In the chaos and violence of the collapse of the
Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires at the end of WW1, new states are being born and armies
are on the march. Kyiv is at the centre of the tragedy, as armies of Ukrainian and Polish
nationalists, Bolshevik Revolutionaries and White Russian counter-revolutionaries struggle
for control of the territory of modern Ukraine. In the late 19th century, the territory of
modern-day Ukraine was divided between the Austrian and Russian empires. Its inhabitants
spoke many languages, including Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, German, Yiddish, Tatar,
and others. Throughout the 19th century, Ukrainian speakers came under pressure to adopt
other languages, like Russian, Polish, or German, especially since higher education and
career advancement were often available in those languages. Most Ukrainian speakers,
didn’t play leading roles in the bureaucracy or politics of either empire – the majority
were peasants who worked the land, which was mostly owned by Polish or Russian landlords –
or polonized or russified Ukrainian landlords. On the Russian-controlled side, most people in
cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv spoke Russian – which in some cases did not necessarily mean that they
considered themselves to be ethnic Russians, since in Central and Eastern Europe language
was not the only factor in national identity. As in many other parts of Eastern
Europe, a Ukrainian nationalist movement began to gather strength in the 19th century.
Poets like TarAs Shevchenko and Ivan Franko, historian Mikhaylo Hrushevsky and the Greek
Catholic church all contributed to the growing sense of modern Ukrainian identity. Hrushevsky
in particular developed the historical narrative of a Ukrainian national history dating
back to the medieval Kievan Rus, in opposition to the Russian claim that
Russia had inherited the historical continuity from the medieval state. There were
obstacles for Ukrainian nationalists though: many peasants were illiterate, the concept
of modern nation states was new to them, and the Russian Empire suppressed the Ukrainian
language since the authorities worried a Ukrainian identity might turn the people against the
Tsar. The 1876 Ems Ukaz was a secret decree that banned new publications, public performances,
or the import of works in the Ukrainian language, and many Russian thinkers considered Ukrainians
to simply be, as they put it, Little Russians. In late 19th century Austria-Hungary, on the other
hand, authorities allowed Ukrainian to be used in public life and the education system. Only after
the 1905 revolution did Russian authorities allow some limited freedom for Ukrainian expression,
which helped spur an independence movement and national revival. By 1907 journalist
Wilhelm Feldman commented on the phenomenon: “The 20th century has seen so many nations rise
from ashes but there are few cases of rebirth so rapid and energetic as that of the Ukrainians
of Austria… their unexpected and vigorous growth is mostly the result of self-help
and hard-fought gains.” (Kubicek 73) The Ukrainian independence
movement was small but growing when two events changed its course in 1914. In March 1914, the Tsarist government refused
permission for Ukrainians to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Ukrainian nationalist
poet Taras Shevchenko. This caused an increase in national feeling amongst Ukrainians. The
other event of 1914 to impact Ukrainian desires for national determination was the
outbreak of the First World War. Modern Ukrainian territory,
especially then-Austrian Galicia, suffered terribly from the fighting in 1914
and 1915. Ukrainians fought on both sides, and 28,000 volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian
army – but both Empires feared Ukrainians might be loyal to the other side. Austrian authorities
suspected Ukrainians of spying for the Russians, so they interned tens of thousands in
camps and executed many thousands more. At the same time, Austria-Hungary tried to
drum up anti-Russian feelings among Ukrainians in the Russian empire, and supported the creation
of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine. The Russians further clamped down on the use of
the Ukrainian language and cultural institutions. As the war went on, Russian dissidents
like Vladimir Lenin paid close attention to the aspirations of minority groups like
the Ukrainians. Lenin felt they might help bring down the hated Tsarist system, but he
still believed that Ukraine should remain part of a single Russian political and economic unit.
