The alternative name for the region is Lodomeria after the city of Volodymyr, which was once a political capital of the medieval Volhynian Principality.
According to some historians, the region is named after a semi-legendary city of Volin or Velin, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River,[1] whose name may come from the Proto-Slavic root *vol/vel- 'wet'. In other versions, the city was located over 20 km (12 mi) to the west of Volodymyr near the mouth of the Huczwa [pl] River, a tributary of the Western Bug.
Geographically it occupies northern areas of the Volhynian-Podolian Upland and western areas of Polesian Lowland along the Prypyat valley as part of the vast East European Plain, between the Western Bug in the west and upper streams of Uzh and Teteriv rivers.[2] Before the partitions of Poland, the eastern edge stretched a little west along the right-banks of the Sluch River or just east of it. Within the territory of Volhynia is located Little Polisie, a lowland that actually divides the Volhynian-Podolian Upland into separate Volhynian Upland and northern outskirts of Podolian Upland, the so-called Kremenets Hills. Volhynia is located in the basins of the Western Bug and Prypyat, therefore most of its rivers flow either in a northern or a western direction.
Relative to other historical regions, it is northeast of Galicia, east of Lesser Poland and northwest of Podolia. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, and it is often considered to overlap a number of other regions, among which are Polesia and Podlasie.
Volhynia (French: Volhinie) in red on a map by French cartographer Henri Chatelain in 1712. White Ruthenia in white, Black Ruthenia in black, and Podolia in yellow.
History
The first records can be traced to the Ruthenian chronicles, such as the Primary Chronicle, which mentions tribes of the Dulebes, Buzhans and Volhynians. The land was mentioned in the works of Al-Masudi and Abraham ben Jacob that in ancient times the Walitābā and king Mājik, which some read as Walīnānā and identified with the Volhynians, were "the original, pure-blooded Saqaliba, the most highly honoured" and dominated the rest of the Slavic tribes, but due to "dissent" their "original organization was destroyed" and "the people divided into factions, each of them ruled by their own king", implying existence of a Slavic federation which perished after the attack of the Pannonian Avars.[5][6]: 37
Volhynia may have been included in (or was in the sphere of influence of) the Grand Duchy of Kyiv (Ruthenia) as early as the tenth century. At that time Princess Olga sent a punitive raid against the Drevlians to avenge the death of her husband Grand Prince Igor (Ingvar Röreksson); she later established pogosts along the Luha River. In the opinion of the Ukrainian historian Yuriy Dyba, the chronicle phrase «и оустави по мьстѣ. погосты и дань. и по лузѣ погосты и дань и ѡброкы» (and established in place pogosts and tribute along Luha), the path of pogosts and tribute reflects the actual route of Olga's raid against the Drevlians further to the west, up to the Western Bug's right tributary Luha River.
As early as 983, Vladimir the Great appointed his son Vsevolod as the ruler of the Volhynian Principality. In 988, he established the city of Volodymer (Володимѣръ).
Volhynia's early history coincides with that of the duchies or principalities of Halych and Volhynia. These two successor states of the Kyivan Rus formed Halych-Volhynia between the 12th and the 14th centuries.
After the disintegration of the Grand Duchy of Halych-Volhynia circa 1340, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania divided the region between them, Poland taking Western Volhynia and Lithuania taking Eastern Volhynia (1352–1366). After 1569, Volhynia was organized as a province of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. During this period many Poles and Jews settled in the area. The Roman and Greek Catholic churches became established in the province. In 1375, a Roman Catholic Diocese of Lodomeria was established, but it was suppressed in 1425. Many Orthodox churches joined the latter organization in order to benefit from a more attractive legal status. Records of the first agricultural colonies of Mennonites, Protestants from Germany, date from 1783.
In 1897, the population amounted to 2,989,482 people (41.7 per square kilometre). It consisted of 73.7 percent East Slavs (predominantly Ukrainians), 13.2 percent--400,000 Jews, 6.2 percent Poles, and 5.7 percent Germans.[7] Most of the German settlers had immigrated from Congress Poland. A small number of Czech settlers also had migrated here. Although economically the area was developing rather quickly, upon the eve of the First World War it was still the most rural province in Western Russia.
Map of divided Volhynia (blue) between Ukrainian and Polish (Wołyń) part, and Eastern Galicia (orange) in 1939A card sent on the occasion of the Jewish New Year 5691 (September 1930) from Tel Aviv to Volhynia. The card shows a drawing of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and a photograph of the sender. The Hebrew inscriptions say: "A Good Happy New Year, the year of the redemption of our sanctuaries, Tel Aviv E.Y. (=Eretz Yisrael), year 5731
Following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, and the subsequent invasion and division of Polish territories between the Reich and the USSR, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied the Polish part of Volhynia. In the course of the Nazi–Soviet population transfers which followed this (temporary) German-Soviet alliance, most of the ethnic German-minority population of Volhynia were transferred to those Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany. Following the mass deportations and arrests carried out by the NKVD, and repressive actions against Poles taken by Germany, including deportation to the Reich to forced labour camps, arrests, detention in camps and mass executions, by 1943 ethnic Poles constituted only 10–12% of the entire population of Volhynia.
During the German invasion,the Jewish population in Volhynia was approximately 460,000. About 400,000–450,000 Jews and 100,000 Poles (men women and children) in Volhynia were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Ukraine collaborators. The Jews were shot and thousands buried in large pits. The main massacre took place between August and October 1942. It is estimated that about 1.5% survived the Holocaust. The number of Ukrainian victims of Polish retaliatory attacks until the spring of 1945 is estimated at approx. 2,000−3,000 in Volhynia.[8] In 1945, Soviet Ukraine expelled ethnic Germans from Volhynia following the end of the war, claiming that Nazi Germany had used ethnic Germans in eastern Europe as part of its Generalplan Ost. The expulsion of Germans from eastern Europe was part of broader mass population transfers after the war.
The Soviet Union annexed Volhynia to Ukraine after the end of World War II. In 1944, the communists in Volyhnia suppressed the Ukrainian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate. Most of the remaining ethnic Polish population were expelled to Poland in 1945. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Volhynia has been an integral part of Ukraine.
Ciancia, Kathryn (September 2017). "Borderland Modernity: Poles, Jews, and Urban Spaces in Interwar Eastern Poland". The Journal of Modern History. 89 (3): 531–561. doi:10.1086/692992. S2CID149342133.
Merten, Ulrich (2015). Voices from the Gulag: Oppression of the German Minority in the Soviet Union. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. ISBN9780692603376
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