Questions about Polish borders, Galicia and Cossacks.

Can anyone tell me of the history of Poland when our land contained Ukraine/Belarus etc and further east/south. Why is it that Poland is much smaller than it once was.

2. Why is Galicia now in Ukraine?

3. I've ready many places that where Polish Cossacks who are obviously lesser known that Ukranian/russian cossacks. Can any one tell me of them because there doesn't seem to be much info about them.

Thanks

Because it was an Empire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth


Perhaps you will find this youtube video interesting:
Polska 990 - 2009



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Cossack%E2%80%93Tatar_War_%281666%E2%80%931671%29
Polish-Cossack-Tatar War (1666-1671)

Galicia was always predominantly Ukrainian-a people who until very recently did not identify themselves with a nation state, the word Ukraina is a Polish word meaning borderland, or on the edge. The Poles in the Ukraine mainly consisted of the landed gentry and town folk. The Ukrainians predominately consisted of serfs and peasants.

Poland is a smaller country now because of internal politics, ravenous upstart countries like Prussia and Russia, all the different wars, and a recent urge for independence by countries like the Ukraine and Belarus. And a general combination of these things over a long period of time.

Polish Cossacks are essentially Ukrainian cossacks who fought for Poland, they were very fickle, they essentially sold their services to the highest bidder regardless of nationality.

That is (I think) because Stalin wanted Galicia to go to the Ukrainians (The Socialistic republic) he had "promised" them it. I am not sure if it was eally like that or if it was because of his imperial ambitions, it may have happened he wanted to use divide and conquest type of strategy since the area had the second largest Polish city in entire pre war Poland. If that was the plan he failed, although Galicia was originally made (the name) by the Austrian Empire. Before that it was named Podolie I think.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_%28Eastern_Europe

There you should find something about Galicia :)

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 cities in his military campaign on the border with Poland.

In the following century, the area shifted briefly to Poland (A.D. 1018 to 1031) and then back to Kievan Rus'. As one of many successors to Kievan Rus', the Principality of Halych existed from 1087 to 1200, when Roman the Great finally managed to unite it with Volhynia in the state of Halych-Volhynia.

Despite 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. But 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 German eastward expansion and 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 XVI and XVII 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."

One more thing I recently discovered is that Galicia is a Celtic name.
From when the Celts occupied that territory thousands of years ago.

any links?

The Celts in Poland.

The one in Spain is better known for it's Celtic roots.

thanks Sean:)

Dude please stop, lesson in Polish History for you.

Cossacks were not an ethnic term, ever.

Eastern Ukraine, Crimea and adjoining lands that are now Belarussia and Western Russia were a Polish frontier exactly the same as american Wild West.

Cities were few and far between, there were vast forests and steppes, whenever a peasant tried to escape servitude or criminal avoided justice he went there to live "po kozacku" Cossacks were a social class in Poland, mercenary soldiers who normally lived in fortified camps or communes hunted, farmed and fished and in times of war were employed by Poland as light infantry/light cavalry.

As such Cossacks were Ruthenian (no such things as Ukraine or Ukrainian in that period) Polish, Russian, Tartar even.

Polish Cossacks were native Poles who joined the Cossack community and there was a LOT of them (at least as many as Ruthenian Cossacks).


No it was not, please refrain from posting bullsh*t about our history that you obviously dont know.


Thats because of a certain phenomenon that took part in Ukraine, social elites adopted Polish culture (nobles, princes, merchants, soldiers etc) while peasants typically entered the ruthenian culture circle, it is estimated that at least 20% of all Cossacks were native ethnic Poles but after a generation their kids (being Cossack was hereditary after a fashion) lost their Polish roots.

Also there was no difference in the lifestyle of different Cossack ethnicitie, they all joined the Sich fortified camps and followed the same code.

These people were part peasants, part farmers, part pirates (they raided Turkish coastal trade regularly), part mercenaries, part bandits, by XVI century they became trained professional mercenaries for Poland.

