Lviv, Ukraine: a brief recent history

In the twentieth century, L’viv…, now a city in Ukraine, experienced war not just once but many times.  Between 1914 and 1947, the city went through seven regime changes and was shelled by Russian, Ukrainian, German, and Soviet artillery and bombed by German and Soviet planes.  In November 1918, Poles and Ukrainians fought one another for control of the city.  Twnety-five years later, both sides were prepared to battle it out again.  During the same period, the city’s Jewish population lived through several pogroms and experienced repeated bouts of anti-Semitic violence up until the time when almost all of Jews of L’viv were murdered by Nazi Germany.  After World War II, the Soviet government forced the Polish population to leave the city…In 1914 half of the city’s population was Roman Catholic (mostly Poles), 28 percent were Jewish, and 18 percent were Greek Catholic (about two-thirds of them Ruthenians/Ukrainians).  By 1947, L’viv had become an almost homogeneously Ukrainian city…Approximately 80 percent of the city’s’ inhabitants had arrived during or after the war.

That is all from p.1 of Christoph Mick’s study of L’viv.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed