A hundred and fifty years — from the unification of the Galician and Volhynian principalities by Roman Mstyslavovych in 1199 to the annexation of Galicia by the Polish king Casimir III in 1349 — to the west of the ruins of Kyiv, which had fallen to the Mongols, the second great epoch of the statehood of Rus' endured. The Galicia-Volhynia state received the royal crown from the hands of a papal legate, founded Lviv, held the line against the Horde, the Lithuanians, the Hungarians and the Poles, gave Europe the first "King of Rus'" — and fell when its last prince was poisoned by his own boyars. On its ruins Western Ukraine has grown, which for six centuries already has carried the memory of Danylo's lost kingdom.
The heir of Kyiv: Hrushevsky's "Ordinary Scheme"
When in 1240 Batu wiped Kyiv from the face of the earth, ancient Rus' did not vanish — it shifted its centre to the west. Mykhailo Hrushevsky, in the classic article "The Ordinary Scheme of Rus' History" (1904), demonstrated: the immediate political and cultural heir of Kyivan Rus' was not the Vladimir-Suzdal land, but precisely the Galicia-Volhynia principality. It preserved the Rus' dynasty of the Rurikids, Cyrillic literacy, Orthodoxy of the Byzantine rite and the chancery tradition of the Kyivan-Rus' age.
Galicia and Volhynia lay on the trade routes from East to West: through them by caravan went amber, salt, wax and hides. Peremyshl and Cherven are mentioned in the chronicles already from the 10th century. It was here — on the forest-steppe borderland of Rus' and Poland — that for centuries the forces gathered which, after the fall of Kyiv, would take upon themselves the burden of the statehood of Rus'.
1199: Roman Mstyslavovych unites Galicia and Volhynia
In 1199, when the line of the Galician Rostyslavychi died out, the Volhynian prince Roman Mstyslavovych entered Halych and joined under his hand the two richest principalities of South-Western Rus'. Thus the Galicia-Volhynia state was born — the most powerful union on the lands of Rus' of its age. The Polish chronicler Wincenty Kadlubek called Roman the "tsar of all Rus'."
Roman was the grandson of the Kyivan prince Iziaslav Mstyslavovych on his mother's side and of Volodymyr Monomakh on his father's line — thus he held in his hands both lines of hereditary right to Kyiv. In 1202—1203 he sat for a time in Kyiv as well, but he chose Halych for his capital, since it was from here that the road into Europe opened — to Hungary, Bohemia, the German lands.
The terror of the Cumans and intervention in Polish affairs
The military fame of Roman thundered from the Carpathians to the Don. In 1202 he carried out a great campaign against the Cumans deep into the steppe and freed hundreds of Rus' captives — for which he received from the people the surname "Autocrat." The chronicler compared him with a lion driving the beasts: "he leapt upon them as a lion, was angered as a lynx, destroyed as a crocodile."
No less actively did Roman intervene in the Polish internecine wars. He supported Leszek the White against his brother in 1202 and set him on the throne of Cracow. The Polish princes recognised the authority of the Galicia-Volhynia ruler; Hungary and Byzantium negotiated with him as with an equal. Pope Innocent III saw in him a potential ally against the schismatics and heretics of the East.
Negotiations with Pope Innocent III
Around 1204, an embassy from Pope Innocent III came to Roman with a proposal to accept Catholicism in exchange for a royal crown. The pope promised "to defend him with the sword of Saint Peter" against the Hungarians and the Poles. Roman, according to Kadlubek's account, heard out the legate, drew his own sword and asked: "Is the sword of Saint Peter of this kind? While I have this one, I have need of no other, for with it I win for myself my lands."
This is the first documented instance of negotiations between the papal see and a prince of Rus' on a church union — half a century earlier than the well-known union of Danylo Romanovych. Roman's refusal outlined the political line to which his descendants held: diplomatic openness to the West while preserving the Byzantine rite and Orthodox identity.
