Galicia

a historic region in northwestern Spain, on the coast of the Atlantic. The territory of Galicia is divided into the provinces of La Coruña, Pontevedra, Lugo, and Orense. Area, 29,000 sq km; population, 2,692,000 (1967), primarily Galicians. The major city is La Coruña.

Galicia occupies the ancient crystalline Galician massif, the maximum height of which is 1,778 m; the massif is dissected by an extensive network of rivers. The coastline is greatly indented, with many fine natural harbors. The climate is temperate and oceanic. Broad-leaved mountain trees (oak, hornbeam, beech and ash) and shrubs are characteristic.

Galicia is primarily an agricultural region. The extremely small size of land plots and land hunger have made Galicia one of the major regions of emigration for many years.

In Galicia are found more than one-fourth of Spain’s long-horn cattle (1,095,000 head in 1967) and about one-sixth of its pigs. The region produces more than one-fourth of the milk and about one-third of the beef. Corn, rye, and potatoes are harvested. Fishing (about 44 percent of the Spanish motorized fishing fleet in 1963) and forest industries (annual logging of about 1 million cu m) play an important role. Electrical energy production is 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours (1967), including 4.4 billion kilowatt-hours by hydroelectric power plants. The most important hydroelectric stations are San Esteban (300,000 kilowatts [kW]), Los Peares (200,000 kW), El Belesar (225,000 kW), and Punte Bibei (286,000 kW).

About half of Spain’s shipbuilding (in El Ferrol and Vigo), woodworking, and food industries are concentrated in Galicia, including half of Spain’s fish canning, primarily sardines. There are truck factories (one-fourth of the country’s production) and oil-refining and aluminum plants (at La Coruña). The major ports and bunker bases are La Coruña and Vigo and the military naval base of El Ferrol.

In antiquity Galicia was inhabited by the Galician tribes (Latin, Gallaeci or Callaeci), from which the name Galicia was later taken. The territory of Galicia, conquered by the Romans in the first century B.C., made up the diocese of Callaecia under the emperor Augustus, and then, together with Asturia, the diocese of Asturia and Gallaecia. Under Diocletian, the province of Gallaecia was formed. The modern name “Galicia” is found in historical sources beginning in the sixth century (it is given as Gallicia by Jordanes and Gregory of Tours). The territory of Galicia was conquered in the early fifth century by the Suebi and was the nucleus of their state. After a victory over the Arabs in 718, the Asturian monarchs subdued Galicia. From 1065 to 1072, Galicia was an independent kingdom. In 1072 it was united with Castile. From 1110 to 1130 there were major peasant uprisings (especially in the episcopate of Santiago de Compostela). In the 15th century, many popular movements flared up in Galicia. In united Spain, Galicia preserved a number of autonomous rights until the 19th century.

After the proclamation of the Spanish Republic (1931), the republicans of Galicia worked out a plan for Galician autonomy, which was approved by a referendum held in Galicia on June 28, 1936. However, the creation of an autonomous Galician region was prevented by the fascist revolt that began on July 17-18, 1936.

(Galizien), a province of the Hapsburg empire from 1772 to 1918. The official name of Galicia was the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria with the Grand Duchy of Kraców. Galicia was formed as a result of the First Partition of Poland in 1772 from a part of southern Poland and the western Ukraine. Prom 1786 to 1849, Galicia included Bucovina and from 1795 to 1809, the territory between the Pilica and the Western Bug rivers (the so-called New, or West, Galicia). The territory of Ternopol’ and its environs was separated from Galicia from 1809 to 1815, as was the Kraców area (which had constituted the Free City of Kraców from 1815 to 1846) in 1846. In 1918 the territory of Galicia became part of Poland.

or Galichina, the historical name of a territory in the Western Ukraine, covering what is now L’vov, Ivano-Frankovsk, and Ternopol’ oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR; from the late 18th to the early 20th century it was considered to be Polish.

From the ninth to the 11th century Galicia was part of Kievan Rus’ and then of the Galician-Volynian Principality. In 1349 it was seized by Poland; according to a treaty concluded between Poland and Lithuania in 1352, it was incorporated into the Polish state. The Galician people stood alongside the entire Ukrainian people in the fight against foreign and domestic oppressors; they actively participated in the war of liberation of 1648-54. After the reunification of the Ukraine with Russia, Galicia remained a part of the Rzecz Pospolita (the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania). In 1658 a peasant rebellion broke out in the Dolina district; in 1670, in the Drogobych District; and in 1672, in the Zhidachov and Stryi districts. The “brigands’ “ (oprishky) movement, which had begun in the 16th century and had reached large proportions in the first half of the 18th century, continued to grow; among its leaders was Oleksa Dovbush. In 1772, after the first partition of Poland, Galicia came under Austrian rule. A province of Galicia, including Polish as well as Ukrainian territory, was created within the Austrian empire. Polish and Ukrainian peasants led a struggle against the oppression of the pomeshchiks (landlords); for example, there were peasant uprisings in 1819, 1824, and 1882, as well as the Galician rebellion of 1846. Several democratic writers and champions of unity among the Slavic peoples, M. Shashkevich, I. Vagilevich, and la. Golovatskii, attacked serfdom and national oppression. After the Revolution of 1848, the Austrian government abolished serfdom in Galicia. Galicia remained essentially a colony of Austria-Hungary. In 1890 the Ukrainian Radical Party was formed in Galicia. Initially this party played a progressive role in the social movement.

Industry was only weakly developed in Galicia. During World War I (1914-18), Galicia became the arena of military action between the Austro-German bloc and Russia. Galician industry was destroyed, and social and national oppression was intensified still more. In October 1918, after the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists created in L’vov a counterrevolutionary provisional government, the National Rada. In November 1918 the so-called People’s Republic of the Western Ukraine was proclaimed. Workers and peasants, led by the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia (formed in February 1919), carried on a struggle against the counterrevolutionary, nationalistic government of the People’s Republic of the Western Ukraine. In July 1919 landlord-dominated Poland occupied Eastern Galicia. In 1939 the Soviet Army liberated the entire Western Ukraine, which was then reunited with the Ukrainian SSR.