The Ukrainian Southwest: Galicia-Volhynia

Another extremely important regional development occurred in the Ukrainian southwest, in the principalities of Galicia and Volhynia. If any component of the old Kievan realm could challenge the growing power of the Russian northeast, that is, of Suzdal, Vladimir, and fledgling Moscow, it was the principalities of Galicia and Volhynia in the southwest.

Hrushevsky considered these two principalities to be the most direct inheritors of Kiev’s political and cultural traditions.¹ Tomashivsky, another eminent Ukrainian historian, called Galicia-Volhynia the first undeniably Ukrainian state because at the height of their power in the 13th century the united principalities encompassed about 90% of the population living within what are today the borders of Ukraine.² The principalities were important in other ways as well. Lying on the western periphery of Kievan Rus’, they were from the outset the focus of a fierce struggle between Ukrainians and Poles, a conflict that continued unabated until the mid 20th century. The principalities were also a crucial cultural frontier. Depending on one’s perspective, they were either the easternmost inroad of the Catholic West or the westernmost outpost of the Orthodox East.

Located along the eastern foothills of the Carpathians at the headwaters of the important Dnister and Prut rivers that flow into the Black Sea, Galicia was originally inhabited by the Dulibian, Tivertsian, and White Croatian tribes. In the east it shared a long border with the rolling, wooded plains of Volhynia, also inhabited by the Dulibians and White Croatians. To the east of Volhynia lay the principality of Kiev. While Galicia had the aggressive Hungarians and Poles to contend with on its western and northern borders, Volhynia’s only foreign neighbors were the Lithuanian tribes to the north. Both principalities were fortunate in that they lay beyond the normal range of nomad raiders from the steppe.

Volhynia and especially Galicia were well populated and their numerous cities were strategically located on important western trade routes. Moreover, Galicia had great deposits of salt, a commodity upon which all of Rus’ depended.

In 980–90, Volodymyr the Great wrested Galicia and Volhynia from Polish control and integrated them into his realm. In Volhynia, he founded the city of Volodymyr, which eventually became the imposing capital of the land. In Galicia, the city of Halych, near the Carpathian salt fields, replaced Peremyshl as the political center of the principality. The Kievan princes were able to assign Galicia and Volhynia to their offspring because these lands were their personal domain. Thus, the Rostyslavychi, the house of a grandson of Iaroslav the Wise, initially ruled in Galicia. Meanwhile, in Volhynia, the house of Mstyslav, a son of Volodymyr Monomakh, came to power.

Although often grouped together in historical studies for the sake of convenience, Galicia and Volhynia were quite different principalities in the 12th and 13th centuries. Perhaps the most striking difference between them was the nature of their respective elites. Undoubtedly, Galicia had the most willful, wealthy, and powerful boyars in all the Rus’ lands. So pervasive was the influence of this aristocracy that Galicia is often considered the prime example of oligarchic rule in Rus’, representing, next to republican Novgorod and absolutist Vladimir-Moscow, the third major variant of the Kievan political system. According to Soviet scholars, the origins of the Galician boyars explain to a large extent their uniquely dominant position.³ Unlike the boyars of other principalities who usually descended from the princely retinue, the Galician aristocracy apparently emerged primarily from the local tribal elite. And it obtained its estates not from the prince, as was usual, but by usurping open communal lands. When the first Riurikid princes arrived here, they were probably confronted by a well-entrenched aristocracy that was ready to defend its own interests.

Map 9 Galcia-Volhynia

Other historians also point out that because the Rostyslavychi provided four generations of relatively stable rule, the boyars had ample time and opportunity to establish themselves. Moreover, many of them participated in the salt trade, which provided them with handsome profits and strengthened their already impressive economic standing. As a result, the wealthiest boyars could afford to maintain their own militias and retinues of lesser landholders. Finally, Galicia’s distance from Kiev meant that the Grand Prince could not easily interfere in its affairs, while proximity to Poland and Hungary not only provided models of artistocratic dominance, but also opportunities to summon foreign aid against undesirable princes.

The boyars of Volhynia, in contrast, were cast in a more traditional mold than those of Galicia. Most of them had arrived in the principality in the retinues of their princes, who were frequently appointed and replaced at the will of Kiev, which, because of its proximity, exerted a stronger political influence on the principality than it did on Galicia. The lands these boyars acquired were given in return for services they had rendered their princes. Because the Volhynian elite was dependent on the largesse of its princes, it was relatively loyal and supportive of them. This explains why it was the princes of Volhynia, and not Galicia, who were in the best position to unite the two principalities. The Rostyslavychi of Galicia

Of all the principalities on the territory of modern Ukraine, Galicia was the first to break away from Kiev. Employing means both fair and foul, the wily Volodymyrko (1123–53) managed to bring the entire land under his control and then successfully withstood the efforts of the Kievan grand princes to dictate the course of events in Galicia. Building on this achievement, his gifted son, Iaroslav Osmomysl (1153–87) – the epithet means one possessed of eight senses – extended the boundaries of his principality south to the mouth of the Dnister River in present-day Moldavia.