1205: the death at Zawichost
On 19 June 1205, Roman, having intervened in a new Polish war on the side of one set of princes against another, fell into an ambush at Zawichost on the Vistula. The chronicle relates that the prince with a small retinue had detached himself from the army to hunt, was surrounded by Polish knights and perished in the fight. The body was brought to Volodymyr-Volynskyi and buried in the princely vault.
The death of Roman was a catastrophe for his state. The widowed princess was left with two small sons — Danylo, who was only four years old, and Vasylko, who could not yet walk. Upon the united Galicia-Volhynia state the neighbours at once fell: Hungary claimed Halych, Poland — Volodymyr, while the boyars themselves had no wish to endure a strong princely power.
The time of troubles: boyars, Hungarians and Mstyslav the Bold
For thirty years after the death of Roman, the Galicia-Volhynia land passed in unbroken war. The Galician boyars — the wealthiest and most insolent of the boyar oligarchies of Rus' — called to the throne now the Hungarian prince Coloman (crowned "King of Galicia" in 1215), now Polish princes, now their own candidates. In 1213 the Galician boyar Volodyslav Kormylchych — an unheard-of case! — sat himself on the princely throne, becoming the only boyar-prince in the history of Rus'.
The young Danylo was now sent abroad to the Hungarian court, now called back to rule, only to be driven out again. His most distinguished rival was his father-in-law — Mstyslav the Bold, a prince of the Novgorodian branch of the Rurikids, who sat in Halych in 1219 and held the city for ten years. Only after the death of Mstyslav in 1228 was Danylo able to begin the methodical reconquest of his father's heritage.
1223: the young Danylo at the Kalka
The twenty-two-year-old Danylo took part in the fateful Battle of the Kalka of 31 May 1223 — the first meeting of the Rus' princes with the Mongol army. He led the Volhynian regiment within the combined Rus' forces that marched against the tumens of Jebe and Subedei. The chronicle notes that Danylo fought in the foremost ranks, was gravely wounded in the chest, but through his youth did not notice the wound until the blood ran down his armour.
The battle ended in the greatest catastrophe of Rus' history: six princes perished, among them Mstyslav of Kyiv, and from every ten fighters one returned. Danylo survived, fled beyond the Dnipro. This first experience of meeting with the nomad empire remained in his memory forever — and twenty years on it would determine his strategy in the time of his own rule.
The gradual reconquest of the patrimony (1228—1238)
After the death of Mstyslav the Bold, Danylo step by step recovered his father's heritage. First he finally established himself in Volhynia, joining it with his brother Vasylko in a strong dual-rule union. Then, leaning on Volodymyr, he began the struggle for Galicia — now defeating the boyars, now again withdrawing before Hungarian-Polish interventions.
The decisive year was 1238: Danylo with his army entered Halych and drove out from there the Hungarian-boyar party for good. The chronicle conveys the scene: when the prince entered the city, the people came out to meet him with crosses and banners, and he went into the Cathedral of the Dormition and fell prostrate before the icon of the Mother of God. Thirty-three years after his father's death, the Galicia-Volhynia state was again united.
1238: the Battle of Drohiczyn
In the same 1238 Danylo carried out one of the most brilliant military operations of his career — the rout of the Teutonic Order at Drohiczyn on the Western Bug. The crusader knights, who had established themselves in Prussia, tried to extend their power onto the lands of Rus' and seized this border city. Danylo, as the chronicle writes, "had great sorrow in his heart" upon learning of the seizure — and at once set out on campaign.
The battle was short but decisive: the Rus' army took Drohiczyn by storm and captured in person the master Bruno. The Teutonic Order never again tried to expand eastward through Drohiczyn — this victory halted the Catholic pressure on Western Rus' for almost a century and secured Danylo's reputation as a defender of the Orthodox faith.
The founding of Kholm — the new capital
On a fortified hill above the river Uherka, which in Rus' was called "Kholm" (the Hill), Danylo laid out his new capital. The chronicle describes the building in detail: the prince himself walked around the hill, supervised the works, brought with him masons, carpenters, glaziers and casters — among them were masters from Kyiv, Hungary and even the German lands. Within the fortress rose the stone "Danylo Tower" — a donjon which stood firm even through the Mongol invasions.
