Galicia (Eastern Europe) - History - Red Ruthenia

Red Ruthenia

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, controlled 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 unable of competing with the rising powers of centralised Great Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. In the 1340s, the Rurikid dynasty died out, and the area passed to King Casimir III of Poland. The sister state of Volhynia, together with Kiev, fell under Lithuanian control.

Thereafter, 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, however they were driven out, devastated during the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–1654), the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667), and inconvenienced by Swedish invasions during The Deluge (1655–1660), and the Swedes returned during the Great Northern War of the early 18th century.