The article is devoted to the attempts of Rusyns-Ukrainians living in the Galician lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to obtain the right to open their own university in Lviv. The main sources for this article were materials of historical, ethnographic and literary journal "Kiyevskaya starina". The idea of establishing a Rusyn university in Lviv appeared in the middle of the ??? century. The authors focused on the events that unfolded around this project at the end of the XIX and the beginning of the XX centuries. Rusyns-Ukrainians were unable to defend their idea of establishing a university. The main reasons for the failure were the complex social and political situation in the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire and the oppression of the Ruthenians by the representatives of the Polish nationals in Galicia.