'' For the surname, see Lvov family.

Lviv.ogg, L’viv ; see Cities' alternative names for other names) is a city in western Ukraine, the administrative center of the Lviv Oblast (province), and is designated as its own separate raion (district) within the oblast. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine. It has 733,000 inhabitants^* (2001) of which 88% are Ukrainians, 8% Russians and 1% Poles with an additional 200,000 commuting daily from suburbs.

The city is home to many industries, higher learning institutions (University of Lviv, Lviv Polytechnic), a philharmonic orchestra, and the Lviv Opera and Ballet Theatre. The historic city centre is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The city will celebrate its 750th anniversary in September 2006.

Geography

---

Location

Lviv is located at geographical co-ordinates , on the verge of the Roztocze Upland, approximately seventy kilometres from the Polish border. Lviv's altitude averages 289 metres above sea level although there are many hills located within the confines of the city. The city's highest point is Vysokyy Zamok (the High Castle), a hill of 409 metres above sea level.

The old city, surrounded by walls, was located at the foothills of the High Castle and the banks of the river Poltva. In the 13th century the river was full of water, and used for commerce and transportation of goods. In the early 20th century, as the river became polluted, it was covered where it flows through the city. The central street of Lviv, Independence Avenue (Prospect Svobody) is right above the river, as well as the famous Opera House.

Climate

L'viv's climate is moderate continental. The average temperatures are −4 °C (27 °F) in January and +18 °C (65 °F) in June. Average annual rainfall is 660 mm (26 in), with notable water deficit in the summer months. Average of sixty-six cloudy days per year.

History

---

Early history

Recent archaeological excavations show that the area of Lviv has been populated since at least the 5th century. At the dawn of history, the area became incorporated into the Empire of Great Moravia, then became an area of contention between two emerging states: Poland (during the reign of Mieszko I, ruler of the Polans) and the Kievan Rus. Mieszko is thought to have controlled the area from 960 to 980. According to Nestor's chronicle, in 981 this area was conquered by Volodymyr the Great, ruler of Kievan Rus.

However, the city itself was founded in 1256 by King Danylo of the Ruthenian duchy of Halych-Volhynia, and named in honor of his son, Lev. Other sources mention that it was his son himself who founded the city. Thus the toponym might best be translated into English as Leo's lands or Leo's City (hence the Latin name Leopolis).

Lviv is first mentioned in Halych-Volhynian Chronicle from 1256. It soon displaced the town of Halych as the capital of the duchy. In 1323, the Romanovich dynasty (local branch of the Rurik Dynasty) died out. The city was inherited by the heir of the Romanovich dynasty (on his mother's side)—Boleslaus of Masovia (also from the Piast dynasty on his father's side). He took the name of Yuriy and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, but failed to gain the support of the local nobles and was soon poisoned.

After his death in 1340, the rights to Lviv were claimed by his cousin Casimir III of Poland, who successfully invaded the duchy and occupied it by 1349. In 1356 he granted the city with Magdeburg rights which implied that all city issues were to be solved by a city council, elected by the wealthy citizens. This started a period of fast development: among other facilities the Latin Cathedral was built, around the same time a wooden church was built in the place of today's St. George's Cathedral. Also, new self-government attracted a big Armenian community that built its Armenian Cathedral in 1363.

In 1386, this area was directly included into the Polish Crown by Jadwiga of Poland. The city later served as the coronation site of some of the Kings of Poland.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

As a part of Poland (and later Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) Lviv became the capital of the Ruthenian Voivodship, which included five regions: Lviv, Chełm (), Sanok, town of Halych and Przemyśl (). The city was granted the right of transit and started to gain significant profit from the goods transported between the Black Sea and the Baltic. In the following centuries, the city's population grew rapidly and soon Lviv became a multi-ethnic and muli-religious city and an important centre of culture, science and trade.

