With the arrival of the Hungarians into the heart of the Central European Plain around 899, Slavic tribes of Vistulans, White Croats, and Lendians found themselves under Hungarian rule. In 955 those areas north of the Carpathian Mountains constituted an autonomous part of the Duchy of Bohemia and remained so until around 972, when the first Polish (western Polans) territorial claims began to emerge. This area was mentioned in 981 (by Nestor), when Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus' claimed the area on his westward way. In the 11th century the area belonged to Poland (1018–1031 and 1069–1080), then reverted to Kievan Rus'. However, at the end of the 12th century the Hungarian claims to the principality turned up. Finally Casimir III of Poland annexed it in 1340–1349. Low Germans from Prussia and Middle Germany settled parts of northern and western Galicia from the 13th to 18th centuries, although the vast majority of the historic province remained independent from German and Austrian rule.
The territory was settled by the East Slavs in the early middle ages and, in the 12th century, a Rurikid Principality of Halych (Halicz, Halics, Galich, Galic) formed there, merged in the end of the century with the neighboring Volhynia into the Principality of Halych Volhynia that existed for a century and a half. By 1352, when the principality was partitioned between the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, most of Galicia belonged to the Polish Crown, where it still remained after the 1569 union between Poland and Lithuania. Upon the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772 the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, or simply Galicia, became the largest, most populous, and northernmost province of the Austrian Empire, where it remained until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I in 1918.
Tribal area
The region has a turbulent history. In Roman times the region was populated by various tribes of Celto-Germanic admixture, including Celtic-based tribes – like the Galice or "Gaulics" and Bolihinii or "Volhynians" – the Lugians and Cotini of Celtic, Vandals and Goths of Germanic origins (the Przeworsk and Púchov cultures). Beginning with the Wandering of the nations, the great migration coincident with the fall of the Roman Empire, various groups of nomadic people invaded the area: 3rd century BC - 2nd century AD: Anartes (west part), 2nd – 5th centuries: Vandals (Przeworsk culture, =Hasdingi, Lacringi);Bastarnaes; Goths and Gepids (Wielbark culture) 2nd – 5th centuries (east part): Scythians, Sarmatians 4th – 5th centuries: Huns 5th century: Avars 6th – 8th centuries: Slavs 6th – 9th centuries (east part): Bulgars (later Slavicized), Hungarians, Pechenegs 10th – 13th centuries (east part): Cumans, Karaites 13th – 14th centuries (east part): Tatars and other Turco-Mongol peoples from Central Asia
Overall, Slavs (both West and East Slavs, including Lendians as well as Rusyns) came to dominate the Celtic-German population.
Red Ruthenia
In 891–892, the territories of the White and Red Croats came under the control of Great Moravia, a Slavic state. The region of what later became known as Galicia appears to have been incorporated, in large part, into the Empire of Great Moravia. It is first attested in the Primary Chronicle in A.D. 981, when Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus' took over the Red Ruthenian strongholds in his military campaign on the border with the land of the Lendians, incorporated into the Duchy of Polans, and the land of the White Croats, ruled by the Duchy of Bohemia.
In the following century, the area shifted briefly to Poland (1018–1031 and 1069–1080) and then back to Kievan Rus'. As one of many successors to Kievan Rus', the Principality of Halych existed from 1087 to 1199, when Roman the Great finally managed to unite it with Volhynia in the state of Halych-Volhynia, the Kingdom of Rus' or Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. However, the Hungarian claims to the Ruthenian principality (Regnum Galiciæ et Lodomeriæ) turned up in 1188. Despite the anti-Mongol campaigns of Danylo of Halych, who was crowned the king of Halych-Volhynia, his state occasionally paid tribute to the Golden Horde. Danylo moved his capital from Halych to Kholm, and his son Lev moved it to Lviv. Danylo's dynasty also attempted to gain papal and broader support in Europe for an alliance against the Mongols, but proved incapable of competing with the rising powers of Great Duchy of Lithuania and Poland.