Galicia was invented by the Austrian authorities in 1772 and disappeared again during World War I. Nevertheless, in recent decades it has increasingly come into the focus of public, literary, and scientific interest in Austria, Ukraine, Poland, and other countries. From an exploration of imperial bureaucracy to a dual national Piedmont, and to a nostalgically idealized exotic myth: Habsburg Galicia serves as a projection surface for various cultural studies approaches regarding claims to power and symbolic appropriations. The contributions address different facets of this kaleidoscope of Galicia and can be read as a whole as a web of approaches to this space - as a dialogue between various scientific perspectives on the formation of national identities.