Cultural Differences With Rest of Ukraine
Unlike the rest of Ukraine, most of the Western Ukraine was never a part of the Russian empire. Until 1918 it was part of Austria-Hungary; that country did not persecute (political) Ukrainian organizations as severely as the Russian empire. Rather Austria-Hungary de facto encouraged Ukrainian organizations to counterbalance the influence of Polish culture in (Eastern) Galicia.
For more details on West Ukraine's cultural background, see Austrian Partition, and the Polish culture in the Interbellum.Ukrainian is the dominant language in the region (in the schools of the Ukrainian SSR learning Russian was mandatory; currently in modern Ukraine, at schools with Ukrainian as the language of instruction, classes in Russian and in the other minority languages are offered).
In terms of religion, the majority of adherents share the Byzantine Rite of Christianity as in rest of Ukraine, but due to the region escaping the 1920s and 1930s Soviet persecution, a notably greater church adherence is and religion's role in society is present. Due to the complex post-independence religious confrontation of several church groups and their fateful, the historical influence played a key role in shaping the present loyalty of Western Ukraine's faithful. In Galician provinces, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has the strongest following in the country, and the largest share of property and faithful. In the remaining regions: Volhynia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia the Orthodoxy is prevalent. Outside of Western Ukraine the greatest in terms of Church property, clergy, and according to some estimates, faithful, is the the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). In the listed regions (and in particular among the Orthodox faithful in Galicia), this position is notably weaker, as the main rivals, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, have a far greater influence.
Noticeable cultural differences in the region (compared with the rest of Ukraine except Southern Ukraine) are more "negative views" on the Russian language and on Joseph Stalin and more "positive views" on Ukrainian nationalism. Calculating the yes-votes as a percentage of the total electorate reveals that a higher percentage of all (possible) voters in Western Ukraine supported Ukrainian independence in the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum than in the rest of the country. During elections voters of Western (and Central Ukrainian) oblasts (provinces) vote mostly for parties (Our Ukraine, Batkivshchyna) and presidential candidates (Viktor Yuschenko, Yulia Tymoshenko) with a pro-Western and state reform platform.
Read more about this topic: Western Ukraine
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