While maintaining peace and prosperity at home, Iaroslav nurtured cordial relations with the Hungarians and Frederich I Barbarossa of Germany. The fame and prestige that he and his land enjoyed in Rus’ was reflected in this laudatory excerpt from “The Tale of the Host of Ihor”: “O Iaroslav Osmomysl of Halych! You sit tall on your golden throne, propping up the Hungarian [Carpathian] mountains with your iron regiments, blocking the way to its king, closing the gates of the Danube … your wrath rolls over the earth.”⁴ But as Galicia prospered, so did its boyars. In fact, so powerful did they become during Iaroslav’s reign that even when he was at the height of his power, they forced him to abandon his second, common-law wife, Anastasia, and later had her burned at the stake.

After Iaroslav’s death, chaos ensued. His son Volodymyr (1187–98), the last of the Rostyslavychi, “did not like to take council with his muzhi (boyars),” as the chronicle puts it. Before long, the boyars rose up against him and forced him to seek refuge in Hungary. Andrew, the Hungarian king, promised to reinstate him, but when he arrived in Galicia, he claimed the land for himself. As popular uprisings against the foreigners flared up, Volodymyr and the boyars came to an understanding and drove the Hungarians back. What did these years of conflict and destruction lead to? Although Volodymyr finally did regain his throne, he became more dependent on the boyars than ever before. This sorry episode established a pattern that would often be repeated in the next half-century – that of a strong ruler uniting the land, of boyars (fearful of losing their prerogatives) turning on his weaker successors and thereby providing foreign powers with a pretext for intervention, and of chaos ensuing until another strong prince appeared on the scene to master the situation. The Romanovychi of Volhynia and Galicia

Although the rise of Galicia was a clear indication of the growing importance of the borderlands, its union with Volhynia bore the promise of greater, even epochal consequences for all of Eastern Europe.

The man who brought about this union was Roman Mstyslavych (1173–1205) of Volhynia. Immersed in political struggles from early youth, Roman was chosen as prince by the Novgorodians in 1168 to defend their city against Suzdal’s aggressive designs in the north, while his father, Mstyslav of Volhynia, competed with Andrei Bogoliubsky of Suzdal for control of Kiev in the south. After his father’s death in 1173, Roman took over and reconstituted the fragmented, neglected family holdings in Volhynia. In 1188, the Galician boyars invited him to rule their land, but princely rivals and unfriendly boyar factions prevented him from doing so. Only in 1199 was he able to return to Galicia and unite it with Volhynia, thus creating a new, imposing conglomerate on the political map of Eastern Europe with an energetic, forceful prince of great ability at its head.

In his domestic policies Roman concentrated on expanding his princely power: that is, on undermining the boyars, many of whom he either exiled or executed. “You can’t enjoy the honey without killing the bees” was one of his favorite sayings. As was often the case elsewhere in Europe, the prince’s allies in the struggle with the oligarchy were the townsmen and minor boyars. However, it was his foreign exploits that added most to Roman’s widespread fame. After uniting Galicia and Volhynia, he defeated his Suzdalian rivals and gained control of Kiev in 1203. Thus, all the Ukrainian principalities -Kiev, Pereiaslav, Galicia, and Volhynia (with the exception of Chernihiv) -came under the rule of one prince. It appeared that a renewal of those parts of the old Kievan realm that were on the territory of what is now Ukraine was about to take place. Because Roman came so close to achieving this goal, modern Ukrainian historians have accorded him an exalted place in their histories.

In his efforts to protect the Ukrainian principalities, Roman launched a series of highly successful campaigns against the Polovtsians, while, in the north, he pushed deep into Polish and Lithuanian territory.

This desire to extend the boundaries of an already extensive realm proved to be the cause of his undoing. In 1205, while crossing into Polish territory, Roman was killed in an ambush. The territorial conglomerate he had assembled lasted only six years, too short a time for it to crystallize into a stable, permanant political entity. Still, by referring to him as “the Great” and “Autocrat of all Rus’,” Roman’s contemporaries showed their appreciation for his remarkable achievements.