I know my history very well thank you very much. I am merely trying to truncate about 500 years of history into one sentence you silly man! There is nothing that you have mentioned that I don't know about, or that contradicts me in any way.


Yes it was you stupid man, its elites after being taken over by the golden horde followed later by the Lithuanians and finally by Poland into the commonwealth, certainly considered themselves to be Poles, but the peasants were Ukrainian. And as I have mentioned national consciousness came to them later (under Austro-Hungarian rule)

Because in the curse of war between Germans and their recent ally Soviets, the former took over Poland territory.
Soviet Russia and by Stalin arbitrary decision Polish borders became what their are now - that is the reason that Galicja is outside Polish borders.

F*ck yes you're a history major, the Maregea kind of history major who thinks Columbus discovered England:)


Germans are Nazis ( i'm merely trying to truncate 500 years of history into one sentence) you got the point?

Another "history major" redneck, Ukraine was never taken over by Lithuanians, ever.

Lithuanians were present in todays Belarus, Ukraine presented by the Red Ruś was incorporated into Poland in 1340 and never had anything to do with Lithuanians, neither did Ukraine at large, it was since mid XIV century a strictly Polish dominion never having any Lithuanian influence whatsoever.


The peasants considered themselves subjects of any local Duchy or city such as Duchy Halicko-Włodziemierska the word "Ukrainian" in the national context does not appear in any text untill 400 years later.

Also the Cossacks were not peasants and peasantry was rarely their initial recruiting ground, the portion of the Cossack armies composed of peasantry was called "Czerń".

They defeated the Ukrainians who were subject to the golden horde you fool.

In the mid-14th century, Galicia-Volhynia was subjugated by Casimir III of Poland, while the heartland of Rus', including Kiev, fell under the Gediminas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after the Battle on the Irpen' River. Following the 1386 Union of Krevo, a dynastic union between Poland and Lithuania, much of what became northern Ukraine was controlled by the increasingly Slavicised local Lithuanian nobles as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

By 1569, the Union of Lublin formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from Lithuanian rule to the Polish administration, as it was transferred to the Polish Crown. Much upper class of Polish Ruthenia converted to Catholicism and became indistinguishable from the Polish nobility.

See made a fool of you so now what?


What are you on about you silly fool, I am not German I am polish you idiot!

And unlike you I have read the the history of the Ukraine from both a Polish and a Ukrainian perspective.

I am learning about the cossacks now. Its interesting, in fact the Poles employed the cossacks to defend the country. But then screwed them over by not paying them, so they went out to Ukrainian land and settled there. Not to mention there are plenty of different cossacks.

As for why Poland is a lot smaller. Well it all has to do the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact and the Yalta conference. Instead of giving Poland its territory which it had during the interwar years, the Soviet Union pushed the borders of Poland westward which was German territory.

do you ?

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9Q-OzsOmi00

Poland is much smaller becuase in 1918 pre-partition Poladn was not restored, and Russia under the Treatry of Riga got to hold onto huge swathes of its partition-era acquisitons. In 1939 Hitler adn Stalin split Poland down the middle. The eastern half was absorbed by the USSR and never returned. So we now have a small truncated Poland larger only than Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw, but a far cry from the First Republic which straddled the European continent from the Black Sea to the Baltic and covered an area of some one million square km.

What it was? Small extract from wikipedia's article? I thought that we all, regardless our own attitude, know perfect all these facts? Well, thank you none the less, at least it wad quite short retaining considerable portion of my strength to write my own post.

Be grateful, you still managed preserve privaslyandskiy kray. We, we - Russians granted you independance and supplied you with lands.

Keep it to Stalin or you will have a Russo-phobia of a larger magnitude ;p

Merged: any polish cossacks here?

any cossacks on here?

my grandfather was from poland. part of family were cossacks originally from ukraine

My Grandfather was a Cossack, does that count? I'm trying to find more information on him, but it's been tough going.

