INTRODUCTION
In 1977, the Canadian-Ukrainian historian Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky published an article titled ʻThe Fourth Universal and Its Ideological Antecedents’. He described the declaration of the sovereignty and independence of the Ukrainian People’s Republic by the Central Rada’s Fourth Universal as a triumph of the separatist current over the federalist current in the history of Ukrainian political thought. According to him, the federalist tendencies developed by nineteenth-century Ukrainian intellectuals were – amid the radical political changes in Russia and Ukraine – overtaken by the separatist tendencies of Mykola Mikhnovs’kyi and Dmytro Dontsov, which enjoyed only a limited following until 1917. While acknowledging that both currents left an important intellectual legacy in modern Ukrainian history, Lysiak-Rudnytsky warned of the nationalist and at times militant nature of pure separatism and instead advocated a synthesis of demands for national sovereignty with international cooperation.[1]
The purpose of this article is to examine the oscillation in Ukrainian ideas of state formation between independentism and federalism, and to trace the persistence of the latter after 1917. In other words, among Ukrainian political figures between 1917–1919, the (re)creation of a federation with other nations of the former imperial territory remained a realistic alternative to independence. In this sense, the synthesis proposed by Lysiak-Rudnytsky was in fact pursued during that period. Moreover, I argue that the persistence of federalist orientations among Ukrainian leaders was closely connected with Ukraine’s military weakness and its reliance on foreign support, such that choices regarding diplomatic alignment were inseparable from constitutional visions. Whether Ukraine should pursue independence or federation was determined less by the personal convictions of politicians than by the strategic interests of whichever belligerent power in the ongoing First World War seemed most favourable to Ukraine. This article traces the dynamics of this interrelation between state-building projects and foreign policy, focusing on three critical moments of diplomatic realignment in 1917–1919: (1) from the establishment of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; (2) the final phase of the Hetmanate, when Germany’s defeat in the European war had become inevitable; and (3) the early period of the Directorate regime.
ROAD TO BREST-LITOVSK: THE UNR, OCTOBER 1917 – FEBRUARY 1918
Federalism constitutes one of the most significant concepts in the history of Ukrainian political thought. Its origins are commonly traced to the mid-nineteenth century, when the historian Mykola Kostomarov articulated federalist ideas as a symbolic expression of Slavic solidarity and the equality of Great Russians and Ukrainians, rather than as a concrete constitutional project. The first specific proposal for the federalization of the empire advanced by a Ukrainian was Mykhailo Drahomanov’s de facto draft constitution of Russia, published in 1884 under the title Free Union. Federalism was subsequently taken up by the historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky and, during the Revolution of 1905, redefined as a political goal of Ukrainian parties and activists to transform Russia into a “federation of autonomous national territories”. From then until the February Revolution of 1917, Ukrainian political movements pursued the realization of national territorial autonomy and federalism. They demanded the introduction of regional autonomy with elected assemblies, and the recognition of Ukrainian as the official language in educational, administrative, and judicial institutions within the autonomous region. They further criticized the existing administrative system that fragmented Ukrainian-inhabited lands among several imperial provinces. At the same time, they remained careful not to advocate full independence from Russia. Several factors underpinned this position. First, in Europe in the long nineteenth century, the prospects for successful independence movements and for the survival of newly created states were assumed to be very weak. Second, theorists influenced by Mikhail Bakunin and the Narodnik tradition considered a federation of nations a higher political form than a mere collection of independent states. Third, part of the Ukrainian intellectual circle maintained a sense of Eastern Slavic kinship, or of fraternal bonds with Russians through Orthodoxy and a shared history and culture. Even without achieving independence, the creation of an autonomous unit within a federal state and the institutionalization of Ukrainian as an official language within it were regarded as sufficient foundations for the survival and development of the Ukrainian nation.[2]
After the February Revolution, the Central Rada – the self-proclaimed representative body of Ukrainians established in Kyiv – demanded from the Provisional Government in Petrograd the granting of national-territorial autonomy to Ukraine on the premise of Russia’s federalization. Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who had already emerged as the principal advocate of federalism during the Revolution of 1905, assumed the chairmanship of the Central Rada and, in September 1917, convened the “Congress of the Peoples”, a gathering of representatives of Russia’s various nationalities and regions. The political parties participating in the Central Rada likewise endorsed federalism in their respective platforms. Moreover, unlike the political leaders at the Russian centre who regarded the unitary state as an ideal, many members of the Kiev Committee of the Kadets also supported federalism. Serving as intermediaries between the Ukrainian movement and the Kadet Central Committee even before the revolution, the Kiev Committee frequently endorsed the former’s demand for a federal system of national-territorial autonomy. Under pressure, the Provisional Government recognized the de facto autonomy of Ukraine by its agreement with the Central Rada in July 1917.[3]
