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Western Ukraine or West Ukraine (, ) refers to the western territories of Ukraine. There is no universally accepted definition of the territory's boundaries, but the contemporary Ukrainian administrative regions (oblasts) of Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv Oblast, Ternopil Oblast and Zakarpattia (which were part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) are typically included. In addition, Volyn Oblast and Rivne Oblast oblasts (parts of the territory annexed from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during its Third Partition) are also usually included. In modern sources, Khmelnytskyi Oblast is often included because of its geographical, linguistic and cultural association with Western Ukraine, although this cannot be confirmed from a historical and political point of view. It includes several historical regions such as Carpathian Ruthenia, Red Ruthenia including Pokuttia (the eastern portion of Eastern Galicia), most of Volhynia, northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region, and Podolia. Western Ukraine is sometimes considered to include areas of eastern Volhynia, Podolia, and the small northern portion of Bessarabia.
The area of Western Ukraine was ruled by various polities, including the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also the Moldavia; it would then variously come under rule of the Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Second Polish Republic, the Kingdom of Romania, and finally the Soviet Union (via the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) in 1939 and 1940 following the invasion of Poland and the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, with the borders finalized after the end of World War II. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it became part of the independent Ukrainian state.
Western Ukraine is known for its exceptional natural and cultural heritage, several sites of which are on the List of World Heritage. Architecturally, it includes the fortress of Kamianets, the Old Town of Lviv, the former Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans, the Tserkvas, the Khotyn Fortress and the Pochayiv Lavra. Its landscapes and natural sites also represent a major tourist asset for the region, combining the mountain landscapes of the Ukrainian Carpathians and those of the Podolian Upland. These include Mount Hoverla, the highest point in Ukraine, Optymistychna Cave, the largest in Europe, Bukovel Ski Resort, Synevyr National Park, Carpathian National Park or the Uzh National Nature Park protecting part of the primary forests included in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve.UNESCO: Carpathian, July 2011
The city of Lviv is the main cultural center of the region and was the historical capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. Other important cities are Chernivtsi, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Lutsk, Khmelnytskyi and Uzhhorod.
Following the 14th century Galicia–Volhynia Wars, most of the region was transferred to the Crown of Poland under Casimir the Great, who received the lands legally by a downward agreement in 1340 after his nephew's death, Bolesław-Jerzy II. The eastern Volhynia and most of Podolia was added to the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Lubart.
The territory of Bukovina was part of Moldavia since its formation by voivode Dragoș, who was departed by the Kingdom of Hungary, during the 14th century.
After the 18th century partitions of Poland (Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth), the territory was split between the Habsburg monarchy and the Russian Empire. The modern south-western part of Western Ukraine became the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, after 1804 crownland of the Austrian Empire. Its northern flank with the cities of Lutsk and Rivne was acquired in 1795 by Imperial Russia following the third and final partition of Poland. Throughout its existence Russian Poland was marred with violence and intimidation, beginning with the 1794 massacres, imperial land-theft and the deportations of the November and . By contrast, the Austrian Partition with its Sejm of the Land in the cities of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk (Ivano-Frankivsk) was freer politically perhaps because it had a lot less to offer economically. Imperial Austria did not persecute Ukrainian organizations. In 1846, the Austrian government used the peasant uprising to decimate Polish nobles, who were organising an uprising against Austria. rabacja galicyjska in Internetowa encyklopedia PWN In later years, Austria-Hungary de facto encouraged the existence of Ukrainian political organizations in order to counterbalance the influence of Polish culture in Galicia. The southern half of West Ukraine remained under Austrian administration until the collapse of the House of Habsburg at the end of World War One in 1918.
In 1775, following the Russo-Turkish Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, Moldavia lost to the Habsburg monarchy its northwestern part, which became known as Bukovina, and remained under Austrian administration until 1918.
At the onset of Operation Barbarossa by Nazi Germany, the region became occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941. The southern half of West Ukraine was incorporated into the Semi-colony Distrikt Galizien (District of Galicia) created on August 1, 1941 (Document No. 1997-PS of July 17, 1941 by Adolf Hitler) with headquarters in Chełm Lubelski, bordering district of General Government to the west. Its northern part (Volhynia) was assigned to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine formed in September 1941. Notably, the District of Galicia was a separate administrative unit from the actual Reichskommissariat Ukraine with capital in Rivne. They were not connected with each other politically for Nazi Germans. The division was administrative and conditional, in his book "From Putyvl to the Carpathian" Sydir Kovpak never mentioned about any border-like divisions. Bukovina was controlled by the Nazi-allied Kingdom of Romania.