The city's fortifications were strengthened and Lviv became one of the most important fortresses guarding the Commonwealth from the south-east. Three archbishoprics were once located in the city: Roman Catholic (est. 1375), Greek Catholic and Armenian Catholic. The city was also home to numerous ethnic populations, including Germans, Jews, Italians, Englishmen, Scotsmen and many others. Since the 16th century, the religious mosaic of the city also included strong Protestant communities. By the first half of the 17th century, the city had approximately 25-30 thousand inhabitants. About 30 craft organizations were active by that time, involving well over a hundred different specialities.

Decline of the Commonwealth

In 17th century Lwów was besieged unsuccessfully several times. Constant struggles against invading armies gave it the motto Semper fidelis. In 1649, the city was besieged by the Cossacks under Bohdan Chmielnicki, who seized and destroyed the local castle. However, the Cossacks did not retain the city and withdrew after receiving a ransom. In 1655 the Swedish armies invaded Poland and soon took most of it. Eventually the Polish king Jan II Kazimierz solemnly pronounced his vow to consecrate the country to the protection of the Mother of God and proclaimed Her the Patron and Queen of the lands in his kingdom at Lwów Latin Cathedral in 1656 (Lwów Oath).

The Swedes laid siege to Lwów, but were forced to retreat before capturing it. The following year saw Lwów invaded by the armies of the Transylvanian Duke George I Rákóczi, but the city was not captured. In 1672 Lwów was again besieged by the Turkish army of Mehmed IV, however the Treaty of Buczacz ended the war before the city was taken. In 1675 the city was attacked by the Ottomans and the Tatars, but king John III Sobieski defeated them on August 24 in what is called the Battle of Lwów. In 1704, during the Great Northern War, the city was captured and pillaged for the first time in its history by the armies of Charles XII of Sweden.

Partitions

In 1772, following the First Partition of Poland, the city as "Lemberg" became the capital of the Austrian province, the so-called Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. The official language was changed to German and most of the posts in city's administration were taken by Germans and Czechs, yet the city remained an important centre of both Polish and Ukrainian cultures. Initially the Austrian rule was somewhat liberal. In 1784, the Emperor Joseph II reopened the University. Lectures were held in Latin, German, Polish and (from 1786) also in Ukrainian. Wojciech Bogusławski opened the first public theatre in 1794 and Józef Maksymilian Ossolinski founded in 1817 the Ossolineum, a scientifical institute. Early in the 19th century, the city became the new seat of the primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Kiev, Halych and Rus, the Metropolitan of Lviv.

However, in the beginning of the 19th century the Austrian authorities started a campaign of Germanization. The University was closed in 1805 and re-opened in 1817 as a purely German academy, without much influence over the city's life. Most of other social and cultural organizations were banned as well. The harsh laws imposed by the Habsburg dynasty led to an outbreak of public dissent in 1848. A petition was sent to the Emperor asking him to re-introduce local self-government, education in Polish and Ukrainian and granting Polish with a status of official language.

Most of these pleas were accepted twenty years later: in 1861 a Galician parliament (Sejm Krajowy) was opened and in 1867 Galicia was granted vast autonomy, both cultural and economical. The University was allowed to start lectures in Polish. The province of Galicia became the only part of the former Polish state with some cultural and political freedom, and the city then served as a major Polish political and cultural centre. Similarly, the city also served as an important centre of the Ukrainian patriotic movement and culture. Other parts of Ukraine at that time were part of Russia, and, prior to 1905, all publications in Ukrainian were prohibited there. The city was also granted the right to send delegates to the parliament in Vienna. This motivated many prominent cultural and political leaders to move to the city, which served as a meeting place of Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish and German cultures.

20th century

During World War I the city was captured by the Russian army in September 1914, but was retaken the following year (in June) by Austria-Hungary. With the collapse of the Habsburg Empire at the end of World War I, the local Ukrainian population proclaimed Lviv as the capital of the Western Ukrainian Republic on the November 1st, 1918.