In Kholm stood white-stone churches — of Saint John Chrysostom, of the Mother of God, of Cosmas and Damian — adorned with frescoes, mosaics and coloured glass. Hither Danylo transferred the relics of saints, the library, the treasury. Why precisely Kholm? It lay apart from both the Galician and the Volhynian boyars; on a new site the prince could build a centralised monarchy, without looking back at the old oligarchies.
1240: the Mongol invasion
Less than a year after the unification of the state, Batu rolled in upon Rus'. In the autumn of 1240 the Mongol tumens crossed the Dnipro and advanced on Kyiv, which fell on 6 December 1240. From there the hordes poured further westward: they burned Kamianets, Kolodiazhyn, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, Halych. Kholm Batu did not take — the mighty walls of the Danylo Tower stood firm under the blow of the siege engines.
Danylo himself in the time of the invasion was in Poland and Hungary, seeking aid against the nomads. Returning at the end of 1241, he found his state laid waste. "It is grievous to look upon Rus'," wrote the chronicler. But Danylo did not break: he set about rebuilding the cities, levied a new druzhyna from the young, and did not stand before the fact that he must now acknowledge the suzerainty of the khan.
17 August 1245: the Battle of Yaroslav
While Rus' was recovering from the Mongol blow, the Hungarians and Poles tried to take advantage of the moment. The Hungarian king Béla IV supported the claims of the Chernihiv prince Rostyslav, his son-in-law, to Galicia. A combined Hungarian-Polish-Chernihiv army advanced into Rus' and laid siege to Yaroslav on the San.
On 17 August 1245, Danylo with his brother Vasylko came up with his army to Yaroslav and gave decisive battle. The chronicle describes the fight in detail: Danylo's feigned manoeuvre, the strike of the heavy cavalry on the flank, the panic of the Hungarian knights. The victory was complete — the Hungarians fled, Rostyslav scarcely escaped. The Battle of Yaroslav was the greatest military triumph of Danylo, which finally established him as master of the Galicia-Volhynia state.
1246: "I drink the black milk of the Tatars"
Soon after the victory at Yaroslav, an embassy came to Danylo from Batu with the demand: "Give up Halych." This meant appearing in person at the khan's court at Sarai and swearing vassalage. To refuse meant to draw down a new invasion. In 1246 Danylo set out for the Volga — on a humiliating pilgrimage, which he himself later described as the bitterest day of his life.
Batu received him, as the chronicle wrote, "with honour," but forced him to undergo all the rituals of submission: to pass between two fires, to bow to idols, to drink from the khan's hand a cup of the "black milk of the Tatars" — mares' kumys, which in the Rus' tradition was held to be unclean. "O evil honour of the Tatars!" exclaimed the chronicler. Danylo returned with the patent for his princely rule — and a hidden plan to prepare for the struggle.
1253: the coronation — King of Rus'
In negotiations with Pope Innocent IV, Danylo agreed to a royal crown in exchange for the promise of a church union and Western aid against the Mongols. In 1253, in the city of Drohiczyn, which had recently been returned to Rus', the papal legate Opizo of Messina solemnly crowned Danylo Romanovych with the royal crown. Thus appeared the "King of Rus'" (rex Russiae) — a new international-legal status for the East Slavic state.
The crown was a true royal one — with arms, a diadem, a sword and an orb. However, the promised crusade against the Horde never took place: the Western states were playing their own game, and the pope himself lacked the strength to raise Europe. Danylo did not fulfil the promise of the union either — he remained in the Byzantine rite. But his descendants inherited the royal title and bore it for centuries, down to the very fall of the state.
Around 1256: the founding of Lviv
Around 1256, Danylo founded on a high hill above the river Poltva, in the very heart of Galicia, a new city and named it in honour of his elder son Lev. The first written mention of Lviv in the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle concerns a fire of 1256 which destroyed the wooden buildings — therefore by that moment the city already existed as a significant centre.
