Galicia as a cultural hallway of Central Europe

In processe, see Ukr

I dedicate this essay to Sofia Khomyn, who inspired me to do this work and provided moral support throughout the creative process.

The very name of Galicia speaks for itself, originating fron OE gāl "cheerful," "lustful," "indecent," "proud," and eacen meaning "to multiply," "to increase," "to grow," "gifted," "strong," "large," "robust." By combining these variations, the corresponding meaning of the name can be chosen according to one's own understanding, but the result will still be something unusual.

Currently, Galicia is a monoethnic region within Ukraine, with a distinctly dominant Ukrainian national culture. However, this was not always the case. During Austrian rule, Ukrainians constituted the majority in Galicia, but Ukrainian culture was not the dominant one and was part of a broader cluster of foreign cultures: Polish, German, Jewish, and Armenian. A separate study (VALENTYN STETSYUK. 2001) has been devoted to this topic, but it did not provide an answer to the cause of this phenomenon. It seemed a coincidence of historical circumstances. However, if we look further back, a hidden pattern can be discovered. Research into ethnogenetic processes using onomastic data has opened up new perspectives for illuminating the dark sides of European history. They have more concretely demonstrated the existence of Ukraine's multinational composition over many centuries. However, a particularly large number of ancient toponyms and anthroponymies have been discovered in Western Ukraine (see Ancient Ukrainian surnames of foreign origin). It is difficult to say whether something similar exists in other regions of Europe, because there are no thorough studies of prehistoric toponymy yet..