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Ukraine after the Russian Revolution
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Ukrainian territory was fought over by various factions after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the First World War, which added the collapse of Austria-Hungary to that of the Imperial Russia. The crumbling of the empires had a great effect on the Ukrainian nationalist movement and in the short period of four years a number of Ukrainian governments sprung up. This period was characterized by optimism and nation-building, as well as chaos and civil war.
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Ukrainian territory was fought over by various factions after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the First World War, which added the collapse of Austria-Hungary to that of the Imperial Russia. The crumbling of the empires had a great effect on the Ukrainian nationalist movement and in the short period of four years a number of Ukrainian governments sprung up. This period was characterized by optimism and nation-building, as well as chaos and civil war. It ended in 1921, with the territory of modern-day Ukraine divided between Soviet Ukraine (which would become a constituent republic of the Soviet Union) and Poland, with small regions belonging to Czechoslovakia and Romania.
National awakening
Following the Russian October Revolution of 1917, during the First World War, territories which had belonged to the Russian Empire, including Ukraine, suddenly found themselves in a political vacuum. Factions in Ukraine and several foreign powers vied for control during the increasingly chaotic period of the Russian Civil War. After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the ethnic Ukrainian territories of Galicia (Halychyna), Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia), and Bukovina (Bukovyna) found themselves likewise in strife.
Ukrainians of Dnieper Ukraine and of the Western territories independently declared statehood as the Ukrainian People's Republic (Ukrayins'ka Narodna Respublika, UNR) and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (Zakhidno-Ukrayins’ka Narodna Respublyka, ZUNR), respectively. Forces of these Ukrainian republics, the White movement, the Ukrainian and Russian Bolsheviks, Poland, Germany, and Romania fought over Ukrainian lands. The Makhnovist Partisan Army claimed significant areas as an anarchist "Free Territory." Many stateless paramilitary bands lacking any coherent ideology fought these forces and each other in what frequently seemed a political free-for-all. Various alliances were formed and broken.
Despite the turbulence, this period saw a resurgence of Ukrainian-language publication, which had been controversial in Austro-Hungary, and persecuted in the Russian Empire. The Hetmanate, installed by Germany while overthrowing the government of the UNR, conducted state policies directed at bolstering the Ukrainian culture and education. Among the Bolsheviks, national identity was controversial, but the so-called Kiev faction pushed for Ukrainization as well.
Alliance and strife
After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, Ukrainian community leaders in Kiev quickly organized the Central Rada (Tsentral’na rada), headed by Mykhailo Hrushevsky. They sought the approval of the Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd (St Petersburg), but were rebuffed. The Central Rada had the co-operation of the various, mostly Russian, soviets of workers' and soldiers' deputies forming in Ukraine (the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks), and quickly gained the support of elements of the Russian Army in Ukraine. On June 23, 1917, the Central Rada issued its First Universal, declaring Ukrainian autonomy within a Russian federation, which was enthusiastically supported by the First All-Ukrainian Peasant Congress on June 28.
Shortly after the early-November Bolshevik coup in Petrograd, the Central Rada issued the Third Universal on November 20, 1917, declaring a Ukrainian People's Republic in Kiev. Initially, the UNR decided to be autonomous, but favoured a federation with Russia. The Russian Bolshevik government demanded an all-Russian union. The Ukrainian Bolsheviks convened an All-Ukrainian Congress of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Soviets in Kiev in December, hoping to gain the support of the soviets throughout Ukraine. Finding themselves to be a small minority at the congress of 2,500 delegates, the 100 Bolsheviks and a few others left to join a congress of local deputies in Kharkiv—which they renamed the All-Ukrainian Congress of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Soviets—and declared a Bolshevik government of Ukraine (Respublyka Rad Ukrayiny) on December 25, 1917.
Relations between the UNR and the Ukrainian Bolsheviks quickly soured and led to open war, the Bolsheviks having support of the Russian Army. The UNR briefly lost Kiev to the Bolsheviks, but pushed them back and maintained control of much of Ukraine, while the Bolsheviks were forced to convene their government in Taganrog, Russia, on the Sea of Azov. With the aid of Bolshevist Russia and amid fluid alliances with the anarchists, they would eventually control more Ukrainian territory as the UNR was forced to fight other battles in the west.