Polish-Ukrainian conflict

The withdrawing Austro-Hungarian and German armies agreed to hand over the city to Ukrainian authorities. However, the same day the Polish population of Lviv started an armed uprising and soon took control over most of the city centre; unable to break into the central areas, Ukrainian forces besieged the city, defended by Polish irregular forces including the Lwów Eaglets. After the Inter-Allied Commission in Paris agreed to leave the city under Polish administration until its future was resolved by a post-war treaty or a referendum, the regular Polish forces reached the city on November 19. However, the heavy fights in the city's vicinity, with several minor cease-fire periods, did not end until July 1919. Both Polish and Ukrainian victims of this conflict are buried at the Lychakivskiy Cemetery. Ashes of one of the unknown soldiers killed in the fighting are buried in the Unknown Soldier Monument in Warsaw.

In the following months, other territories of Galicia controlled by the government of the Western Ukrainian Republic were captured, either by Polish Army advancing from the west, or by the Red Army advancing from the east. Following the agreement with Symon Petlura, the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic decided to enter into a military alliance with Poland and recognized Poland's right to the city and agreed for a border at the Zbruch river in exchange for Polish military assistance against the bolsheviks.

Polish-Soviet War

During the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 the city was attacked by the forces of Aleksandr Yegorov. Since mid-June 1920 the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny was trying to reach the city from the north and east. At the same time Lwów was preparing the defence. The inhabitants raised and fully equipped three regiments of infantry and two regiments of cavalry as well as constructed defensive lines. The city was defended by an equivalent of three Polish divisions aided by one Ukrainian infantry division. Finally after almost a month of heavy fighting on August 16 the Red Army crossed the Bug river and, reinforced by additional 8 divisions of the so called Red Cossacks, started an assault on the city. The fighting occurred with heavy casualties on both sides, but after three days the assault was halted and the Red Army retreated. For the heroic defence the city was awarded with the Virtuti Militari medal.

Interbellum

Following the Peace of Riga the city remained in Poland as the capital of the Lwów Voivodship. The city became one of the most important centres of science and culture of Poland. At the same time, the Polish government reduced the rights of the local Ukrainians, closing down many of the Ukrainian schools. or turning them into bilingual Ukrainian-Polish ones that were, in effect, Polish. Increased Polish settlement reduced the relative percentage of the Ukrainian population in the city, from around 20% in 1910 to less than 12% by 1931. At the university, all Ukrainian departments that had opened during the period of Austrian rule were closed save for one, the 1848 Department of Ruthenian Language and Literature, whose chair position was allowed to remain vacant until 1927 before being filled by an ethnic Pole. Most Ukrainian professors were fired, and entrance of ethnic Ukrainians was restricted; in response an underground university in Lwow, and a Ukrainian Free University in Vienna (later moved to Prague)^* were established . In official documents, the Polish authorities also replaced references to Ukrainians with the old word "Ruthenians", an action that caused many Ukrainians to view that description with distaste.

World War II

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and the German 1st Mountain Division reached the suburbs of Lwów on September 12 and began a siege. The city's garrison was ordered to hold out at all cost since the strategic position prevented the enemy from crossing into the Romanian Bridgehead. Also, a number of Polish troops from Central Poland were trying to reach the city and organise the defence there. Thus a 10 days long defence of the city started and later became known as yet another Battle of Lwów. On September 19 a Polish diversionary attack under General Władysław Langner was launched and was unsuccessful. Soviet troops (part of the forces which had invaded on September 17 under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) replaced the Germans around the city. On the 23rd Langner formally surrendered to Soviet troops under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko.

The Soviet and Nazi forces divided Poland between themselves and a forged plebiscite absorbed the Soviet half of Poland, including Lwów, into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Initially, a large part of the Ukrainian population who lived in the interwar Poland cheered the Soviet takeover whose stated goal was to protect the Ukrainian population in the area.invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the NKVD spent a week executing prisoners held in the Brygidki and Zamarstynów prisons, where up to a few thousand were killed.