Still, before the February 1917 revolution, he firmly saw any minority
movements as potential allies: "We would be very poor revolutionaries if, in
a great liberating war of the proletariat for socialism, we were unable to utilize every
national movement against separate negative forms of imperialism in order to sharpen
and broaden the crisis." (Dmytrzshyn 17) In reality, Lenin knew little
about Ukrainian affairs and assumed – as did many other Russian
intellectuals of all stripes – that Ukrainians felt attached to superior
Russian culture and economic might. When the February revolution in
1917 replaced the Tsar with a weak Russian republic, Ukrainian nationalist groups
saw their chance for an independent Ukraine. On March 17 1917, the day after the
Tsar’s abdication, the Society of Ukrainian Progressives announced the creation of
their own governing council, the Central Rada, chaired by Mikhaylo Hrushevsky. The Rada’s plan
was to govern Ukraine as an autonomous member of a future Russian federal system – which did
not yet exist and was not in the plans of the new Russian government in St Petersburg. Instead,
the Russian government suggested autonomous administration for Ukraine that excluded the
industrial regions of Donbas and the Black Sea coast. The Rada rejected the proposal and
announced their intention to pass their own laws: “Let Ukraine be free. Without separating
themselves entirely from Russia, without severing connections
with the Russian state, let the Ukrainian people in their own land have
the right to order their own lives. Let law and order in Ukraine be given by the all-national
Ukrainian Parliament elected by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage… From this day
forth we shall direct our own lives.” (Kubicek 81) In the ensuing Russia-wide elections, which
were dominated by the question of land reform, the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party
gained a convincing victory with majority peasant support. Although the UPSR was allied
with the Russian Soclialist Revolutionary Party, they wanted an independent path for Ukraine. At
the Kharkiv Peasants’ Congress in May 1917, a UPSR delegate referenced the Ukrainian Cossack state’s
17th century fight against the Polish lords: “Three hundred years ago we rose up against
the pans, and took everything into our hands. We lived prosperously and free. Schools
developed, […] Ukraine was an enlightened region, and from us learned people went to Muscovy.
And what do we see now? Thirteen literates in a hundred people. We have not gone forward,
but backward. […] Ukraine needs Ukrainian schools, the Ukrainian language has to enter the middle
schools and universities. […] Ukraine ought to govern itself, to conduct its own business
with its own Rada in K[yi]v.” (Guthier 33/34) But not all people living in Ukraine supported
independence and national development. In urban areas there were far
more Poles, Russians, and Jews, who mostly opposed the nationalist movement. Only
10% of city votes went to pro-Ukrainian parties. The Bolsheviks voiced ambiguous
support for the Ukrainian cause in an attempt to win over voters, but they
only received about 5% support in Ukraine. Few Ukrainians voted for the Bolsheviks
in the short-lived Russian Republic, but once the Bolsheviks
seized power in October 1917 their approach to Ukraine began
to change from theory to practice. Since the Bolsheviks seemed sympathetic to the
Ukrainian movement, troops loyal to the Rada at first helped Lenin during the revolution. But the
relationship soon soured, because as soon as Lenin took power he moved to a more centralized policy.
He spoke of the “socio-economic unity of Russia” and argued that self-determination should
not weaken the unity of the proletariat: "Unconditional recognition of the struggle
for freedom of self-determination does not at all obligate us to support every demand for
national self-determination… We ought always and unconditionally to strive for a very close
union of the proletariat of all nationalities and only in […] exceptional cases can we accept
[…] the creation of a new class state or […] the substitution of full political unity of the
state by a weaker federal union.” (Dmytrzshyn 14) Fellow Bolshevik Joseph Stalin opposed significant
autonomy for Ukrainians and other peoples in the former Russian empire, since he feared those
regions might come under imperialist influence: “We are against the separation of the border
regions from Russia since separation would here involve imperialist servitude for
the border regions, thus undermining the revolutionary power of Russia and strengthening
the position of imperialism.” (Dmytrzshyn 43) As the Bolsheviks’ violent takeover became clear,
the Rada changed its position. On November 6, 1917, the council declared itself
opposed to the October Revolution and vowed to defend itself, which it did during a
Bolshevik-inspired uprising in Kyiv the next week. On the 19th, the Rada declared the creation of the
Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR) – but it also said that it did not want complete separation
from Russia and was willing to become part of a future Russian federal system. Still, it
minted its own currency and flew its own blue and yellow flag, though the colors were
reversed compared to the modern version. The Bolshevik reaction came on December 16.
