Introduction
Lviv (Ukrainian: Львів [lʲʋiu̯] (listen); Russian: Львов Lvov [lʲvof]; Polish: Lwów [lvuf] (
listen); German: Lemberg; Latin: Leopolis; see also other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine and the seventh-largest city in the country overall, with a population of around 728,350 as of 2016. Lviv is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine.
Named in honour of Leo, the eldest son of Daniel, King of Ruthenia, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (also called the Kingdom of Ruthenia) from 1272 to 1349, when it was conquered by King Casimir III the Great who then became known as the King of Poland and Ruthenia. From 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1918, for a short time, it was the capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Between the wars, the city was the centre of the Lwów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic.
Selected general articles
The University of Lviv (Ukrainian: Львівський університет, Polish: Uniwersytet Lwowski, German: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the Theresianum in the early 19th-century), presently the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Ukrainian: Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка) is the oldest university foundation in Ukraine, dating from 1661 when the Polish King, John II Casimir, granted it its first royal charter. Over the centuries it underwent transformations, suspensions and name changes that reflected the geo-political complexities of this part of Europe. The present institution can be dated to 1940. It is located in the historic city of Lviv in Lviv Oblast of Western Ukraine. Read more...- Batiar (also sometimes spelled as baciar), a popular name for a certain class of inhabitants of the formerly Polish city of Lwów. It used to be a part of the city's subculture, Lviv's "knajpa" lifestyle, and became a phenomenon at the beginning of the twentieth century although its roots go back to the mid nineteenth century. It declined after the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland and its annexation to the Soviet Union as part of the Ukrainian SSR in 1939 and again in 1945. The Soviet authorities expelled most of the Polish inhabitants and suppressed the local Polish culture, although it seems to be recovering at the turn of the 21st century. Read more...
- The Lviv Oblast administration occupies the Neo-Renaissance building of the Austrian vice-regency from which the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was ruled. It was erected in the 1870s to a design by architects Sylwester Hawryszkiewicz and Feliks Księżarski. The building's centerpiece is a grand staircase designed by Leonard Marconi. In 1943 the edifice witnessed the official ceremony of the inauguration of SS Division Galicia. The Communist administration decided to retain the building's former function by assigning it to a local obkom. In front of the building stands a monument to Vyacheslav Chornovil who headed the regional administration in the early 1990s. Read more...
The Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów (Polish: Cmentarz Obrońców Lwowa, Cmentarz Orląt, Cemetery of Eaglets, Orlat Cemetery) is a memorial and a burial place for the Poles and their allies who died in Lviv (Polish: Lwów) during the hostilities of the Polish-Ukrainian War and Polish-Soviet War between 1918 and 1920.
The complex is a part of the city's historic Lychakiv Cemetery. There are about 3000 graves in that part of the cemetery; some from the Lwów Eaglets young militia volunteers, after whom that part of the cemetery is named. It was one of the most famous necropolises of the interwar Poland. Read more...
Maria Zankovetska Theatre (Ukrainian: Національний академічний український драматичний театр імені Марії Заньковецької, Natsionalnyi akademichnyi ukrayinskyi dramatychnyi teatr imeni Mariyi Zankovetskoyi; Polish: Teatr Skarbkowski ) is a drama theatre in the centre of Lviv, Ukraine, at the intersection of Lesya Ukrayinka Street and Prospekt Svobody. The building was erected in the mid 19th century and until World War I was used as a theatre stage and a session hall of the regional council. Read more...
The Battle of Lwów (sometimes called the Siege of Lwów) was a World War II battle for the control over the Polish city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) between the Polish Army and the invading Wehrmacht and the Red Army. The city was seen as the key to the so-called Romanian Bridgehead and was defended at all cost. Read more...
