WW2 drove hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Slavic peoples who identified as part of the Russian world off of lands they had been inhabiting for 1000 years, beginning with the original Russian nation state of Kievan Rus'. These lands are now part of Poland.
Understanding the historical backdrop to this, going back hundreds of years, is critical to understanding what is happening today in the region, especially to understanding relations between Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.
Galicia - a land trapped between east and west.
Galicia was part of Kievan Rus' dating back to the year 1,000. For almost 700 years it was under the control of Poland or Austro-Hungry.
A migration to the United States took place from there in the late 1890s and up to the onset of WWI in 1914. At that time Galicia was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire from 1773 to 1918.
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