Lenin sent the Ukrainian government an ultimatum. He recognized the right of the
Ukrainian People’s Republic to exist, but also accused it of a “two-faced bourgeois
policy” and assisting anti-revolutionary forces. Lenin also demanded security guarantees which
included supporting the Red Army – if the Ukrainians did not agree in 48 hours there
would be war. The UPR refused to comply: “[It is impossible] to recognize simultaneously
the right of a people to self-determination, including separation, and at the same
time to infringe roughly on that right by imposing on the people in question a
certain type of government… On the territory of the Ukrainian People's Republic, all power
belongs to Ukrainian democracy and therefore any attempt to overthrow that power by force
will be met by force." (Dmytrzshyn 32/33) The Bolsheviks responded by pulling their
forces back to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and establishing a Ukrainian Socialist
Republic, which they claimed was the legitimate government of the country. In late December, they
launched an offensive on Kyiv, which included some Ukrainian peasants who supported the Bolsheviks’
more radical ideology. Pro-Bolshevik uprisings broke out in some cities and in January and
February 1918 the Red Army captured Odessa, Mikolaev, Dnipro and Kyiv. The Rada government
fled to Zhytomir, but the UPR had been defeated. The creation of the UPR was the culmination of a
Ukrainian nationalist dream, but it was also smart politics. As an independent state, it could enter
into treaties with other powers – and in 1918, Germany and Austria-Hungary were
looking for deals in Eastern Europe. Ukraine had long been considered the “bread-basket
of Europe” because its fertile soil and high grain yields. By 1918, the Allied blockade of
Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as their own economic mismanagement, meant that the two
Central Powers faced extreme shortages of food and hundreds of thousands had died of starvation.
So they recognized the UPR and struck a deal: the UPR would provide 100,000
train car loads of grain and seeds, and the Central Powers granted the
Ukrainians the Polish city of Chelm. Ukrainian speakers in Austria Hungary
also got improved language rights. But the so-called Bread Peace treaty was signed
the very day the Red Army marched into Kyiv, so the UPR was unable to hold up its end of the
bargain. It had lost much of its territory to the Bolsheviks, and it didn’t have enough trains and
railroads to move so much grain. So the Germans and Austro-Hungarians marched into Ukraine on
February 18. Within a month they had cleared out the Bolsheviks, including from Kharkiv
and the Donbas. They reinstated the Rada, but the Germans didn’t like its socialist
leanings and the Austrians thought it was too slow in delivering the grain, so the Central
Powers disbanded it in April. They replaced it with a puppet state called a Hetmanate,
under Pavlo Skoropadskii. German leaders like General Erich Ludendorff were convinced the
aristocratic Skoropadskii would do their bidding: “In Hetman Skoropadskii we found a man with
whom it was very easy to get along:” (Darch 161) Skoropadskii’s regime promoted
the Ukrainian language, but also reversed the Rada’s land reforms, and
seized the peasants’ grain to send to Germany. The Central Powers’ occupation of
the country also produced resistance. Numerous armed groups fought against the Central
Powers and the Hetman’s troops, including famous anarchist leader Nestor Makhno, whose Black
Army controlled large parts of eastern Ukraine. When Germany surrendered to the Allies in
November 1918, Skoropadskii’s days were numbered. The most powerful political force in Ukraine
now became the Directory, led by nationalists Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Symon Petlyura.
By December 1918 they had rallied most of the peasantry and overthrew Skoropadskii. The
Directory then reinstated the UPR and the Rada, but kept it more strictly under their control. So, as the Great War came to an end, the Ukrainian People’s Republic was created
in Kyiv for a second time – but meanwhile other new states were also popping up in the
region, which led to still more conflict. The collapse of the Russian Empire, Germany
and Austria-Hungary led to the emergence of a new Polish Republic, and a second
Ukrainian state, the West Ukrainian People’s Republic (WUPR). Both of these states
claimed the linguistically and ethnically mixed former Austro-Hungarian province of East
Galicia and its main city of Lemberg. In November 1918, streetfighting between Polish
and West Ukrainian nationalists in Lemberg escalated into the Ukrainian-Polish War of 1919. Poland was by far the stronger of the two
states, all the more so because it enjoyed the support of the Allies in its war against
Bolshevik Russia. The head of the Ukrainian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference,
Arnold Margolin, expressed his frustration: “[The Americans are] as
uninformed about Ukrainians as the average European is about
numerous African tribes.” (Kubicek 86) With more numerous, better-trained
and better equipped Polish forces facing the Western Ukrainians,
the WUPR asked the UPR for help, and on paper the two Ukrainian republics united
in 1919. In practice they didn’t cooperate, since the WUPR’s main enemy was Poland, and
