page_title: Poles in Ukraine
section_title: Poles in Austria-Hungary (Eastern Galicia)
hierarchical_section_title: Poles in Ukraine / History / During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries / Poles in Austria-Hungary (Eastern Galicia)
caption_attribution_description: English: Former polish football club Lechia Lwów (now Lviv in Ukraine) in 1909 Polski: Były polski klub piłkarski Lechia Lwów w 1909 r.
context_page_description: The Polish minority in Ukraine officially numbers about 144,130, of whom 21,094 speak Polish as their first language. The history of Polish settlement in current territory of Ukraine dates back to 1030–31. In Late Middle Ages, following the extinction of the Rurikid dynasty in 1323, the Kingdom of Poland extended east in 1340 to include the lands of Przemyśl and in 1366, Kamianets-Podilskyi. The settlement of Poles became common there after the Polish–Lithuanian peace treaty signed in 1366 between Casimir III the Great of Poland, and Liubartas of Lithuania.
context_section_description: Approximately 21% of the population of Ukrainian territory annexed by Austria-Hungary were Poles.  In 1890, 68% of Poles in this region were peasants, 16 percent worked in industry, 8.5 percent worked in transport or trade, and 7.5 percent had administrative, professional or service jobs.
  The Austrians began their rule by implementing policies that limited the control of Polish nobles and magnates over peasants; the Polish nobles and magnates, however, then took over the local bureaucracy and succeeded in establishing control over most municipal governments, as well as the regional assembly.  These ethnic Polish authorities promoted Polish colonization of lands in eastern Galicia; by 1890, one third of the Poles living in eastern Galicia had moved there from western areas.  Approximately 35,000 Poles moved into these territories between 1891 and 1900 alone. Between 1852 and 1912, the Polish-controlled local administration provided 237,000 hectares of land to Poles moving to eastern Galicia from western Galicia, and only 38,000 hectares of land to Ukrainians. As a result of such policies, despite larger Ukrainian family sizes the percentage of the population who were ethnic Poles grew significantly, to over 25% by 1910.  Under Austrian rule Lviv became a leading center of the Polish national revival. Lviv was home to the Polish Ossolineum, with the second largest collection of Polish books in the world, the Polish Academy of Arts, the Polish Historical Society, the Polish Theater and Polish Archdiocese.
  Poles in Austria-Hungarian-ruled Ukraine generally belonged to three groups politically: Polish conservative landowners; Polish liberal nationalists (the National Democrats, or Endeks), and socialist groups.  Of these, only the latter group cooperated with Ukrainians, whereas the other two were extremely hostile towards Ukrainian political or cultural aspirations.  Thus, in contrast to the situation in Russian-ruled Ukraine, where relations between Poles and Ukrainians were friendly and where Poles were often active in the Ukrainian national movement, in Austrian-ruled Ukraine relations between Poles and Ukrainians were generally quite antagonistic. When Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevskyi moved from Kiev to Lviv in 1894 he was surprised to see that Poles there were hostile to the Ukrainian cause.
caption: The first Polish football clubs, Lechia Lwów (pictured), Czarni Lwów and Pogoń Lwów, were all founded and based in Lwów (present-day Lviv)
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