The history of Western Ukraine is closely associated with the history of the following lands:
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| 1,380,128 |
| 1,320,171 |
| 2,540,938 |
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| 1,080,431 |
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| 1,250,759 |
| 9,765,281 |
In terms of religion, the majority of adherents share the Byzantine Rite of Christianity as in the rest of Ukraine, but due to the region escaping the 1920s and 1930s Soviet persecution, a notably greater church adherence and belief in religion's role in society is present. Due to the complex post-independence religious confrontation of several church groups and their adherents, the historical influence played a key role in shaping the present loyalty of Western Ukraine's faithful. In Galician provinces, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has the strongest following in the country, and the largest share of property and faithful. In the remaining regions: Volhynia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia the Orthodoxy is prevalent. Outside of Western Ukraine the greatest in terms of Church property, clergy, and according to some estimates, faithful, is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). In the listed regions (and in particular among the Orthodox faithful in Galicia), this position is notably weaker, as the main rivals, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, have a far greater influence. Within the lands of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the largest Eastern Catholic Church, priests' children often became priests and married within their social group, establishing a tightly-knit hereditary caste.
Noticeable cultural differences in the region (compared with the rest of Ukraine especially Southern Ukraine and Eastern Ukraine) are more "negative views" on the Russian language The language question, the results of recent research in 2012 , RATING (25 May 2012) and on Joseph Stalin Ставлення населення України до постаті Йосипа Сталіна Attitude population Ukraine to the figure of Joseph Stalin , Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (1 March 2013) and more "positive views" on Ukrainian nationalism." Who's Afraid of Ukrainian History?" by Timothy D. Snyder, The New York Review of Books (21 September 2010). . A higher percentage of voters in Western Ukraine supported Ukrainian independence in the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum than in the rest of the country. Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith by Andrew Wilson, Cambridge University Press, 1996, (page 128). .. (2009). Terrorists or National Heroes? Politics of the OUN and the UPA in Ukraine Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, Montreal, June 1–3, 2010
In a poll conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in the first half of February 2014 0.7% of polled in West Ukraine believed "Ukraine and Russia must unite into a single state", nationwide this percentage was 12.5. The Russian-occupied parts of the Luhansk Oblast and Donetsk Oblast regions of Ukraine were not polled." How relations between Ukraine and Russia should look like? Public opinion polls' results", Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (4 March 2014). .
During elections voters of Western oblasts (provinces) vote mostly for parties (Our Ukraine, Batkivshchyna) Центральна виборча комісія України - WWW відображення ІАС "Вибори народних депутатів України 2012"
CEC Tymoshenko, Lutsenko in voting papers and presidential candidates (Viktor Yushchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko) with a pro-Western and state reform Party platform. Communist and Post-Communist Parties in Europe by Uwe Backes and Patrick Moreau, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, (page 396) Ukraine right-wing politics: is the genie out of the bottle? , openDemocracy.net (3 January 2011)
Of the regions of Western Ukraine, Galicia tends to be the most pro-Western and pro-nationalist area. Volhynia's politics are similar, though not as nationalist or as pro-Western as Galicia's. Bukovina-Chernvisti's electoral politics are more mixed and tempered by the region's significant Romanian minority. Finally, Zakarpattia's electoral politics tend to be more competitive, similar to a Central Ukrainian oblast. This is due to the region's distinct historical and cultural identity as well as the significant Hungarian and Romanian minorities. The politics in the region was dominated by such Ukrainian parties as Andriy Baloha's Team, Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), Congress of Carpathian Ruthenians led by the Rusyns Orthodox Church bishop Dimitry Sydor and KMKSZ – Hungarian Party in Ukraine.
Of the total population, 97.7% declared to be Christians (57.0% Eastern Orthodox, 30.9% members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, 4.3% simply Christians, 3.9% members of various Protestantism churches, and 1.6% Latin Church Catholic Church), by far more than in all other regions of Ukraine, while 0.2% were Jews. Non-believers and other believers not identifying with any of the listed major religious institutions constituted about 2.1% of the population.
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Ethnicity
Prior to World War II the areas of current Lviv Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ternopil Oblast, Volyn Oblast and Rivne Oblast were parts of Polish voivodeships of Lwów, Stanisławów, Tarnopol and Wołyń (Volhynia). This area was ethnically very mixed. Table below shows the linguistic (First language) and religious structure of interwar South-East Poland (now part of Western Ukraine) by county, according to the 1931 census:
+Linguistic and religious structure of South-East Poland in 1931
!County
!Pop.