Lviv was conceived as a trading and defensive stronghold on the main road from Kyiv to Europe. The city was settled by Ruthenians, Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Tatars and Karaites — each community had its own quarter and church. On the hill rose the High Castle, at its foot — the princely court and the church of Saint Nicholas. Seven centuries have passed — and Lviv has remained the capital of the Ukrainian West and a living monument to the age of Danylo.
1254: successful resistance to Quremsa
The most daring attempt of Danylo to throw off the Tatar yoke fell in the years 1254—1255. The khan Quremsa, commander of the right wing of the Horde, demanded of the Galicia-Volhynia prince the surrender of the border fortresses. Danylo refused and set out on campaign — he freed the Bolokhov land, regained control of the Ponyzzia, cleared the Kyiv region of the Tatar baskaks.
The resistance to Quremsa was successful — the weak commander could not gather sufficient forces to punish the disobedient. For two years the Galicia-Volhynia state in fact freed itself from dependence on the Horde. Danylo built new fortresses — Kholm, Kremenets, Danyliv, Stizhok, Lviv — as a system of defence in case of the return of the Mongols. This system would become his greatest service as a commander and statesman.
1259: Burundai and the dismantling of the fortresses
The patience of the Horde was at an end. In 1259, in the place of the weak Quremsa came the merciless Burundai with a great army. He appeared in the Galicia-Volhynia land not as a conqueror, but as an "ally" — and set before Danylo and Vasylko a cruel ultimatum: to dismantle the walls of all fortified cities, if the princes wished to keep their power and their lives.
This was a political check and mate. To resist meant to draw down a new invasion on the scale of 1240. Danylo, as the chronicle writes, "was in great sorrow" — and had to agree. The princes themselves with their own hands tore down the ramparts and burned the wooden walls of Volodymyr, Lutsk, Lviv, Kremenets, Danyliv. Only the Kholm Tower stood firm — its stone walls proved beyond the strength of the destroyers. The idea of an independent kingdom of Rus' was shattered.
1264: the death of Danylo at Kholm
The last years Danylo lived in heavy reflection: all that he had built could fall at a single blow of the Horde. In 1264 the great king died in his capital Kholm at the age of sixty-three, having ruled for almost fifty years. The chronicler sums up his life with the words: "King Danylo was a good man, brave and wise, who did not lie in his court, but went out himself."
Danylo was buried in the Cathedral of the Mother of God at Kholm, which he had founded. Unfortunately, neither the cathedral nor the tomb has come down to our days — the city was burned several times in the later wars. The heritage was divided: brother Vasylko took all of Volhynia for himself; to the sons of Danylo Galicia remained. The eldest, Lev, received the largest portion, with its capital in Lviv.
Lev Danylovych: the capital at Lviv and the annexation of Transcarpathia
Lev Danylovych (reigned 1264—1301) transferred the capital of Galicia from old Halych to the newly-built Lviv — and from that time it was Lviv that became the centre of Galician life. Lev continued his father's policy of manoeuvring between West and East: he married the Hungarian princess Constance, kept up an alliance with the Tatar khans, actively interfered in Polish and Hungarian affairs.
His most important achievement was the annexation of Transcarpathia — Lev took advantage of a dynastic crisis in Hungary and around 1280 took possession of part of the Peremyshl region and the lands beyond the Carpathians, establishing for a time the rule of Rus' at Mukachevo and Uzhhorod. Lev also founded or rebuilt dozens of churches — by legend, in Lviv he personally tended a garden in the courtyard of the High Castle. Lev died around 1301, having taken the tonsure before death in the monastery of Saint Onuphrius.
Yuri I Lvovych: "King of Rus'" (rex Russiae)
The son of Lev, Yuri I Lvovych (reigned 1301—1308), again united under his hand the whole Galicia-Volhynia state — after the Volhynian line of the Vasylkovychi died out. At the same time he assumed the title "King of Rus', Prince of Volodymyria" (rex Russiae, princeps Lodomeriae) — the very same title with which his great-grandfather Danylo was crowned. On his gold seal — a mounted knight with a sword on one side, a lion under a crown on the other.