Since the beginning of the German occupation of the city, the situation of the city's inhabitants became tragic. After being subject to deadly pogroms, the Jewish inhabitants of the area were rushed into a newly-created ghetto and then mostly sent to various German concentration camps. The Polish and smaller Ukrainian populations of the city were also subject to harsh policies, which resulted in a number of mass executions both in the city and in the Janów camp. Among the first to be murdered were the professors of the city's universities and other members of Polish intelligentsia. Initially, a great part of Ukrainian population considered the German troops as liberators after the two years of Soviet regime, as once many Jewish and Ukrainian inhabitants had welcomed the Soviets as their liberators from the rule of the nationalist Second Polish Republic. Germans were associated with old Austrian times, the happiest ones in comparison to the later Polish and Soviet periods. On June 30, 1941, the first day of the German occupation of the city, one of the wings of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) declared restoration of the independent Ukrainian state. In a few days, the initiators of this action, Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko and others, were arrested by Nazi Einsatzgruppe and sent to Nazi concentration camps, where both of Bandera's brothers were executed. The policy of the occupying power turned quickly harsh towards Ukrainians as well, the Ukrainian nationalists were driven underground; from that time forward, they fought against the Nazis, but continued also to fight against Poles and Soviet forces (see Ukrainian Insurgent Army).

As the Red Army was nearing the city in 1944, on July 21 the local leadership of the Polish resistance Home Army ordered all Polish forces to rise in an armed uprising (see also Operation Tempest). After four days of the city fights and the advance of the Red Army in the final phase of the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation the city was returned to the Soviet Union . As in the previous takeover the Soviet authorities quickly turned hostile to the city's Poles (including the members of the Polish anti-fascist resistance).

=Lviv pogroms and the Holocaust

= Before the war, Lviv had the third-largest Jewish population in Poland, which swelled further to over 200,000 Jews as war refugees entered the city. Immediately after the Germans entered the city, Einsatzgruppen and civil collaborants organized a massive pogrom, which they claimed was in retaliation for the NKVD's earlier killings (though Jews were also killed during the NKVD purge). Many Holocaust scholars attribute much of the killing to the Ukrainian nationalists. However the killers' actual political orientation and relation to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is still subject to debate.July 25, 1941, a second pogrom, called "Petliura Days" after the Symon Petliura, was organized; nearly 2,000 more Jews were killed in Lviv, mostly shot in groups by civilian collaborators after being marched to the Jewish cemetery or to Lunecki prison.

The Lviv Ghetto was established after the pogroms, holding around 120,000 Jews, most of whom were deported to the Belzec extermination camp or killed locally during the following two years. Following the pogroms, Einsatzgruppen killings, harsh conditions in the ghetto, and deportation to the death camps, including the Janowska labor camp located on the outskirts of the city, resulted in almost the complete annihilation of the Jewish population. By the time that the Soviet forces reached Lviv in 1944 driving out the Nazi occupation, only 200–300 Jews remained.

Simon Wiesenthal (later known as a Nazi-hunter) was one of the most famous Jews of Lviv to survive the war, though he was transported to a concentration camp, rather than remaining in the city. Many city residents tried to assist and hide the Jews hunted by the Nazis (despite the death penalty imposed for such acts). Wiesenthal's memoir, The Murderers Amongst Us, describes how he was saved by a Ukrainian policeman named Bodnar. Ukrainians and other Lvivans hid thousands of Jews, many of the were later recognized as Righteous Gentiles. A large effort in saving the members of the Jewish community was organized by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky.

Post-war Soviet period

After the war, the area remained as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Most of the remaining Polish population was expelled to the Polish territories gained from Germany (especially to present day Wrocław) whose German population was expelled or fled in fear of Soviet repression.

Migrants from Ukrainian-speaking rural areas around the city, as well as from other parts of the Soviet Union arrived to fullfill the need of the city's rapidly growing industry. This population transfer altered the traditional ethnic composition of the city, which was already drastically changed as Polish, Jewish and German population was displaced or murdered.

With Russification being a general Soviet policy in post-war Ukraine, in Lviv it was combined with the disestablishment of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (see History of Christianity in Ukraine) at the state-sponsored synod of Lviv, which agreed to transfer all parishes to the Russian Orthodox Church. However, after the death of Stalin, Soviet cultural policies were relaxed, allowing western Ukraine and Lviv, its main centre, to become a major hub of Ukrainian culture. (see "Soviet rule" in Ukrainian language history).