the UPR’s main enemy was Bolshevik Russia. Since Poland was also fighting Bolshevik Russia,
the UPR was not in a hurry to join West Ukraine’s war. By May 1919, Polish forces defeated the WUPR
army and established control of East Galicia. The West Ukrainian state had been
crushed by Poland by mid-1919. Meanwhile the Kyiv-based UPR was still fragile
after being re-established by the Directory, when the front lines of the Russian
Civil War arrived on Ukrainian soil. The civil war tearing apart the former
Russian Empire also saw numerous armed forces fighting in Ukraine, which turned
into a primary battlefield for all sides. There were Bolshevik revolutionaries,
White counter-revolutionaries, anarchists, peasant movements, and Allied intervention
forces. Bolshevik leadership was divided on where to concentrate its forces in late 1918 and early
1919. They did launch an offensive to re-capture Kharkiv and re-establish the Ukrainian Socialist
Republic, and they also hoped that by advancing in Ukraine they might be able to open a corridor to
support the struggling Hungarian Soviet Republic. Red Army commander Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko
was so frustrated at the lack of reinforcements for his offensive against Kharkiv that he went
above his superior’s head to Lenin directly: “Vladimir Il’ich, they call to us from the
Ukraine. The workers everywhere welcome the bolsheviks; they curse the Radists. But the
Radists triumph, thanks to our inaction, and are being quickly organised… In such
circumstances I have resolved to go forward. At the moment with our naked hands (and with
courage) it is possible to take what later will have to be taken with
bloodshed.” (Adams 402/403) Antonov-Ovseyenko also pushed Lenin to
allow a separate Ukrainian Communist Party to announce itself before the invasion to add
legitimacy to Bolshevik aspirations in Ukraine. Eventually, Lenin did allow the Ukrainian
Party to be announced before the invasion began in December 1918. The Red Army took Kharkiv
in January, Kyiv in February, and clashed with French and Greek troops who had entered
southern Ukraine only to leave in April 1919. Once again, the Bolsheviks formed a new state:
the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. Bolshevik forces now began to implement land
collectivisation, often earning the ire of peasants who resented communal ownership. But
once again, this state would not last long either. The anti-revolutionary White Russian army
burst out of southern Russia in May 1919 and marched into Ukraine. General Anton
Denikin’s troops took Kharkiv and Donbas in July, and most of the rest of the country
in August – and they planned to keep Ukraine as part of a reformed Russian
Empire if they could win the civil war. As rival armies marched across Ukraine,
terror often came in their wake. Much of this was directed against the Jewish population
of the region, who often faced persecution from all sides. Between 1918 and 1920 there were an
estimated 1500 anti-semitic progroms in Ukraine. Much of the killing was done by the White Russian
army and the forces of the Ukrainian nationalists, but the Red Army and the Polish army
also participated to a lesser extent. Both the Directory and the Whites associated
local Jewish populations with Bolshevism with deadly consequences. More than 100,000 Jews
living in Ukraine were killed during this period. Civil war had already devastated Ukraine when
the White Russians conquered most of the country in summer 1919, and the future of
an independent Ukraine looked bleak. The only certainty, was more war. In late 1919, the Red Army won a resounding
victory over the Whites and once again began to push south into Ukraine. Red forces
occupied Kyiv for the third time in December, and expelled the last Whites from Crimea
in 1920. But unpopular Bolshevik land policies and political terror soon turned
many Ukrainian peasants against them. Ukrainian communist Volodymyr Zatonsky
later recalled how many peasants wanted a socialist society, but without the type
of Communism the party was forcing on them: “We submitted ourselves to elements
of the peasantry who, although very much sympathetic to Bolshevism, were nonetheless
very suspicious, to say the least, of Communism… [Previously] the Bolsheviks had said ‘arm
yourself, beat the landlord and seize his land!’ The Communists now say ‘give the state your
bread, subject yourselves to discipline … give us your weapons’ … it is no surprise that …
they turned against us with almost the same ferocity with which they had risen up against
the Hetman and Petliura.” (McGeever 110) To add to the destruction in Ukraine, in
spring 1920 the Polish-Soviet War boiled over when Polish forces attacked the Red
Army and advanced all the way to Kyiv. Ukraine’s Simon Petlyura, who had fled to
Poland after his defeat by the Red Army, led his few remaining Ukrainian troops alongside
the Poles. Petlyura’s support for the Polish state that had defeated the West Ukrainians caused great
resentment amongst some other Ukrainian leaders, like former Directory member
and socialist Vynnychenko: “[Petlyura is an] unhealthily ambitious maniac, soaked up to his ears in the blood of
pogromized Jewry, politically illiterate… a pernicious and filthy gladiator-slave
of the Entente.” (Kubicek 90) But Polish success in Ukraine was short-lived.
