Mickiewicz Square
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49°50′22″N 24°01′48″E / 49.83944444°N 24.03°E
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The Mickiewicz Square (Ukrainian: Площа Міцкевича, romanized: Ploshcha Mitskevycha) is one of the main squares in the city of Lviv, Ukraine.
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The square, lying between Lviv's old town and the southern part of midtown, was planned and created in the first half of 19th century, after the demolition of the old town's defensive walls in the late 18th century. Primarily, from 1843 it was known as Ferdinand Square (German: Ferdinandplatz, Polish: Plac Ferdynanda), in honour of the Austrian governor of Galicia, Ferdinand Habsburg-d'Este. In 1862 it was renamed St Mary's Square (Polish: Plac Mariacki) when a monument dedicated to her was erected in the area. Today it bears the name of Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, whose monument was placed in the central part of the square in 1904.
Lviv prior to World War II was inhabited mostly by Poles and Jews, and belonged to pre-war Poland. In 1939, the Soviet Union in the course of the Invasion of Poland annexed the city. As the new occupant administration perceived St Mary to be a rather inappropriate patron for a square in the centre of a Soviet city, the square underwent peculiar "secularisation" and was renamed Mickiewicz Square (Polish: Plac Mickiewicza, Russian: Площадь Мицкевича).
Although the majority of Polish Lvivians were expelled after the second and permanent Soviet annexation in 1945 and the city was repopulated with Ukrainian and Russian settlers, the monument wasn't demolished during the Soviet era – instead it was kept; as well as the name of the square.
