during his conquest of the region in the 12th century.
This historical region in Eastern Europe is divided today between Poland and Ukraine. The nucleus of historic Galicia consists of the modern Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions of western Ukraine.
The name of the Kingdom in its ceremonial form, in , existed in all languages spoken there including ; ; , transliterated: "Korolivstvo Halychyny ta Volodymyrii z velykym kniazivstvom Krakivskym i kniazivstvamy Osventsyma i Zatoru", and .
In 1815, as a result of decisions of the Congress of Vienna, the Lublin area and surrounding regions (most of the New or West Galicia) were ceded by the Austrian Empire to Congress Poland (Kingdom of Poland), which was ruled by the Tsar, and the Ternopil Region, including the historical region of Southern Podolia, was returned to the Austrian Empire by Russia, which had held it since 1809. The large city of Kraków and surrounding territory, formerly also part of New or West Galicia, became the semi-autonomous Free City of Kraków under supervision of the three powers sharing rule over Poland (i. e., Austria, Russia, and Prussia).
In the same period, a sense of national awakening began to develop among the Ruthenians in the eastern part of Galicia. A circle of activists, primarily Greek Catholic seminarians, affected by the romantic movement in Europe and the example of fellow Slavs elsewhere, especially in eastern Ukraine under the Russians, began to turn their attention to the common folk and their language. In 1837, the so-called Ruthenian Triad led by Markiian Shashkevych, published "Rusalka Dnistrovaia" (The Nymph of the Dniester")", a collection of folksongs and other materials in vernacular Ukrainian (then called "rusynska", Ruthenian). Alarmed by such democratism, the Austrian authorities and the Greek Catholic Metropolitan banned the book.
In 1848, revolutionary actions broke out in Vienna and other parts of the Austrian Empire. In Lviv, a Polish National Council, and then later, a Ukrainian, or Ruthenian Supreme Council were formed. Even before Vienna had acted, the remnants of serfdom were abolished by the Governor, Franz Stadion, in an attempt to thwart the revolutionaries. Moreover, Polish demands for Galician autonomy were countered by Ruthenian demands for national equality and for a partition of the province into an Eastern, Ruthenian part, and a Western, Polish part. Eventually, Lviv was bombarded by imperial troops and the revolution put down completely.
A decade of renewed absolutism followed, but to placate the Poles, Count Agenor Goluchowski, a conservative representative of the eastern Galician aristocracy, the so-called Podolians, was appointed Viceroy. He began to Polonize the local administration and managed to have Ruthenian ideas of partitioning the province shelved. He was unsuccessful, however, in forcing the Greek Catholic Church to shift to the use of the western or Gregorian calendar, or among Ruthenians generally, to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet.
By 1863, open revolt broke out in Russian Poland and from 1864 to 1865 the Austro-Hungarian government declared a state of siege in Galicia, temporarily suspending civil liberties.
The year 1865 brought a return to federal ideas along the lines suggested by 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 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.
In 1866, following the Battle of Sadova and the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, the Austro-Hungarian 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 Magyar nobility to ensure their support. Some members of the government, such as the Austro-Hungarian 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 Magyar interests would alienate the other nationalities. However, Franz Joseph was unable to ignore the power of the Magyar 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.
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 Galician Sejm and provincial administration had extensive privileges and prerogatives, especially in education, culture, and local affairs.
Beginning in the 1880s, a mass emigration of the Galician peasantry occurred. The emigration started as a seasonal one to Germany (newly unified and economically dynamic) and then later became a Trans-Atlantic one with large-scale emigration to the United States, Brazil, and Canada.
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. Some states in south of Brazil have a large percentage of their population formed by direct descendants of these Ruthenian/Ukrainian immigrants.
At the time these emigrations in the 1890s many Polish and Ukrainian liberals saw Galicia as a Galician Piedmont as a Polish Piedmont and a Ukrainian Piedmont. Because Italians had started their liberation from Austrian rule in the Italian Piedmont these Ukrainian and Polish nationalists felt that the liberation of their two countries would begin in Galicia.
In spite of almost 750,000 persons emigrating across the Atlantic from 1880 to 1914 Galicia's population increased by 45% between 1869 and 1910.