Under the rule of Yuri the Galicia-Volhynia state attained its greatest territorial extent: from the Carpathians to Polissia, from the San to the Upper Dnister. The chronicles have not survived in full, so of Yuri I's activity little is known — but the European chronicles call him "a mighty and good king." He died around 1308, leaving the state in the hands of two sons — Andriy and Lev II.
1303: the Galician Metropolitanate
One of the most important initiatives of Yuri I was the founding of the Galician Metropolitanate in 1303. Until that time all the lands of Rus' had been subject to the Kyivan Metropolitan, who after the Mongol invasion dwelt now at Vladimir-on-the-Klyazma, now at Moscow. Yuri turned to the Patriarch of Constantinople Athanasius I and obtained the separation of the Galicia-Volhynia diocese into a distinct metropolitanate with its seat at Halych.
This was the first attempt at East Slavic autocephaly — half a millennium before the establishment of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church. The first Galician metropolitan was Niphon. The metropolitanate was now active, now abolished (Constantinople more than once suppressed it under pressure from the Muscovite princes), but it did not finally disappear — its tradition was revived in the 19th century by the Greek Catholic Church, which to this day carries the memory of the Galician Metropolitanate of Yuri I.
Around 1323: the death of Andriy and Lev II — the end of the male line
The sons of Yuri I — Andriy Yuriyovych (Prince of Volhynia) and Lev II Yuriyovych (Prince of Galicia) — ruled together, in the spirit of the old "duumvirate" of Danylo and Vasylko. They maintained trading and political ties with the Teutonic Order, acted as allies of Poland, conducted active defence against the Tatars. In 1316 and 1320 they confirmed treaties of alliance with the Prussian knights.
Around 1323 both brothers perished in battle with the Lithuanians of Prince Gediminas (by another version — at the hands of a Tatar army). Their death was a catastrophe of dynastic scale: with them the male line of the Romanovychi, which went back to Roman Mstyslavovych himself in 1199, was cut off. For the first time in a hundred and twenty-four years, the Galicia-Volhynia throne stood without a lawful Rus' heir.
1325: Boleslaw Troydenovych — Yuri II
The boyar council of the Galicia-Volhynia state stood before a difficult choice: to invite a new prince from outside. They chose Boleslaw Troydenovych — a Mazovian Piast, the nephew of the last Romanovychi on his mother's side (his mother Maria Yuriyivna was the daughter of Yuri I). Boleslaw came to Volodymyr and in 1325 received Orthodoxy under the name Yuri II Boleslaw, by this taking on the dynastic continuity of the Rus' throne.
Boleslaw-Yuri II ruled for fourteen years (1325—1340). He issued charters in Cyrillic, minted coins with the lion arms, kept his court after the Rus' fashion. But in his soul he remained a Catholic of Polish culture: he surrounded himself with Polish and German advisers, encouraged the Catholic clergy, issued privileges to German and Polish merchants. By this he aroused the hatred of the Rus' boyars.
21 March 1340: the boyars poison Yuri II
The pro-Catholic sympathies of Yuri II and the admission of foreigners to power filled the cup of the boyars' patience. At an assembly in Volodymyr-Volynskyi it was decided to remove the prince. On 21 March 1340, at a princely feast, the boyars poured poison into the cup of Yuri II Boleslaw. He died in torment, leaving no lawful heir.
This was the final act of the Galicia-Volhynia drama. With the murder of Yuri II, no one remained on the throne — neither of the line of the Romanovychi, nor of the Piasts, nor of the Tatar appointees. The boyars understood: a lawful sovereign must be found quickly, or the state would fall to the stronger neighbour — Poland, Lithuania or Hungary. Thus began the war for the Galician inheritance, which lasted for almost ten years.
