Halych - Old Halych

Old Halych

The oldest archaeological artifacts from the territory of Halych are classified to Paleolithic period 40 000 years ago. More systematic findings from a wide number of archaeological cultures dated from 5500 BC till nowadays indicate that population of local terrains was virtually perpetual for some past 7000 years. According to excavated finds, the population of Halych became especially significant from 8-9 c. AD.

Written mention of Halych by Slavic chronicles dates back to 1138. The most comprehensive records about Halych are found in the Hypatian Codex of the Primary Chronicle. In 1141 Prince (knyaz) Volodymyrko Volodarovych (1104–1152) who united the competing principalities of Przemyśl, Zvenyhorod and Terebovlya into the state of Halychyna transferred his capital from Zvenyhorod to Halych making it the seat of his Rurikid dynasty and considerably expanding the settlement.

Interestingly, local officials attribute the first written mention of Halych to the year 896. The opinion is supported by a record found in Gesta Hungarorum, court chronicles of the Hungarian king Béla III (dated by beginning of 13 century though). The chronicles describe a stay of Hungarian tribes led by Prince Álmos in Halych on their way through Slavic land to Pannonia. The claim is not supported by serious scholars. Similarly, another curious date for the first written mention, 290 AD (with a reference to "Getica" by Goth Jordanes) is not accepted by majority.

The first dynasty of Halych, descending from Vladimir of Novgorod, culminated in Yaroslav Osmomysl (1153–1187) before going extinct in 1199. The same year Roman the Great founded the new Rurikid dynasty, uniting Halychyna and Volhynia into the more powerful principality of Halych-Volhynia. The Mongols under Batu Khan took the capital in 1241, when the famous King Danylo was its ruler. Thereafter the town steadily declined, eventually ceding supremacy to the newly-founded Lviv.

The excavations of 1933-42 (Jaroslaw Pasternak), 1951-52 (Karger M.K., Aulikh V.), and 1955 uncovered remains of houses, workshops, fortifications, and ten churches built of white stone. Pasternak's excavations established that ancient Halych originated on the spot of today's village Krylos (located 5 km north of modern Halych) as early as the 10th century. In 1936 Pasternak also discovered remains of an eleventh to twelfth century three-apse cathedral with burial tomb of Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl in it. The cathedral is ascribed to the Cathedral of the Dormition previously known only from Chronicles, known to have been a sepulchre of the earliest Halychian princes. The sheer size (37,5 by 32,4 m) of the cathedral (the second largest mediaeval church on the territory of present-day Ukraine, smaller only to St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev), suggests that ancient Halych was the seat of a diocese. Most likely the cathedral was built in 1157 and destroyed in 1241 by hordes of Batyi Khan, then rebuilt again and last time mentioned in 1576.

It is believed that the early Halychian architectural style, thoroughly permeated with Romanesque influences from the West, had been transferred further north-east. The builders of temples in Halych are believed to have also been responsible for the extant Pereslavl Cathedral and Church of Intercession upon Nerl. The foundations of the Assumption Cathedral (1157) are still to be seen. The only surviving medieval church is that of Saint Pantaleon, originally constructed at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, but significantly rebuilt in the 17th century and controversially reconstructed in the 1990s. The archaeological excavations (1989-2005 under direction of Yuri Lukomsky) at the terrains of Krylos and Halych continue.