The earliest major confrontation between the Ukrainians and the Poles occurred in 1848 in Galicia during the period known as the Spring of Nations. During that time, in Lviv, the capital of Galicia, a group of Galician Ukrainians, then referred to as Ruthenians, although remaining obedient to the Austrian Emperor, sought the separation of Polish and Ukrainian Galicia into 2 provinces determined by ethnic lines. They did not succeed.

1848 also marked the appearance of the blue and yellow flag, which is the official Ukrainian state flag today, and introduction of the Ukrainian language in educational institutions.