During the First World War Galicia saw heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and the Central Powers. The Russian forces overran most of the region in 1914 after defeating the Austro-Hungarian army in a chaotic frontier battle in the opening months of the war. They were in turn pushed out in the spring and summer of 1915 by a combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive.
In late 1918 Eastern Galicia became a part of the restored Republic of Poland, which absorbed the Lemko-Rusyn Republic. The local Ukrainian population briefly declared the independence of Eastern Galicia as the West Ukrainian People's Republic. During the Polish-Soviet War the Soviets tried to establish the puppet-state of the Galician SSR in East Galicia, the government of which after couple of months was liquidated.
The fate of Galicia was settled by the Peace of Riga on March 18, 1921, giving all of Galicia to the Second Polish Republic. Although never accepted as legitimate by some Ukrainians, it was internationally recognized with significant French support on May 15, 1923. The French support for Polish rule of ethnically Ukrainian eastern Galicia and its oil resources in the Borysław-Drohobycz basin were rewarded by Warsaw allowing significant French investment to pour into the Polish oil industry. The Poles had convinced the French that since less than 25% of the ethnic Ukrainians were literate before the Great War and Ukrainians were novices in governing themselves, only the Poles, not the Ukrainians, would be able to administer eastern Galicia and its precious oil assets.
The Ukrainians of the former eastern Galicia and the neighbouring province of Volhynia made up about 12% of the population of the Second Polish Republic, and were its largest minority. As Polish government policies were unfriendly towards minorities, tensions between the Polish government and the Ukrainian population grew, eventually giving the rise to the militant underground Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.
Soon the newly acquired Polish territories (see First Partition of Poland) which were known as Kreise (Voivodeship in Poland) were restructured in November 1773 into 59 Kreisdistriktes (Land districts), while kreises were abolished. Some former voivodeships were incorporated completely, while most of them only partially. Among them were the former voivodeships of Belz, Red Ruthenia, Cracow, Lublin, Sandomierz, and Podolie. Also during the Russo-Turkish War in 1769, the northwestern territory of Moldavia (renamed Bukovina) was occupied by the Russian Empire which ceded it in 1774 to the Austrian Empire as a "token of appreciation".
The Kingdom was split into numerous counties (powiats) which in 1914 were about 75. Besides Lviv (Lwów in Polish) being the capital of the Kingdom, Kraków was considered as the unofficial capital of the western part of Galicia and the second most important city in the region.
West Galicia was part of the Kingdom from 1795 to 1809, until 1803 as a separate administrative unit.
Bukovina was part of the Kingdom from 1775 to 1849 (after 1849: Duchy of Bukovina).
Kraków was a condominium with Prussia and Russia from 1815 to 1846, part of the Kingdom from 1846.
After the partition of Poland the region was government by an appointed governor, later a vice-regent. During the war time the office of vice-regent was supplemented by a military-governor. In 1861 a regional assembly was established, the Sejm of the Land, which initially due to lack of adequate administrative building was located in the building of the Skarbek Theatre until 1890.
In 1773, Galicia had about 2.6 million inhabitants in 280 cities and markets and approx. 5,500 villages. There were nearly 19,000 noble families with 95,000 members (about 3% of the population). The "non-free" accounted for 1.86 million, more than 70% of the population. A small number were full farmers, but by far the overwhelming number (84%) had only smallholdings or no possessions.
No country of the Austrian monarchy had such a varied ethnic mix as Galicia: Poles, Ruthenians, Germans (Galician Germans), Armenians, Jews, Hungarians, Romani people, Lipowaner, etc. The Poles were mainly in the west, with the Ruthenians (Ukrainians) predominant in the eastern region (Ruthenia).
The Jews of Galicia had immigrated in the Middle Ages from Germany and mostly spoke Yiddish as their first language. German-speaking people were more commonly referred to as "Saxons" or "Swabians", even though most of them did not come from Saxony or Swabia (cf. Transylvanian Saxons and Danube Swabians). There were also some Mennonites who mostly came originally from Switzerland, but spoke a dialect of Palatine German which is close to Pennsylvania German. With inhabitants who had a clear difference in language such as with the Saxons or the Roma identification was less problematic, but widespread multilingualness blurred the borders again.

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