Soon after Roman’s death, the recurrent triumvirate of troubles – boyar intrigues, princely rivalries, and foreign intervention – dismembered the realm he had so assiduously forged. Because his sons, Danylo and Vasylko, were only 4 and 2 years old respectively, the Galician boyars had little difficulty in forcing them and their strong-willed mother, Anna, from the land. In their place, the boyars invited the three Ihorevychi, sons of the hero of “The Tale of the Host of Ihor.” For many of the boyars this was a fatal mistake. Unwilling to share power with the oligarchy, the Ihorevychi massacred about 500 of them before eventually being expelled themselves. (Later, the Galician elite returned the favor by capturing and hanging all three of the Ihorevychi.) Next, the boyars attempted the unprecedented: in 1213, they elected their own leader, Vladyslav Kormylchych, as prince. Taking advantage of the general condemnation of this audacious move, the rulers of Hungary and Poland, under the guise of protecting the rights of Danylo and Vasylko, invaded Galicia and divided it between themselves. It was under these conditions that the young Danylo and Vasylko began the process of “gathering together” the lands their father had once ruled.

As might be expected, Danylo first reestablished himself in Volhynia (1221), where both the elite and the general populace remained loyal to his dynasty. But it was not until 1238 that he was able to retake Halych and a part of Galicia. In the following year, Danylo acquired Kiev and sent his military commander, Dmytro, to defend the city against the Mongols. Only in 1245, when Danylo won the decisive battle at Iaroslav, was his hold on all of Galicia secured. It thus took Danylo forty years to reconstitute the realm that his father had created.

Reserving Galicia for himself, Danylo left Volhynia for Vasylko. Despite this division, under the leadership of the older, more forceful Danylo, the two principalities continued to function as a single unit. Like his father, Danylo concentrated in his domestic policies on securing the support of the townsmen and peasants in order to create a counterweight to the boyars. He founded numerous towns – among them Lviv, named after his son Lev, in 1256 – and fortified many others. To populate these new urban centers, Danylo invited artisans and merchants from Germany and Poland, and from other Rus’ cities. Large communities of Armenians and Jews, spreading westward as Kiev declined, added to the multiethnic character that was to typify Galician towns into the 20th century. In the countryside, special officials were appointed to protect peasants from boyar exploitation and peasant units were formed in the army.

Danylo’s major foreign problem was the Mongols. In 1241, they had passed through Galicia and Volhynia without devastating them as badly as other Rus’ principalities. However, the successes of the Romanovychi attracted the Mongols’ attention. Soon after his victory at Iaroslav, Danylo received the dreaded summons to appear at the Mongol court. Fearful of antagonizing these dreaded conquerors, he had no choice but to comply. In a certain sense, Danylo’s visit 1246 to Batu’s capital at Sarai on the Volga was a success. He was well received and, more important, allowed to return alive. But this came at the price of accepting Mongol overlordship. This humiliating fact was underscored by Batu himself who, as he handed Danylo a cup of fermented mare’s milk, the favorite Mongol beverage, urged him to get used to it “for you are one of ours now.” However, unlike the northeastern principalities that were closer to the Mongols and more exposed to their direct control, Galicia and Volhynia were spared such close supervision. Their major obligation to their new overlords was occasionally to provide auxiliary troops during the Mongol forays into Poland and Lithuania. Mongol influence in Galicia and Volhynia was initially so weak that Danylo was able to conduct a very independent foreign policy, one openly aimed at ridding himself of Mongol overlordship.

After establishing cordial relations with Poland and Hungary, Danylo turned to Pope Innocent IV with a request for aid to organize a Slavic crusade against the Mongols. In return, Danylo expressed to the pope his willingness to place his lands under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome. Thus, he sounded what would become a major and recurrent theme in Galician history – the relationship of the West Ukrainians to the church of Rome. To encourage the Galician prince, the pope sent him a royal crown and, in 1253, in Dorohochyn on the Buh River, Danylo was crowned king by a papal representative.

Danylo’s chief interest, however, was the crusade and other reinforcements from the west. These, despite the pope’s assurances, were not forthcoming. Nonetheless, in 1254, Danylo launched a campaign to retrieve Kiev from the Mongols, whose main forces were far in the east. Despite initial successes, he failed to achieve his objective and he paid dearly for it. In 1259, a strong Mongol force, led by Burundai, moved unexpectedly into Galicia and Volhynia. The Romanovychi were given two options by the Mongols: either raze the walls of all their fortified towns, leaving them vulnerable and dependent on Mongol goodwill, or face immediate annihilation. Dejectedly, Danylo had to oversee the destruction of the walls he had so diligently constructed.

The failure of his Mongol policy did not mean that Danylo’s great influence with his western neighbors had declined. In Poland, especially in the principality of Mazowia, Galician authority reached a high point. Therefore, Mendvog, the ruler of Lithuania (which was just beginning its rise to power), was obliged to make territorial concessions there to Danylo. Moreover, as a sign of goodwill, Mendvog was forced to marry two of his offspring to Danylo’s son and daughter. More than any other Galician ruler, Danylo became involved in the affairs of central Europe. Using matrimonial links as an instrument of foreign policy, he married his son Roman to Gertrude, the Babenberg heiress, and attempted unsuccessfully to place him on the Austrian ducal throne.