!Ukrainian & Ruthenian
!%
!Polish
!%
!Yiddish & Hebrew
!%
!Other language
Dubno 226709 158173 69.8% 33987 15.0% 17430 7.7% 17119 7.6% 173512 76.5% 27638 12.2% 18227 8.0% 7332 3.2% Horokhiv 122045 84224 69.0% 21100 17.3% 9993 8.2% 6728 5.5% 87333 71.6% 17675 14.5% 10112 8.3% 6925 5.7% Kostopil 159602 105346 66.0% 34951 21.9% 10481 6.6% 8824 5.5% 103912 65.1% 34450 21.6% 10786 6.8% 10454 6.6% Kovel 255095 185240 72.6% 36720 14.4% 26476 10.4% 6659 2.6% 187717 73.6% 35191 13.8% 26719 10.5% 5468 2.1% Kremenets 243032 196000 80.6% 25758 10.6% 18679 7.7% 2595 1.1% 195233 80.3% 25082 10.3% 18751 7.7% 3966 1.6% Liuboml 85507 65906 77.1% 12150 14.2% 6818 8.0% 633 0.7% 65685 76.8% 10998 12.9% 6861 8.0% 1963 2.3% Lutsk 290805 172038 59.2% 56446 19.4% 34142 11.7% 28179 9.7% 177377 61.0% 55802 19.2% 34354 11.8% 23272 8.0% Rivne 252787 160484 63.5% 36990 14.6% 37484 14.8% 17829 7.1% 166970 66.1% 36444 14.4% 37713 14.9% 11660 4.6% Sarny 181284 129637 71.5% 30426 16.8% 16019 8.8% 5202 2.9% 132691 73.2% 28192 15.6% 16088 8.9% 4313 2.4% Volodymyr 150374 88174 58.6% 40286 26.8% 17236 11.5% 4678 3.1% 89641 59.6% 38483 25.6% 17331 11.5% 4919 3.3% Zdolbuniv 118334 81650 69.0% 17826 15.1% 10787 9.1% 8071 6.8% 86948 73.5% 17901 15.1% 10850 9.2% 2635 2.2% Borshchiv 103277 52612 50.9% 46153 44.7% 4302 4.2% 210 0.2% 65344 63.3% 28432 27.5% 9353 9.1% 148 0.1% Brody 91248 50490 55.3% 32843 36.0% 7640 8.4% 275 0.3% 58009 63.6% 22521 24.7% 10360 11.4% 358 0.4% Berezhany 103824 51757 49.9% 48168 46.4% 3716 3.6% 183 0.2% 54611 52.6% 41962 40.4% 7151 6.9% 100 0.1% Buchach 139062 70336 50.6% 60523 43.5% 8059 5.8% 144 0.1% 77023 55.4% 51311 36.9% 10568 7.6% 160 0.1% Chortkiv 84008 40866 48.6% 36486 43.4% 6474 7.7% 182 0.2% 42828 51.0% 33080 39.4% 7845 9.3% 255 0.3% Kamianka-Buzka 82111 35178 42.8% 41693 50.8% 4737 5.8% 503 0.6% 45113 54.9% 29828 36.3% 6700 8.2% 470 0.6% Kopychyntsi 88614 45196 51.0% 38158 43.1% 5164 5.8% 96 0.1% 50007 56.4% 31202 35.2% 7291 8.2% 114 0.1% Pidhaitsi 95663 45031 47.1% 46710 48.8% 3464 3.6% 458 0.5% 52634 55.0% 38003 39.7% 4786 5.0% 240 0.3% Peremyshliany 89908 32777 36.5% 52269 58.1% 4445 4.9% 417 0.5% 44002 48.9% 38475 42.8% 6860 7.6% 571 0.6% Radekhiv 69313 39970 57.7% 25427 36.7% 3277 4.7% 639 0.9% 42928 61.9% 17945 25.9% 6934 10.0% 1506 2.2% Skalat 89215 25369 28.4% 60091 67.4% 3654 4.1% 101 0.1% 34798 39.0% 45631 51.1% 8486 9.5% 300 0.3% Ternopil 142220 42374 29.8% 93874 66.0% 5836 4.1% 136 0.1% 60979 42.9% 63286 44.5% 17684 12.4% 271 0.2% Terebovlia 84321 30868 36.6% 50178 59.5% 3173 3.8% 102 0.1% 40452 48.0% 38979 46.2% 4845 5.7% 45 0.1% Zalishchyky 72021 41147 57.1% 27549 38.3% 3261 4.5% 64 0.1% 48069 66.7% 17917 24.9% 5965 8.3% 70 0.1% Zbarazh 65579 29609 45.2% 32740 49.9% 3142 4.8% 88 0.1% 36468 55.6% 24855 37.9% 3997 6.1% 259 0.4% Zboriv 81413 39174 48.1% 39624 48.7% 2522 3.1% 93 0.1% 49925 61.3% 26239 