In the 1950s and '60s, the city went through significant growth in both population and size. A number of prominent plants and factories were established or moved from eastern parts of the USSR. This resulted in partial Russification of the city and some loss of its western flavour. Among the most famous were the bus factory (L'vivsky Avtomobil'ny Zavod), which produced most of the buses used in the entire Soviet Union and employed upwards of 30,000, TV factory "Zavod Elektron" which made the most popular brand of the television sets in the country, the front-end loader factory (Zavod Avto-Pogruzchik), the shoe factory (Obuvnaya Fabrika Progress), confectionery Svitoch, and many more. Each of these employed tens of thousands of workers and were among the largest employers in the region. Most of them survive until today, although economic difficulties put a drain on their production figures.

In the period of Soviet liberalization of the mid-to-end 1980s until the early 1990s (see Glasnost and Perestroika) the city became the centre of Rukh (People's Movement of Ukraine), the political movement for Ukrainian autonomy within USSR and Ukrainian independence.

Independent Ukraine

Today Lviv remains one of the main centres of Ukrainian culture with much of the nation's political class originating from the area.

Government

---

Administrative division

Lviv is divided in 6 distinct entities called raions with their own administrative bodies:

• Halyts'ky (Галицький район)
• Zaliznychny (Залізничний район)
• Lychakivs'ky (Личаківський район)
• Sykhivsky (Сихівський район)
• Frankivs'ky (Франківський район)
• Shevchenkivs'ky (Шевченківський район)

Notable suburbs are:

• Vynnyky (місто Винники)
• Briukhovychi (селище Брюховичі)
• Rudne (селище Рудне)

Public Transportation

---

Buses

As in most Ukrainian cities, the public bus network is not well-developed and the number of lines is limited. A cheap alternative to the public transport are the "marshrutky", which are small private-run mini-vans/mini-buses cruising around the city and the suburbs. Marshrutky do not have any fixed stops nor timetables, yet their services are relatively cheap, fast and efficient. The marshrutky also run on suburban lines to most towns of the region including the line to Shehyni (Шегині) at the Polish border.

Tramways

The first tramway lines were opened on May 5, 1880. On May 31, 1894 the last horse-powered line was electrified. In 1922 the tramways were switched to right-hand-side system. After World War II and the annexation of the city by the Soviet Union several lines were closed for service, yet most of the tramway infrastructure was preserved. However, many of the tram stops were cancelled and currently an average distance between them exceeds 2 kilometres.

Currently the Lviv tramway operator runs approximately 220 cars on 75 kilometres of tracks. Most of the tracks are in a very bad shape and so are the trams themselves. Most of the trams are of KT4 type, produced by the czechoslovak ČKD-Works. Newer T4+T4 are operating only on line 2. Pre-war Gothaer Waggonfabrik cars (built after 1910) are used for maintenance and utility purposes.

Trolleybuses

After the war and the expulsion of the majority of the city's inhabitants, the city started to grow rapidly. This was due to an influx of evacuees returning from Russia when the war ended, and the program of development of heavy industry which was vigorously pursued by the Soviet Government. The latter included, in some cases, transplanting entire factories from Ural region and other far away places into newly "freed" (acquired) territories of the USSR, including Lvov, Baltic republics, and so on.

The cancelled tramway lines in the city centre were replaced with trolleybusses on November 27, 1952. In the later period new lines were opened for communication with the blocks-of-flats areas at the city outskirts. Currently the trolleybus network runs 200, mostly of the 1960s 14Tr type.

Railway

Modern Lviv retains its nodal position, with nine railways converging on the city. There are many destinations, both within Ukraine and international. Most cities in Ukraine can be reached from the main train station. Due to the proximity of the Polish-Ukrainian border there are several trains going to Poland (mostly via Przemyśl and Rava Ruska) for example the luxurious Kiev-Kraków link.