In 1264, after almost sixty years of political activity, Danylo died. In Ukrainian historiography he is considered to be the most outstanding ruler that the two western principalities ever produced. In view of the difficult circumstances under which he had to function, his achievements were remarkable. While rebuilding and expanding his father’s domains, Danylo checked Polish and Hungarian expansion. Breaking the power of the boyars, he raised the social, cultural, and economic level of his land until it was among the highest in Eastern Europe. However, not all his plans succeeded. Danylo failed to hold on to Kiev and he did not attain his major objective – to rid himself of the Mongol yoke. Still, he managed to keep Mongol influence to a minimum. In his attempt to stave off the East, Danylo turned to the West, thereby providing West Ukrainians with an example that they would follow for centuries.

For almost a century after Danylo’s death, Galicia and Volhynia experienced few apparent changes. The pattern set by Danylo and Vasylko – that of a dynamic, forceful prince in Galicia and a more retiring ruler in Volhynia – was followed to a certain extent by their respective sons, Lev (1264–1301) and Volodymyr (1270–89). The ambitious and restless Lev was constantly involved in political conflicts. After the Arpad dynasty was extinguished in Hungary, he obtained Transcarpathian Rus’, thus laying the foundation for future Ukrainian claims to the western slopes of the Carpathians. Lev was most active in Poland, which was embroiled in internecine warfare; and he even aspired to the Polish throne in Cracow. Despite Lev’s aggressiveness, both Galicia and Volhynia enjoyed a period of stability during the late 13th and early 14th centuries because their western neighbors were temporarily weakened.

Volodymyr of Volhynia was the antithesis of his Galician cousin and his relations with him were often strained. Unwilling to participate in wars and inactive in diplomacy, he concentrated on such peaceful pursuits as the building of towns, castles, and churches. Described as a “great bibliophile and philosopher” by the Galician-Volhynian chronicle, it seems that his favorite pastime was the reading and copying of books and manuscripts. Volodymyr’s death in 1289 saddened not only his subjects, but modern historians as well, for, in what was probably a related development, the Galician-Volhynian chronicle suddenly broke off in that year. As a result, a great gap in the history of the western principalities, stretching from 1289 to 1340, now confronts historians. A few haphazard bits of information are all that are available about what occurred in Galicia and Volhynia in the final phases of their independent existence.

After the death of Lev, his son Iurii, ruled both Galicia and Volhynia. He must have been an effective ruler, for neighboring chroniclers noted that during his peaceful reign his lands “blossomed with riches and fame.” Iurii’s position was imposing enough for him to title himself “King of Rus’.” An even more telling indication of the extent of his authority was an event that occurred in 1303. Dissatisfied with the decision of the metropolitan of Kiev to move his residence to Vladimir in the northeast, Iurii obtained Constantinople’s assent to create a separate metropolitanate in Halych. The two last members of the Romanovych dynasty were Iurii’s sons, Andrii and Lev, who ruled Galicia-Volhynia together. Worried by the growing power of Lithuania, they forged an alliance with the German knights of the Teutonic Order. In regard to the Mongols they followed an independent, even antagonistic policy and there are some indications that they may have died fighting them.

With the extinction of the native ruling dynasty in 1323, the elite of the two principalities chose Boleslaw of Mazowia, a Polish cousin of the Romanovychi, as their prince. After changing his name to Iurii and adopting Orthodoxy, the new ruler set about to follow the policies of his predecessors. Despite his Polish background, he fought to regain lands that had in the meantime been lost to the Poles, and he renewed the alliance with the Germans against the Lithuanians. At home, Iurii-Boleslaw continued to support the towns and attempted to expand his prerogatives. It was probably this policy that led to a conflict with the boyars who, in 1340, poisoned him under the pretext that he sought to introduce Roman Catholicism and favored foreigners. Thus, by the hand of its own elite, Galicia and Volhynia were deprived of their last prince. Henceforth, the West Ukrainians would have to live under foreign-based sovereigns.

For 100 years after the fall of Kiev, Galicia-Volhynia served as the political base of the Ukrainians. In this capacity, the two principalities absorbed much of the Kievan heritage and at the same time prevented the absorption of West Ukrainian lands by Poland. By so doing, they preserved for Ukrainians, or Rusyns as they were then called, a sense of cultural and political distinctiveness at a crucial point in their history. This distinctiveness would be of critical importance to their survival as a separate national entity in the difficult times yet to come.