The Red Army launched a counter-offensive in June 1920, re-took Kyiv and pushed the Poles all
the way back to Warsaw. The resulting Peace treaty in 1921 left most of today’s western Ukraine
in Poland, and the rest under the control of Bolshevik Russia. Lenin now hoped to attract
the Ukrainian people to his cause, and did not repeat the intense Russification policies of the
previous Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic - at least for a while. He allowed a degree of
Ukrainian national identity to be expressed, as long as this was tied closely to international
socialism. He also renewed his contradictory approach to self-determination. He officially
allowed the recognised Ukrainian Soviet government to secede from Russia if it wished,
but vehemently advised against it: "We are opponents of national animosity, national
differences, national peculiarities. We are internationalists. We strive for a close union
and complete amalgamation of all workers and peasants of all nations of the world in one
world Soviet republic…” (Dmytrzshyn 46/47) Stalin, on the other hand, had more practical
concerns about Ukraine’s strategic value: “[Central Russia], that hearth of world
revolution [cannot] hold out long without the assistance of border regions which abound in raw
materials, fuel, and foodstuffs." (Dmytrzshyn 48) It didn’t take long for even the paper autonomy
of the Ukrainian Communist Party to disappear. The Red Army absorbed armed Ukrainian
communist units in May 1920, and the Party Central Committee took over
the administration of Ukraine and abolished the Ukrainian foreign ministry. The Russian
Communist Party justified its decision this way: “The foreign policy of the Ukraine has not and
cannot have any interests different from Russia, which is just such a proletarian state as
the Ukraine. The heroic struggle of Russia in full union with the Ukraine, on all fronts
against domestic and foreign imperialists, is now giving place to an equally
united diplomatic front.” (Adams 62) In 1922, Soviet Ukraine became one of
the four founding republics of the USSR along with Russia, Belarussia and the
Transcaucasian Federative Republic. In theory these republics had the
right to secede from the Union, but not in practice. Paul Kubicek described the
transformation of Ukraine from 1917 to 1922: “Communism created a new economic and
social order, and, instead of a political system in which one person ruled with the
assistance of a secret police and a giant, unwieldy bureaucracy, the Bolsheviks established
a political system in which one party ruled with the assistance of a secret police and a
giant, unwieldy bureaucracy.” (Kubicek 90) Ukraine emerged from war, chaos, and famine
in 1922 without an independent state despite multiple attempts at independence. Well
over 1 million inhabitants had died. Only in 1991 would Ukraine leave the Soviet
Union and establish an independent republic, re-adopting the yellow and blue flag
outlawed for more than 70 years. We hope you liked this overview of
the complex history of Ukrainian Independence that emerged and failed at
the end of the First World War. Of course a tragic chapter in Ukrainian history
is unfolding right now before our eyes with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and a
distorted version of Ukraine’s history has been used to try to justify it. Over a million people
have been displaced by this war of aggression, thousands have been injured or killed. If
you want to support the victims of this war, we put together a list of charities and linked
them in the pinned comment below this video. We want to thank Mark Newton for the help for this
episode. You can find all the sources as well as a link to our Patreon page in the video description
below. I am Jesse Alexander and this is Real Time History, a Youtube history channel that
says net voine/russki voenny karabl idi na xui.
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For me, this is the best 28 minutes that I have spent watching video relating to the current war and horror that the Russian Federation has levied upon Ukraine. This is a MESSY history, with one consistency throughout - since the late 19th century Ukrainians have been constantly pushing and fighting to attain an independent, sustainable and stable nation-state. In excess of one million Ukrainians have perished towards that goal. It was only achieved in 1991, and the threads of Vladimir Putin’s current ambition are tied strongly back through the last 100-odd years of Russian ambition and prejudice towards a strong, wilful and oppressed Ukrainian national identity and sense of place. Now I know where Putin’s derogatory statements that he ‘refuses to be beaten by little Russians’ comes from.
This is by Jesse Alexander, a Canadian historian based in Vienna - and it is mind-bendingly dramatic. The Ukrainians really do emerge as the underdog heroes in the end. They can’t be failed now. It would be an unbearable injustice and tragedy.
Thanks, this is good to know.
It seems to underscore the need to crush Russian imperialism once and for all.
Can’t wait to drink a shot of Vodka in New Kyiv (before know as Moscow) and pay with euros then in the future 👌
pretty good video but when talking about ukrainian struggles towards independence he should also cover ww2 as its very problematic topic these days
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