Halych and Galicia (until 1772) in the Foreign Policy of the Rulers of Moldova. Experience of the Source Studies and Periodization
Authors:   Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, VOLOSHCHUK Myroslav 
Published: August 2024

The article is devoted to the image of Halych and the Galicia (Halych land)
in the pages of written sources primarily of Moldovan origin from the archival
and library collections of Romania. The author assumes that Halych and Galicia
occupied a significant place in the foreign policy of the rulers of Moldova, first
of all due to the so-called ecclesiastical memory. Galician Metropolitan Antony,
having consecrated the first Moldovan bishop on the hills of Krylos (ancient
Halych) in 1387, contributed to the establishment of the separate Moldovan
Metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. That’s why, during the
crisis of the non-institutionalized Kingdom of Rus’ at the turn of the 14th–15th
centuries, the representatives of the Moldovan House of Mușat and their
successors tried in every possible way to consolidate the neighboring territories
of Pokuttia and the Halych land. According to the periodization we can single
out four long periods: 12th century – 1359; 1359–1538; 1538–1699 and 1699–
1772. The most active is the second period, when a number of Moldovan rulers,
first of all Stephen III the Great, actively tried to put their plans in practice.
After the defeat of Peter Rareș’s troops near Obertyn on August 22, 1531, and
subsequent unsuccessful attempts to reverse the situation in skirmishes with the
crown troops of Poland (and in fact, the Ruthenian Voivodeship), which took
place until 1538, the Princes of Moldova gave up their intentions, eventually
turning into the vassals of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty. They took part in the
campaigns of their suzerains to Podolia until 1699, for example in 1620–1621
or 1672, but practically could not set independent tasks for themselves. After
the conclusion of the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699 and the restoration by the
Kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of control over Kamianets in
Podolia, which had been a part of the Ottoman Porte for 27 years as a separate
eyalet, the Halych land de facto ceased to suffer from the enemy attacks from the
south. Halych, its monastic centers entered, rather, the times of closer interaction with the Orthodox monasteries of Moldova. A prominent place among them
was occupied by the Great Skete in Manyava – equally revered by the rulers of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Moldova, the Cossack Hetmanate and
Muscovy (later – the Russian Empire). A complex of published and unpublished
sources from the archives and libraries of Bucharest, Cluj, Iași, Suceava, Brașov
Botoşani systematically and comprehensively reflects the outlined relationships.
Unfortunately, it does not seem possible currently to find the lost fragments of
chronicles of Galician provenience in the Romanian collections, which under
various circumstances were taken outside the territory of their origin. The largest
part of the sources counts various monuments of the church literature – the living
witnesses of very close inter-monastic relations of the 14th–18th centuries.