Volhynia voivodeship

Volhynia voivodeship [Województwo wołyńskie; Волинське воєводство (Volynske voievodstvo)]. An administrative territory of the Polish Commonwealth in the 16th to 18th centuries. The voivodeship was formed after the Union of Lublin (1569) and divided into Lutsk, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and Kremenets counties. Its capital was Lutsk. Most of the land in the province was owned by either Polish or Polonized Ukrainian magnates, such as the Ostrozky, Wiśniowiecki, Zasławski, Lubomirski, and Sanguszko families. The peasants and townsfolk took part in Bohdan Khmelnytsky's uprising in 1648 (see Cossack-Polish War) and the haidamaka uprisings of the 18th century. After the partition of Poland in 1793, the territory was annexed by Russia. In the interwar period (1919–39) the territory was again under Polish control and was called a voivodeship. When Western Ukraine was annexed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1939, the voivodeship was divided into Volhynia oblast and Rivne oblast.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]