The Battle of Lemberg (Lviv, Lwów) (in Polish historiography called obrona Lwowa, the Defense of Lwów) took place from November 1918 to May 1919 and was a six-month long conflict in what is modern-day Ukraine. The battle was fought between attacking forces of the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the local Polish civilian population, assisted later by regular Polish Army forces for the control over the city of Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg), in what was then eastern part of Galicia and now is western part of Ukraine. The battle sparked the Polish-Ukrainian War, ultimately won by Poland. Read more...- The Carmelite Church in Lviv was first mentioned in 1634 as the church of the monastery of the Barefoot Carmelites. In 1748 it was the scene of a notorious scuffle ("monomachia") between the Carmelites and their neighbours, the Capuchins.
The suburban location caused the church to be rather well fortified, yet it was ravaged by the Cossacks in the Khmelnytsky Revolt and the Swedes in the Great Northern War. The entire façade was redesigned in the 19th century. Read more...
The Lviv tram (Ukrainian: Львівський Трамвай, translit.: L’vivs’kyi Tramvai) is an electric tramway in Lviv, Ukraine. It is the only tram system in the Western Ukraine, the largest among the narrow-gauge tram systems in Ukraine.
From 1880 to 1908, the trams used horse-drawn system, from 1894 however, they were electric. It is the first in the territory of modern Ukraine to have a system of horse-drawn tram and trams in general, as well as the second one after the Kiev tram in being electric. Read more...- The Korniakt Palace (Ukrainian: Палац Корнякта (Palats Korniakta), Polish: kamienica Królewska we Lwowie) on Market Square in Lviv is a prime example of the royal kamienica, or townhouse. The fabric of the palace is of various dates. It was originally built by Polish architect Piotr Barbon for merchant Konstanty Korniakt, a champion of Greek Orthodoxy and co-founder of the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood. Construction of this severely elegant Renaissance palazzo was completed in 1580.
After Korniakt's death in 1603, King Władysław IV Vasa stayed at his palace. He got smallpox and recovered here. In 1640, the edifice was purchased by Jakub Sobieski and was later inherited by his son, King John III Sobieski. The Polish-Lithuanian ruler remodelled it into a palatial residence, with spacious rooms and an audience hall where he signed the Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686. Read more... - A Sukhoi Su-27 performing at an air show
The Sknyliv air show disaster occurred on 27 July 2002, when a Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 piloted by Volodymyr Toponar and co-piloted by Yuriy Yegorov crashed during an aerobatics presentation at Sknyliv airfield near Lviv, Ukraine. The accident killed 77 people and injured 543, 100 of whom were hospitalised. It is the deadliest air show accident in history. Read more...
The Lwów Ghetto (German: Ghetto Lemberg; Polish: getto we Lwowie) was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) in the territory of Nazi-administered General Government in German-occupied Poland.
The Lwów Ghetto was one of the largest Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany after the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland. The city was a home to over 110,000 Jews before the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and by the time the Nazis occupied the city in 1941 that number had increased to over 220,000 Jews, since Jews fled for their lives from Nazi-occupied western Poland into the then relative safety of Soviet-occupied eastern Poland, which included Lwów. The ghetto, set up in the second half of 1941 after the Germans arrived, was liquidated in June 1943 with all its inhabitants who survived prior killings, sent to their deaths in cattle trucks at Bełżec extermination camp and the Janowska concentration camp. Read more...- The Lviv railway station is one of the most notable pieces of Art Nouveau architecture in former Galicia.
Lviv-Holovnyi railway station (Ukrainian: Льві́в-Головни́й) is the main railway terminal in Lviv, Ukraine. It is one of the most notable pieces of Art Nouveau architecture in former Galicia. The station was opened to the public in 1904, and celebrated its centennial anniversary on 26 March 2004. On a monthly basis, the terminal handles over 1.2 million passengers and moves 16 thousand tons of freight. Read more...
The Roman Catholic church of St. Mary Magdalene in Lviv, Ukraine, is located west of the city's Old Town, by the Lviv Polytechnic.