1340—1349: "Detko's republic"
After the murder of Yuri II, power in Galicia was in fact taken over by the boyars at the head of whom stood Dmytro Detko, starosta of Peremyshl. He assumed for himself the title of "administrator and starosta of the Land of Rus'" (provisor seu capitaneus terrae Russiae) — and for nine years ruled Galicia as an oligarchic boyar republic. In foreign policy Detko manoeuvred between Poland, Lithuania and the Horde.
Formally he recognised as suzerain the young Lithuanian prince Liubartas — the son of Gediminas, who had married the daughter of Yuri II and thus became the formal heir to the Volhynian throne. But in fact Detko ruled independently, issued charters in his own name, minted coins, conducted negotiations with the Teutonic Order and with Hungary. "Detko's republic" of 1340—1349 was a unique experiment in an oligarchic form of rule on the lands of Rus', the only one of its kind.
1340: the first invasion by Casimir III
The Polish king Casimir III the Great did not wait until the Galician situation was made clear. Already in the spring of 1340 — only a few weeks after the death of Yuri II — at the head of a Polish army he burst into Galicia from the west. The aim was to seize Lviv and the capital treasury of the late prince before the Lithuanians or the Tatars could reach them.
Casimir quickly took Lviv, plundered the princely treasury — he carried off, as the Polish chroniclers wrote, "two golden crowns, the imperial mantle of pearls and precious stones, and other treasures innumerable." However, he could not hold the captured city: a Tatar army came up to the aid of Detko's boyars, and Casimir had to withdraw. The city remained in the power of the boyars, but the tearing apart of Danylo's crown had already begun — the Poles now knew the road.
The war for the Galician inheritance: Poland, Lithuania, Hungary
Through the course of the 1340s the Galicia-Volhynia land became an arena of triangular war: the Poland of Casimir III, the Lithuania of the Gediminids and the Hungarian kingdom of the Angevin dynasty contended for control of the Romanovych heritage. Each side had its grounds: Casimir appealed to the treaty with Yuri II, the Lithuanian Liubartas — to his marriage with his daughter, the Hungarians — to the old title of "King of Galicia" from the time of Coloman.
The epicentres of the struggle became Galicia, the Kholm region and the Volodymyr land. Fighting went on without break, cities passed several times from hand to hand. In 1344 Casimir again took Peremyshl and the Sanok land; the Lithuanians established themselves in Lutsk and Volodymyr. Hungary tried to play a mediatory role, negotiated with both sides. Detko died around 1349, which finally untied Casimir's hands.
1349: Casimir III finally annexes Galicia
In the summer of 1349 Casimir III carried out his decisive campaign. At the head of a great Polish army he passed through Galicia without serious resistance, successively took Lviv, Halych, Kholm, Peremyshl, Volodymyr, Belz. Detko's boyar party after his death had split; a portion went over to the side of Casimir on the condition of preserving their lands and privileges.
The Lithuanian Liubartas was able to hold only Volhynia with its centre at Lutsk — and this historic boundary between Galicia and Volhynia would be preserved afterwards for centuries. 1349 in East European historiography is the symbol of the end of the independent Galicia-Volhynia state: one half of it entered the Crown of Poland, the other — the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Casimir took the title "King of Poland and of Rus'," consciously laying claim to the heritage of Danylo.
The heritage: Galicia and Lodomeria
Although the Galicia-Volhynia state fell, the memory of it did not die. The Polish kings appropriated to themselves the title of "King of Galicia and Volodymyria" (rex Galiciae et Lodomeriae); when in 1772 Austria annexed these lands at the First Partition of Poland, under this same old name — "Königreich Galizien und Lodomerien" — it created its province. Thus the medieval title of Yuri I lived on into the very 20th century within the Habsburg empire.
On this foundation in the 19th century the Galician identity grew up: a distinct territory, a distinct church (the Greek Catholic), a distinct historical tradition. Lviv became the centre of the Ukrainian national revival, from which came the Shevchenko Society, the Shevchenko Scientific Society, the first Ukrainian political parties, and finally the movement for independence of 1989—1991. The Galicia-Volhynia state of Danylo is that root from which the contemporary Western Ukraine has grown, and whose memory in its consciousness is alive to this day.