Hudyma Y. Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia in the 11th-14th centuries: territory, natural and human resources.

The thesis provides a comprehensive study of the information preserved in the Kyiv (12th c.) and Galicia-Volhynia (13th c.) Chronicles on the natural and human resources on the territory of feudal principalities of the 11th – 12th cc., which united to form the Kingdom of Rus' of the 13th- mid-14th cc. It is established that the chronicles' mentions of relief, climate, soils, waters, flora and fauna testify toa close mutual influence of natural conditions and human activity. The chronicles' mentions of rivers, swamps and lakes in the Subcarpathia, Podillya and Small Polissya territories have been analyzed. Their role in military campaigns, as well as their importance in the economic life of the Galicia-Volhynia state (shipping, bridges, dams, fords) have been examined. The extent to which extreme climatic events (rain, snow, wind, frost, fog) were responsible for social disasters (hunger, epidemics) and their consequences for the demography of Galicia and Volhynia of the princely epoch has been determined. The health condition of a number of historical figures (princes) and the extent of mass diseases have been assessed. A retrospective reconstruction of the territorial-administrative organization of the Galicia-Volhynia borderzone in the historic area of Plisnesko-Olesko has been carried out. It has been emphasized that this is where especially important processes of state creation took place both in the princely epoch, and in the next few centuries.