It was built at the beginning of the 17th century for the Dominican Order, combining the styles of Renaissance and Baroque, and consecrated in 1630. The church and monastery were plundered and burned in 1704 by Swedes only to be rebuilt by 1758 with an extended nave and new Baroque facade with two towers decorated with pilasters and cornices and rococo sculptures of Saint Dominic and Saint Hyacinth between the pediment and the tower added to the preserved polygonal apse with an altarpiece in stucco presenting scenes from the life of Saint Mary Magdalene. Read more...
The Black House (Ukrainian: Чорна кам'яниця, Chorna Kamyanytsia; Polish: Czarna Kamienica) is a remarkable Renaissance building on the Market Square in the city of Lviv, Ukraine. It was built for Italian tax-collector Tomaso Alberti in 1577. The architect was probably Piotr Krasowski. The Lviv Historical Museum has been housed in the Black House since 1926.
The façade is lined with sandstone which has darkened over the years to blackish brown. The front exhibits some fine decorative ornamentation. Jan Lorencowicz, having acquired the house in 1596, added another storey and opened one of the town's first pharmacies on the ground floor. The uppermost storey was added in 1884. Read more...
Lviv's Old Town (Ukrainian: Старе Місто Львова, translit. Stare Misto L’vova; Polish: Stare Miasto we Lwowie) is the historic centre of the city of Lviv, within the Lviv Oblast (province) in Ukraine, recognized as the State Historic-Architectural Sanctuary in 1975. Read more...- The Lwów uprising (Polish: powstanie lwowskie, akcja Burza) was an armed insurrection by the Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) underground forces of the Polish resistance movement in World War II against the Nazi German occupation of the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) in the latter stages of World War II. It began on July 23, 1944 as part of a secret plan to launch the countrywide all-national uprising codenamed Operation Tempest ahead of the Soviet advance on the Eastern Front. The Lwów uprising lasted until July 27 and resulted in the liberation of the city. However, shortly afterwards the Polish soldiers were arrested by the invading Soviets. Some were forced to join the Red Army, others sent to the Gulag camps. The city itself was occupied by the Soviet Union. Read more...
- King Cross Leopolis is a shopping mall located in Lviv, opened on March 26, 2010. With a total area of 116 546 m², it is the largest mall in western Ukraine. Read more...
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Selected images
Lviv satellite view (Sentinel-2,
14 August 2017)Ukrainian low-floor trolleybus Electron T19 on the city street
Lviv's Main Railway Terminal
A room in the
Lviv National Art GalleryThe Lviv Opera and Ballet Theatre, an important cultural centre for residents and visitors
The Galician Sejm (till 1918), since 1920 the Jan Kazimierz University
The Lwów Eaglets, teenage soldiers who fought on the Polish side during the Battle of Lwów
The main building of Lviv National Museum
Aleksander Fredro monument, moved from Lviv to Wrocław, its sister city, after World War II.
The front façade of the Lviv University, the oldest university in Ukraine
A 17th century portrait depicting Knyaz Lev of Galicia-Volhynia with the city of Lviv in the background
Inside the Church of the Transfiguration
A painting by Jan Matejko of King John II Casimir pledging his famous oath in Lwów's Latin Cathedral
The Racławice Panorama opened in 1894
"NeoLAZ-Lemberg" – product of the Lviv Bus Factory on the streets of Lviv
A Lviv tram in the Old Town
Remaining prewar advertisement in the Polish language
Ukrainian Sich Riflemen fought on the Ukrainian side in November 1918. The picture was made by one of the contemporaries of event.
Eastern Trade Fair (Targi Wschodnie), main entrance.
Pikkardiyska Tertsiya – Ukrainian a cappella musical formation
Buildings of the eastern side of Market Square
SoftServe Headquarters in Lviv
Lviv High Castle, fragment of engraving by A. Gogenberg, 17th century
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