At least I have a new 'life saying' -

In the US, sometimes we say (when advising someone not to push you to your 'limit') - "Don't make me go all postal on you!"

I now say, "Don't make me go all Cossack on you!"

LOL!

(I'm a chubby, slightly-older-than-middle-aged woman - which makes this even funnier; at least I think so!)

Galicia was the name of the Austrian portion of Poland from the last partition of Poland:

Only East Galicia is now Ukrainian. West Galicia has remained Polish.

The name Galicia was adopted from the earlier Russ Principality of Galicia-Volhynia:

I suggest you read the history of the Ruthenian region its also important to learn about Kieven Rus. That might answer some of your questions.

Galicia has always had a Ruthenian (Ukrainian) Majority.

Not all but a good percentage of the ''Polish'' people in Western Galicia (in present day Poland) would decent from Polonized Ruthenians (Ukrainians/Lemko's)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonized

Polonization in Eastern Borderlands (Kresy)

But are sure it was the Celts who occupied our "Galicja", not the Austrians?

:)


Slavi, wikipedia isn't any trustworthy source on the subject. The texts you've recommended seem to have been edited by Ukrainian nationalists. Because that's the nature of wikipedia: any one at all - well, almost any one - can write whatever they please there. Lots of the time they don't care about historical truth, that is accordance of their statements with historical facts, only carry out political propaganda.

Hahah, you also sound like a German nationalist. A German nationalist from outside of Germany. Pardon my blintness, but such folks tend to be way more nationalistic and xenophobic than those in the old country.

By the way, when I lived in US and Canada I noticed that the local Germans and Ukrainians respected and liked ech other a lot, and often intermarried.

By the way, there was NO Ukraine till, if I am correct, 1991.

Also Berlin wasn't once a German city, only a Slavic one.

These two sentences show how the internet "education" is misleading and inaccurate. One reads the internet and then one pretends to have become an expert on the subject!

First thing to remember is that the ethnic border between the Polish and the Ruthenians was more westwards in the Middle Ages than the present frontier of Poland with Ukraine. Then one must known that the term "Galicia" for the territory it describes today was a purely Austrian invention who called this way the lands they acquired in the first partition of the Polish Commonweath in 1772. The official term was "The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria"; those names having been the latinized versions of the Ruthenian proper names "Halicina" and "Vlodomeria", these in turn being the names of Ruthenian principalities which had disappeared long before the Austrians decided to steal - alongside with Russia and and the Kingdom of Prussia - much of the territory they later called Galicia from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. An enormous Austrian colonial exploitation of both the Polish and Ukrainian peasantry then began in Galicia leading the inhabitants of the region to subsequently nickname the land by the name of "Królestwo Golicji i Głodomerii" (the Kingdom of Nakedness and Starvation), such big was poverty and hunger in the province under the Austrian rule in the second half of the 18th century. This policy had later changed, and Galicia became an autonomous region within the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, contrasting sharply with Russia-occupied parts wherein, throughout the second half of the 19th century, Russia tried to impose the Russian language on the Polish population of the Congress Kingdom of 1815, or with the German Empire which resorted to acts of barbarian physial violence against the Polish children of Września in the Great Duchy of Poznan who refused to say the "Pater Noster" prayer in German.

To sum up, the western part of former Galicia has always been ethnicly Polish as it never belonged to the Pricipality of Halicina (or "Red Ruthenia" as it is usually refered to), but it belonged to the Kingom of Poland from the very begining of the country. The ethnic border was reflected in the frontier between the Malopolan and Ruthenian voivodships as before the year 1772.

Lemko have never been polonized Ruthenians. They used to be the populaion of Ruthenian origin, but with a significant part of ancestry from settlers of Volochia (in today's Romania) as well as other lands south of the then Polish border.

I doubt that Galicia as a whole had an overall Ruthenian majority before and after 1914. Lvov and other major cities in Eastern Galicia had a Polish majority, and a very significant Jewish minority exceeding the one of Ruthenians. Cracow, on the other hand, had a very small, if any, Ruthenian minority.