For more details see: Lviv Railway Station Website

Airports

Not only does Lviv have railway connections, but Lviv also has an air transport. The Lviv International Airport lies only 6 km from the city center. The airport's website can be found here: Lviv Airport Website

This airport was the stage for world's worst air show crash. On the 27th of July in 2002 (Saturday) an SU-27 fighter jet crashed into a crowd of spectators, killing 83, including 23 children, and injuring more than 115 people. ^*

Culture

---

Museums and art galleries

There are many museums and art galleries in Lviv, most notable are the National Gallery, Museum of Religion (formerly Museum of Atheism) and National Museum (formerly Museum of Industry).

Sport

Historically Lviv was one of the most important centres of sports in Central Europe. The first professional football club, Czarni Lwów, was opened in 1903, and the first stadium was opened in 1913. Currently L'viv is home to several major professional football clubs and a number of smaller clubs. Currently the only one playing in the first division (Ukrainian Premier League) is the FC Karpaty Lviv (founded in 1963).

Like most of Ukrainian sport clubs, those based in Lviv have also branches that specialize in other disciplines. The following lists the major sport clubs and the discipline the club is famous for:

• Karpaty Lviv (football)

• Bogatir Lviv (Judo)

Films and books featuring Lviv

Portions of Schindler's List were shot in the Lviv city center, as it was less expensive to do so than in Krakow. Parts of the Austrian road-movie Blue Moon were shot in various parts of Lviv.

Education

---

L'viv is one of the most important education centres of Ukraine. It is home to three major universities and a number of smaller schools of higher education. There are 8 institutes of the National Science Academy of Ukraine, more than 40 research institutes, 3 academies and 11 state-owned colleges.

The most important are:

• University of Lviv (Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка)
• Lviv Polytechnic (Національний університет "Львівська політехніка")
• Ukrainian Catholic University (Український Католицький Університет)

Tourist attractions

---

• the Old Town
  • Ploscha Rynok Market Square; 185,000 square metres.
    • Black House
  • Armenian Cathedral
  • Greek Cathedral
  • Latin Cathedral
  • St. Yura church
  • Dominican Abbey
  • Boim Chapel
• Vysoky Zamok hill overlooking the historical centre
  • Union of Lublin mound
• Lychakivskiy Cemetery

Sister Cities

---

United StatesCanadaPoland

City	Country	Year of Signing
Corning, New York	1987
Winnipeg	1973
Wrocław	--

References

---

Inline:

General:

See also

---

• List of famous Leopolitans
• Polish football clubs in Lviv (pl.): Pogoń Lwów, Czarni Lwów, Lechia Lwów

External links

---

In English

• Lviv City Council
• Directory of Lviv Related Web Sites
• Lviv and Western Ukraine Travel and Tourism Website
• Lviv Tourist Information and Travel Guide
• Lviv English Speaking Forum
• State of Environment in L'viv institution
• Lviv Ghetto
• Lemberg—Jewish Encyclopedia
• "Chapter 20: Lvov", from Alfred M. de Zayas The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1979, pp. 214-227. The Lviv Massacre.
• The elusive Lviv Massacre
• Webcam view on the Lviv Opera—requires MS Windows]
• Ivano Franko University of Lviv
• Lviv Photogallery

In Ukrainian

• L'viv's Search
• Business in L'viv
• Official site FK Karpaty L'viv
• L'viv telephone directory(1)
• L'viv telephone directory(2)
• Community "lviv" in LiveJournal
• Community "misto_lviv" in LiveJournal

In Polish

• Guidebook to history of Polish Lwów
• Guidebook to contemporary L'viv
• Lwów 1929 address book

In Russian

• L'vov's Search
• L'viv emigrants site
• L'viv forum

Archaeological sites in Ukraine | Lviv | Recipients of Virtuti Militari | World Heritage Sites in Ukraine | Polish historical voivodships (14th century-1795) | Polish historical voivodships (1921-1939)

Лвов | Lvov | Lviv | Lemberg | Lviv | Lviv | Lvovo | Lviv | 리비우 | Lavov | Lviv | Leopoli | לבוב | Leopolis | Ļviva | Lvovas | Lviv | Lviv | リヴィフ | Lviv | Lwów | Lviv | Lviv | Львов | Ľvov | Lviv | Lviv | Львів | 利沃夫