By Chris Wilkinson The majority of churches in Lviv’s Old Town seem to have one thing in common, namely that their wooden predecessors were reduced to ashes by fire. They were then rebuilt in stone, a material that could withstand both the ravages of fire and time. On multiple occasions, […]

By Eugeniusz Misiło for Nasze Słowo In April 2019, the entire Christian world was shocked by the fire in Notre Dame — the Gothic cathedral in Paris. From everywhere came words of compassion and solidarity with France and the French. Including from Poland and Ukraine. The calculation of losses and […]

The Eastern Galician countryside — most of which today is located in western Ukraine — is dotted with abandoned Roman Catholic churches (kościoły) that today stand as reminders of the centuries-old Polish communities that once lived there. Before the war, Roman Catholic Poles made up 21% of the population of […]

This post kicks off a series of articles Forgotten Galicia will be publishing about Ukrainian societies and cooperatives in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The natural place to begin is with the Prosvita society — the oldest civic organization in Galicia that was created to spread education and […]

You can experience the history and culture of Lviv and Galicia through its many museums. Visiting the different exhibits is not only a great way to learn about the region, but also a great opportunity to visit some of the city’s most beautiful and historic sites. Open-Air Museums Immerse yourself […]

In the part of Galicia that is today Ukraine, dating certain remnants of the past can be relatively easy due to the language of the inscription — anything in Polish dates from before WWII. On the other hand, in a city like Przemyśl where Polish was and still is the […]

It was in Przemyśl, a small Galician city situated today in Poland near the Ukrainian border, that I first discovered what a boot scraper was and where my love for these remnants of the past began. I had first seen these odd metal objects in Lviv, but hadn’t given them […]

Today a small city in eastern Poland, Przemyśl (Peremyshl in Ukrainian transliteration) was once one of the major cities in Galicia. Przemyśl’s population consisted of many nationalities, including Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Germans, and Czechs. According to the Austrian census of 1830, the city was home to 7,538 people of whom […]

It is not uncommon in Przemyśl, Poland, to find two, three, or even four different street signs on one building—dating to different periods and regimes: the Austrian Empire, interwar Poland, Communist Poland, and modern Poland. This is because in Poland there was never a campaign to remove Polish inscriptions from […]

Zakopane Style (Styl zakopiański) architecture is inspired by the folk art and architecture of Poland’s highland region known as Podhale. The style was conceived in the 1890s by architect Stanislaw Witkiewicz and named after the region’s main town — Zakopane. The Zakopane Style combines wooden framing and reinforced stone structures, […]