Eastern Galicia in the context of "Ternopil Oblast"

Western Ukraine or West Ukraine (Ukrainian: Західна Україна, romanized: Zakhidna Ukraina, IPA: [ˈzɑxidnɐ ʊkrɐˈjinɐ]) refers to the western territories of Ukraine. There is no universally accepted definition of the territory's boundaries, but the contemporary Ukrainian administrative regions (oblasts) of Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Ternopil and Zakarpattia (which were part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) are typically included. In addition, Volyn and Rivne oblasts (parts of the territory annexed from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during its Third Partition) are also usually included. In modern sources, Khmelnytskyi Oblast is often included because of its geographical, linguistic and cultural association with Western Ukraine, although this cannot be confirmed from a historical and political point of view. It includes several historical regions such as Carpathian Ruthenia, Halychyna including Pokuttia (the eastern portion of Eastern Galicia), most of Volhynia, northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region, and Podolia. Western Ukraine is sometimes considered to include areas of eastern Volhynia, Podolia, and the small northern portion of Bessarabia.

The area of Western Ukraine was ruled by various polities, including the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also the Principality of Moldavia; it would then variously come under rule of the Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Second Polish Republic, the Kingdom of Romania, and finally the Soviet Union (via the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) in 1939 and 1940 following the invasion of Poland and the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, with the borders finalized after the end of World War II. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it became part of the independent Ukrainian state.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון; August 8, 1887 – February 17, 1970) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. In Hebrew, he is known by the pseudonym Shai Agnon (ש"י עגנון‎). In English, his works are published under the name S. Y. Agnon.

Agnon was born in Eastern Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, and died in Jerusalem.

The West Ukrainian People's Republic (Ukrainian: Західноукраїнська Народна Республіка (ЗУНР), romanized: Zakhidnoukrainska Narodna Respublika [ZUNR]; see other names) was a short-lived state that controlled most of Eastern Galicia from November 1918 to July 1919. It included major cities of Lviv, Ternopil, Kolomyia, Drohobych, Boryslav, Stanyslaviv and right-bank Peremyshl. Apart from lands of Eastern Galicia, it also claimed the northern part of Bukovyna and the Carpathian Ruthenia. Politically, the Ukrainian National Democratic Party (the precursor of the interwar Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance) dominated the legislative assembly, guided by varying degrees of Greek Catholic, liberal and socialist ideology. Other parties represented included the Ukrainian Radical Party and the Christian Social Party.

The ZUNR emerged as a breakaway state amid the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, and in January 1919 nominally united with the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) as its autonomous Western Oblast. Poland had also claimed this territory, and by July occupied most of it and forced the West Ukrainian government into exile. When the UPR decided late the same year that it would trade the territory for an alliance with Poland against Soviet Russia, the exiled West Ukrainian government broke with the UPR. The exiled government continued its claim until it dissolved in 1923.

The Kresy myth (Polish: mit Kresów) ('myth' in Polish sometimes not referring to a necessarily false belief as in English) also known as the Kresy Cult (kult Kresów) and the Kresy Legend (legenda Kresów) is the name to a certain sense of views or attitudes in connection to nostalgic attachment of the former eastern borderlands of Poland (Kresy), sometimes in an ethnic nationalist sense, sometimes as a multicultural land dominated by Polish culture. According to Andrii Portnov, the Kresy is seen even as "'the lost paradise' of Poland’s 'civilisational mission'" at the same time as the location of "bloody and romantic clashes with the Cossacks and Tatars". The Kresy was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Second Polish Republic but since the latter's fall is no longer Poland but instead present-day Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania. The Kresy, in certain definitions, extend beyond the areas which became part of interwar Poland. In particular after the territorial changes, population transfers of World War II, the nostalgia focused on the Vilnius region and Eastern Galicia, notably Lviv (Lwów in Polish). It is argued exponents of the discourse tend to focus specifically on Poles, living in the Kresy without paying sufficient attention to the region's Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Rusyn, or Belarusian inhabitants.

The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (German: Ukrainische Hilfspolizei; Ukrainian: Українська допоміжна поліція, romanized: Ukrainska dopomizhna politsiia) was the official title of the local police formation (a type of hilfspolizei) set up by Nazi Germany during World War II in Eastern Galicia and Reichskommissariat Ukraine, shortly after the German occupation of the Western Ukrainian SSR in Operation Barbarossa.

The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police was created by Heinrich Himmler in mid-August 1941 and put under the control of German Ordnungspolizei within General Government. The actual Reichskommissariat Ukraine was formed officially on 20 August 1941. The uniformed force was composed in large part of the former members of the Ukrainian People's Militia created by the Banderite faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) in June. There were two categories of German-controlled Ukrainian armed organisations. The first comprised mobile police units most often called Schutzmannschaft, or Schuma, organized on the battalion level and which engaged in the murder of Jews and in security warfare in most areas of Ukraine. It was subordinated directly to the German Commander of the Order Police for the area.