When Austria acquired the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, its largest crown land, with little effort in 1772 during the First Partition of Poland, the Polish monarchs had not fully realized what they were getting into. It took several decades for the German-Austrian press to discover the multinationality and multiculturality of this region beyond its rudimentary exoticism, and even longer for non-German-speaking authors from Galicia to express their perspectives in writing. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was one of the first Austrian writers to highlight the coexistence of Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews in Galicia.

In addition to these nationalities, Galicia was also home to a variety of other ethnic groups and minorities, including German and Austrian officials, Armenian and Greek merchants in Lviv, Boykos and Lemkos in the Beskids and Western Carpathians, Hutsuls in the Eastern Carpathians, Karaites in the Eastern Carpathians, and Jews in the Eastern Carpathians. The cultural diversity of Galicia can be summarized through a linguistic triangle, which is also reflected in the selection of contributions in this volume.

Historical verifiability takes a backseat to the artistic truth of Galician themes and motifs, as they are rediscovered anew and individually. In doing so, one encounters once again the multinationality and multiculturality of that forever lost Galician cosmos, whose reconstruction represents a literary home for some and a model of functioning interethnic relations for others, which could gain new relevance in a new Europe.