32.2% 5056 6.2% 193 0.2% Zolochiv 118609 55381 46.7% 56628 47.7% 6066 5.1% 534 0.5% 70663 59.6% 36937 31.1% 10236 8.6% 773 0.7% Dolyna 118373 83880 70.9% 21158 17.9% 9031 7.6% 4304 3.6% 89811 75.9% 15630 13.2% 10471 8.8% 2461 2.1% Horodenka 92894 59957 64.5% 27751 29.9% 5031 5.4% 155 0.2% 69789 75.1% 15519 16.7% 7480 8.1% 106 0.1% Kalush 102252 77506 75.8% 18637 18.2% 5109 5.0% 1000 1.0% 80750 79.0% 14418 14.1% 6249 6.1% 835 0.8% Kolomyia 176000 110533 62.8% 52006 29.5% 11191 6.4% 2270 1.3% 121376 69.0% 31925 18.1% 20887 11.9% 1812 1.0% Kosiv 93952 79838 85.0% 6718 7.2% 6730 7.2% 666 0.7% 80903 86.1% 4976 5.3% 7826 8.3% 247 0.3% Nadvirna 140702 112128 79.7% 16907 12.0% 11020 7.8% 647 0.5% 113116 80.4% 15214 10.8% 11663 8.3% 709 0.5% Rohatyn 127252 84875 66.7% 36152 28.4% 6111 4.8% 114 0.1% 90456 71.1% 27108 21.3% 9466 7.4% 222 0.2% Ivano-Frankivsk 198359 120214 60.6% 49032 24.7% 26996 13.6% 2117 1.1% 123959 62.5% 42519 21.4% 29525 14.9% 2356 1.2% Stryi 152631 106183 69.6% 25186 16.5% 15413 10.1% 5849 3.8% 108159 70.9% 23404 15.3% 17115 11.2% 3953 2.6% Sniatyn 78025 56007 71.8% 17206 22.1% 4341 5.6% 471 0.6% 61797 79.2% 8659 11.1% 7073 9.1% 496 0.6% Tlumach 116028 66659 57.5% 44958 38.7% 3677 3.2% 734 0.6% 76650 66.1% 31478 27.1% 6702 5.8% 1198 1.0% Zhydachiv 83817 61098 72.9% 16464 19.6% 4728 5.6% 1527 1.8% 63144 75.3% 15094 18.0% 5289 6.3% 290 0.3% Bibrka 97124 60444 62.2% 30762 31.7% 5533 5.7% 385 0.4% 66113 68.1% 22820 23.5% 7972 8.2% 219 0.2% Dobromyl 93970 52463 55.8% 35945 38.3% 4997 5.3% 565 0.6% 59664 63.5% 25941 27.6% 7522 8.0% 843 0.9% Drohobych 194456 79214 40.7% 91935 47.3% 20484 10.5% 2823 1.5% 110850 57.0% 52172 26.8% 28888 14.9% 2546 1.3% Horodok 85007 47812 56.2% 33228 39.1% 2975 3.5% 992 1.2% 56713 66.7% 22408 26.4% 4982 5.9% 904 1.1% Yavoriv 86762 55868 64.4% 26938 31.0% 3044 3.5% 912 1.1% 62828 72.4% 18394 21.2% 5161 5.9% 379 0.4% Lviv 312231 35137 11.3% 198212 63.5% 75316 24.1% 3566 1.1% 50824 16.3% 157490 50.4% 99595 31.9% 4322 1.4% Lviv Raion 142800 58395 40.9% 80712 56.5% 1569 1.1% 2124 1.5% 67592 47.3% 67430 47.2% 5087 3.6% 2691 1.9% Mostyska 89460 37196 41.6% 49989 55.9% 2164 2.4% 111 0.1% 49230 55.0% 34619 38.7% 5428 6.1% 183 0.2% Rava-Ruska 122072 82133 67.3% 27376 22.4% 10991 9.0% 1572 1.3% 84808 69.5% 22489 18.4% 13381 11.0% 1394 1.1% Rudky 79170 36254 45.8% 38417 48.5% 4247 5.4% 252 0.3% 45756 57.8% 27674 35.0% 5396 6.8% 344 0.4% Sambir 133814 68222 51.0% 56818 42.5% 7794 5.8% 980 0.7% 78527 58.7% 43583 32.6% 11258 8.4% 446 0.3% Sokal 109111 59984 55.0% 42851 39.3% 5917 5.4% 359 0.3% 69963 64.1% 25425 23.3% 13372 12.3% 351 0.3% Turka 114457 80483 70.3% 26083 22.8% 7552 6.6% 339 0.3% 97339 85.0% 6301 5.5% 10627 9.3% 190 0.2% Zhovkva 95507 56060 58.7% 35816 37.5% 3344 3.5% 287 0.3% 66823 70.0% 20279 21.2% 7848 8.2% 557 0.6%
See also
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