This may be right, but you can be sure you'll also find many Germans and Poles that respected each other and intermarried.
There are no special relations between Ukrainians and Germans, despite the fact that the Klitschko brothers started their international boxing career in Germany and are still very popular there. ;-)


Right! But what does this prove? Because of the fact that Ukraine is a new nation it does not have as many rights as old nations like Poland and Germany, or what?


So is Leipzig, Dresden, Rostock, Chemnitz, Potsdam, Cottbus, Görlitz, Schwerin, Stralsund, Frankfurt/Oder and Lübeck. Other German cities like Cologne, Ratisbone, Mainz and Koblenz were founded by Romans and Kassel was founded by Celts. Do you think these cities are less German than Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg - cities that were founded by Germanic tribes?

This is backward 19th century thinking. To say the old Germanics that lived in central Europe are the exclusive ancestors of the Germans while the West Slavs that moved there in the 5th century are the exclusive ancenstors of Poles, is nationalisic propaganda, because all of them are the ancestors of all of us.

The Germans are a mixed race, the same as Poles, French, Brits or Ukrainians. The only difference is in Poland a Slavic language remained dominant and formed the Polish language while in Germany Germanic dialects remained dominant and formed a Germanic based language.

Therefore it is futile and useless to argue who was there first.

You better educate yourself - it is not as you claim or same ill educated individuals support.
The region was Polish or Lechian but being a border region sometimes was under rule of Kiev, do not equate Kiev with Ukrainian, Significant amount of Ukrainian are Polish peasants gone wild!

What you present here is chauvinistic version of history presented from Ukrainian side.

Here are two grand totals extracted from 1907 Austro-Hungarian Statistics, all of Galicia:
1907 Austro-Hungarian Statistics, all of Galicia, population by religion

Population: 7,064,439
Roman Catholic: 3,198,974 (45%)
Greek Catholic: 3,078,918 (44%)
Jewish: 740,955 (10%)
Other: 45,592 (1%)

1907 Austro-Hungarian Statistics, all of Galicia, population by language

Population: 7,044,153
German: 190,895 (2.71%)
Polish: 3,763,341 (53%)
Ukrainian: 3,080,708 (44%)
Other: 9,209 (0.13%)

[There is an error for grand totals in the original table. There are also some minor errors, like printing the number 1% whenever it should be 100%.]


Which is obviously NOT true. As you see, in 1907 there was 45%-44% split between Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics, and 53%-44% split between Polish and Ukrainian/Ruthenian language speakers.


Speakers (year 1907):
Lwów All: 125,696 German: 7,472 (6%) Polish: 60,773 (48%) Ukrainian: 57,414 (46%) Other: 37 (0%)
Kraków All: 85,578 German: 1,994 (2%) Polish: 82,888 (97%) Ukrainian: 87 (0%) Other: 609 (1%)

Yes yes. We all know that your history knowledge is absolutely dreadful.

This is the important point. Austrian Galicia was very Catholic, unlike Orthodox Russia and Protestant Germany. Previously, the dividing line between those who spoke Ukrainian dialects was religion. The Ukrainian cossacks refused the offer of seats in the Sejm because they refused to accept Catholicism in their lands. To them, Ukraine had to be Orthodox, regardless of language. In the twentieth century language became more important. Stalin ended the Orthodox-Catholic problems by ordering the Greek Catholics to renounce the Pope. The problem continued recently when the Greek Catholic moved their Cathedral from Lwow to Kiev and there was a riot by the Orthodox.

Hello, Funky.You've put it beautifully, and in lovely English. Szacun ( respect) from me, Puzzie.

By the way, I'm not a Germano-phobe, but more like a Germano-phile. I can see a difference between Germans in Germany and those abroad. On the average, the latter seem to be more nationalistic than the former. The same seems true for the Poles - the Polonia (Poles abroad) seems to be way more nationalistic than the Poles at home.