Historical information, finds, and locations concerning Galicia’s different nationalities, famous figures, movements, and institutions, as well as some of my personal experiences and discoveries as I continue to research my ancestors who lived in this region and the context of their lives.
By Chris Wilkinson The old city center of Lviv seems to have it all. Medieval and Baroque architectural wonders, a magnificent Neo-Renaissance opera house, cobblestone streets, fashionable coffee houses and eye popping, colorful buildings. This ensemble was deemed worthy of UNESCO World Heritage Site status. The cliché that you have […]
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The fire service of the city of Lviv was organized on January 4, 1849, on the initiative of Mayor Karl Göpflingen-Bergendorf, and is one of the oldest organized fire brigade structures on the territory of present-day Ukraine. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, to further improve the city’s […]
By Chris Wilkinson A good argument could be made that obsession is little more than ambition taken to extremes, ambition to do something way beyond what has ever been done before. Obsessions by their very nature are all consuming. Thus obsessives find their lives for better or worse (usually worse) […]
By Chris Wilkinson In the popular imagination, a classic nineteenth-century duel consists of two men standing back to back. They begin stepping away from one another, fifteen slow, but steady paces, suddenly they turn to fire their pistols. The first shooter has a near miss. A cold, terrifying fear descends […]
By Chris Wilkinson There is an odd symmetry to the fact that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life and music is most often identified with Vienna and Austria, while his son, Franz Xaver Mozart’s musical career took place in the obscurity of Galicia and Lviv. The son headed off to the most […]
Borders and Districts of Galicia Galicia as a geopolitical entity was created in 1772 with the establishment of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Habsburg Monarchy’s (later the Austrian Empire’s) easternmost crownland. The capital of the province was Lemberg (today Lviv). A century and a half later, in 1918, […]
By Chris Wilkinson It was a voice destined to be heard by millions, a siren’s call that was heard across the world. In opera houses from Odesa to Ottawa, Naples to New York she performed before adoring crowds entranced by the strains of her sonorous vocals. She filled the halls […]
The Kurkowe Confraternity (later the Riflemen Society) arose out of the need to defend Lviv: in wartime it engaged in the defense of the city, while in times of peace it ensured citizens were trained in shooting. In later centuries, it became an elite club, its members being the city’s most […]
The railway first came to Lviv (Lemberg) in 1861, connecting the city to Przemyśl as part of the connection from Krakow. In 1866 a railway was built connecting Lviv to Chernivtsi (Czernowitz). As a result, the capitals of two Austro-Hungarian crownlands Galicia and Bukovina were connected not only to each other, […]
By Chris Wilkinson Oil, that vital resource the modern world needs to exist, does not immediately come to mind when one thinks of Eastern Europe. Oil reserves are most frequently associated with the Middle East, United States, Canada, the North Sea, Mexico and Venezuela among others. Of course the elephant […]
By Eugenia Senik Translated by Svitlana Bregman Everyone has his or her own Buchach. There are people who were born here and still live in the town. There are those who took their first steps on this land, but upon learning to walk fast and nimbly went far beyond their hometown. […]