A Western Ukrainian People's Republic was also declared in Lviv on October 19, 1918. The ZUNR formally (and largely symbolically) joined the UNR, which was later displaced by Pavlo Skoropadsky's German-supported Hetmanate. Skoropadsky was forced to retreat with the Germans, and the UNR was restored under the Directorate of Ukraine.
In the West, the Ukrainian forces fought in the Polish-Ukrainian War, but Galicians were alienated after what they saw as a compromise in the Paris Peace Conference with Poland. A UNR delegation could not gain recognition at the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the World War. UNR forces fared poorly during Polish-Soviet War and a late alliance with Poland wasn't enough to secure the republic. After the Polish-Soviet Peace of Riga, Ukrainian territory found itself split between the Ukrainian SSR in the east, and Poland in the west (Galicia and part of Volhynia). Ukrainian-inhabited Carpathian Ruthenia found itself in Czechoslovakia, and Bukovina in Romania. In 1922, having secured its territory, Soviet Ukraine joined the Russian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian republics to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Ethnic relations
Aware that Ukrainians of other ethnic background would largely be opposed to an ethnic national republic, the UNR early on set up seats in government and ministries to represent Russians, Poles and Jews. Russians were generally in favour of union with Russia and didn't have much interest in participating. They found more in common with Skoropadsky's Hetmanate, but also supported the efforts of General Denikin's Volunteer Army to restore Russian control in Ukraine. Poles in Ukraine were mixed in their reaction; in 1919-1921 many of them fled west during the period of chaos and then Soviet rule. Under the Hetmanate, Jews were excluded from participation, and although they were theoretically welcomed back by the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic, by this time they were suffering greatly as the countryside descended into the chaos of civil war. The white Volunteer Army was the main perpetrator of pogroms, some were instigated by Matviy Hryhoriyiv's Green Army and other neo-Haydamak bands and the Directory's forces, esp. the irregular otaman-led groups, also carried out numerous pogroms. The worst pogroms occurred in Proskuriv (arguably the most savage, organised by otaman Semesenko in February 1919), Zhytomoyr, Cherkasy, Rivne, Fastiv, Korosten and Bakhmach. Even Bolsheviks sometimes participated in pogroms.. It is estimated that between 35,000 and 50,000 Jews lost their lives in pogroms in 1919-1920.Consequently, the Ukrainian-Jewish relations suffered immensely from this period.
The German minority in Ukraine remained mostly aloof from the various governments. Many had already been deported to the far east during World War I, and under the Bolsheviks they were held under suspicion as potential sympathizers with the German enemy. Many German villages, and especially prosperous Mennonite estates, were burned by the Makhnovists, and their occupants killed or fled.
Crimean Tatars, outside of territory of the Ukrainian governments, declared independence in Bakhchisaray in 1917. They had good relations with the UNR, but were opposed by Russians and Ukrainians in Crimea, as well as by the Bolsheviks, who drove the Tatar government out. From 1918 to 1920, Crimea was occupied successively by Germany, a Crimean pro-Russian government, a Crimean Soviet Republic with Tatar co-operation, the White armies of Denikin and Wrangel, and finally by the Soviets again. This time, the Soviets declared the Tatars counterrevolutionary, and joined the Russian SFSR in 1921.
Ukrainian governments (1917–1920)
- Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic: March 17, 1917–April 19, 1918.
- First Ukrainian Soviet government: December 25, 1917–March 1918.
- Hetmanate of the Ukrainian State: April 19, 1918–December 14, 1918.
- Ukrainian National Council of the West Ukrainian People's Republic: October 18, 1918–January 22, 1919 (de facto independent until July 1919).
- Second Ukrainian Soviet government: November 20, 1918–August 1919.
- Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic: November 14, 1918–1920.
- All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee: April 1919–July 1919.
- Third Ukrainian Soviet government: December 21, 1919–1991.
- Galician Soviet Socialist Republic: July 8, 1920–September 21, 1920
Footnotes
See also
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