A history of the Galician city of Lviv (Lwów in Polish, L’vov in Russian, Lemberg in German and Leopolis in Latin) has to start with a relatively recent recognition: At the end of 1998, the old town, which has completely preserved its Medieval planning scheme, has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The 129-hectare city center fulfilled two criteria to receive this distinction: 1) in “its urban fabric and architecture … L’viv is an outstanding example of the fusion of the architectural and artistic traditions of Eastern Europe with those of Italy and Germany”. 2) because of its “political and commercial role L’viv attracted … ethnic groups with different cultural and religious traditions, who established separate yet interdependent communities within the city, evidence for which is still discernible in the modern townscape.”
Lviv can look back on a long, rich and eventful history. The city was built on former settlements of the 5th and 6th centuries. As a city tourist brochure puts it rightly, it is “situated on the borderline of cultures and religions, at the crossroads of trade routes and the routes of nomads and invaders”. For centuries, it flourished as an administrative, religious and commercial center. Its rise began at the end of the 10th century, when it became part of the Kievan Rus. From 1256 until 1340, Lviv was part of the Halychyna-Volhynia Principality. In the 13th century, King Danylo of Galicia/Halych and Volhynia gave Lviv to his son Lev as a wedding present when he married Constance, the daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary. Lev moved the capital from Halych to the newly founded city of Lviv.
Among the many rulers of Lviv, let’s mention the Polish King Kazimierz III, who conquered the city in 1349, the Lithuanian Prince Lubart Gedyminowicz, who governed from 1353 onwards and the Hungarians, who de facto ruled from 1372 until 1387. From 1387 until 1772 and from 1923 until 1939, Lviv was part of Poland. From 1772 until the end of the First World War in 1918, it belonged to the Habsburg Empire, with an intermezzo 1914-15, when it was under the rule of the Russian Tsar. From 1939 until 1941 and from 1944 until 1991, Lviv was part of the USSR. From 1941 until 1944, it was occupied by Nazi Germany.
A few other low points of the history of Lviv include the invasion by the Tatars in 1261 and the 1527 fire, which almost entirely destroyed the wooden, Gothic houses of the Medieval city center built by German architects. The present-day center around Rynok Square was built in stone by Italian and Swiss architects in the 16th century. In 1648, the Ukrainian Cossacks under Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and, in 1704, the Swedish army under the command of Charles XII occupied the city.
View of the old town of Lviv in 2007. Photo by Wikipedia user Lestat (Jan Mehlich) / Wikimedia Commons. Books about Lviv / Lvov / Lemberg / Leopolis from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
For many years, the territory of the city of Lviv was disputed between Poland and Lithuania. From the 13th century onwards, the multicultural city was populated by ethnically Ukrainian, Polish, German, Jewish, Armenian, Russian, Italian and other people; until the Nazi-extermination policies, Galicia had the highest Jewish population in the whole of Poland.
In 1772, Lviv became part of the Habsburg Empire; the Third Partition of Poland among Prussia, the Russian and the Austrian Empire followed three years later. The new rulers destroyed the city walls and opened up Lviv, which became more liberal. Before the Austrian rule, there was a clear distinction between the people living within and the ones living outside the city walls. An official city tour guide told me that the Jews living within the walls for instance even spoke a different dialect from the ones living outside.
In 1918, Ukrainians only made up some 15% of the population of the short-lived West Ukrainian People’s Republic (1918-19), with Polish counting for some 50% and Jews for some 30% of the population, which led to tensions, the Polish-Ukrainian War and the re-integration of Galicia into Poland. Nevertheless, the patriotic Ukrainian sentiment was strengthened, with Galicia becoming the center of Ukrainian nationalism.
During the Second World War, the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between the Nazi and the Soviet regime made Lviv a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. Almost the entire Jewish population of the city (some 140,000 Jews) and, overall, roughly half a million people were killed. The Ukrainian resistance in Galicia against the Nazi and Soviet occupiers was fierce but finally crushed. The Polish population was largely forced into exile, with many settling in Krakow and Wroclaw.
On July 16, 1990 the Ukrainian parliament adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine. After a failed coup by reactionary Communists against Mikhail Gorbachev, the Ukrainian parliament adopted the Act of Independence on August 24, 1991 which was confirmed by over 90% of the population in a referendum held on December 1, 1991.
Lviv was and remains a stronghold of nationalist sentiment in newly-independent Ukraine. Its citizens were among the key supporters of President Viktor Yushchenko, the Orange Revolution as well as the Euromaidan movement.
Last, but not least, let’s mention three famous people born in Lviv: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), the professor, writer and journalist, after whom the term masochism was coined in 1886 (during Sacher-Masoch’s lifetime!) by the Austrian psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, because the author of Venus in Furs not only wrote about sexual fantasies and fetishes, he lived them in real life, for instance making himself by contract the slave of his mistress Baroness Fanny Pistor for the period of six months; Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), the famous economist, who wrote the groundbreaking Theory of Money and Credit as well as other books that influenced people such as Friedrich Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke; Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006), the science fiction writer, most famous for his novel Solaris, which has been made into three films already.
If you have not been intrigued by the history, the architectural heritage and the three famous people born in Lviv above, you are probably a hopeless couch potato. But I will give you a few more reasons to travel to Lviv: The city is much safer than let’s say Washington, D.C. and much cheaper too. And if you are not happy with Putin destabilizing Ukraine, you should visit the city as a sign of solidarity.
Additional article: Sightseeing in Lviv. Books about Lviv / Lvov / Lemberg / Leopolis from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
Article added on June 16, 2015 at 23:09 CET. Added on March 5, 2019: The photographer Weegee was born near Lviv.
Lviv Opera House. Photo: Oleksandr Samoylyk / Wikimedia Commons.
Potocki Place in Lviv. Photo: Andrey Okhrimets 2013 / Wikimedia Commons.
The Medieval Town Hall at Rynok Square by night in 2007. You should start your city tour with a visit of the 65-meter Rynok Square tower, which offers the best views of the Old Town. Photo by Wikipedia user Lestat (Jan Mehlich) / Wikimedia Commons.
View of the Galician city of Lviv by Andrii Podilnyk / Unsplash, public domain.
View of the Galician city of Lviv by Vadym Lebedych / Unsplash, public domain.
Article added on June 16, 2015 at 23:09 CET. New photographs added on March 7, 2019.