By the autumn of 1917, however, a shift in the interpretation of federalism had emerged within the Central Rada. Initially, the introduction of a federal system had been envisaged as a decision to be taken by the All-Russian Constituent Assembly – namely, by a central body representing all of Russia. Yet, amid repeated postponements of the Constituent Assembly by the Provisional Government and its reluctance to implement the agreed Ukrainian autonomy, the radical faction, which had gained the majority within the Central Rada and was led by the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party, argued that the initiative for introducing federalism did not belong to the central authority but rather to the individual nationalities and regions. In their view, a federal state ought to be constructed “from below” rather than “from above”, and sovereignty resided precisely in those nationalities and regions that would spearhead this “bottom-up” movement. This interpretation was concretized in proposals raised and debated within the Rada in October to convene an All-Ukrainian Constituent Assembly that was independent of Russia and was endowed with sovereign authority.[4] Such a reinterpretation of federalism, moreover, provided the theoretical foundation for Ukrainian leaders to continue entertaining federalist ideas even after the collapse of the central government in the October Revolution and the forcible dissolution of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks. It was believed that a federal Russia could once again be created through the initiative of sovereign nationalities and regions at the local level. In practice, despite the contemporary use of the term federatsiia (Federation), the concept bore closer resemblance to a confederation of sovereign national republics. This idea – federalism conceived as a “confederation of sovereign republics” – can be referred to as “confederal federalism”.
The fact that federalism remained the dominant orientation within the Central Rada even after the collapse of the central government is evident from documents issued in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution. On 7 November (Old Style, hereafter until February 1918), the Third Universal of the Rada not only proclaimed the establishment of the Ukrainian People’s Republic but also explicitly declared that the new republic would remain within the framework of Russia’s unity.[5] Furthermore, the General Secretariat – the executive authority of the Rada and the de facto UNR government – dispatched memoranda to other governments that had emerged within the former territory of the Russian Empire, calling upon them to form a new federation. According to notes preserved in the Ukrainian state archives, between 25 and 26 November such memoranda were sent to Petrograd, Novocherkassk, Omsk, Tbilisi, Simferopol’, Minsk, and Chișinău. A follow-up letter was sent again on 4 December.[6] The formation of a central government of Russia likewise remained a constant item on the agenda of the Central Rada’s sessions.
In the Third Universal, the Central Rada pledged that the Ukrainian People’s Republic would bring about peace. Accordingly, it dispatched envoys to the High Command of the Russian Army, to the front, and to Brest-Litovsk to explore the possibility of an armistice. The subsequent deterioration of relations with the Bolsheviks, however, compelled the pursuit of a more active foreign policy. On 17 November, Mykola Porsh of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party held a telephone conversation with Iosif Stalin through the mediation of the Kyiv Bolsheviks, indicating that the Bolshevik Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) was initially regarded as one of the negotiating partners for the reorganization of central authority.[7] On 25 November, the aforementioned memorandum was also sent to the Sovnarkom.[8] Yet, on 4 December, the Bolshevik government issued an ultimatum to the Ukrainian People’s Republic, citing its alleged support for the Don Cossack government as “counterrevolutionary”; when the ultimatum was rejected, it declared war. The newly born Ukrainian People’s Republic lacked the military strength to resist the much larger Red Army, and this confrontation brought to the forefront the fundamental premise that constitutional projects could not be realized by Ukrainian efforts alone and therefore presupposed military assistance from foreign powers.
The rationale for continuing the federalist course while simultaneously exercising diplomatic authority to seek foreign support was articulated in a memorandum of 11 December addressed to all belligerent and neutral states. It declared that “the Ukrainian People’s Republic aspires to the formation of a federal union of the republics established within the former territory of the Russian Empire. At present, however, no all-Russian federal authority has been constituted, nor has any division of international representation between the Ukrainian Republic and a future federal government been realized; therefore, the General Secretariat is compelled to embark upon an independent path of international relations”.[9] On the same day, the Central Rada resolved to send representatives to the forthcoming peace conference in Brest-Litovsk. As indicated in the statement of Oleksandr Shul’hyn, head of the International Secretariat (equivalent to foreign minister), this decision did not constitute a declaration of alignment with the Central Powers but rather reflected the UNR’s all-encompassing diplomacy, which urgently required external support. “Peace”, Shul’hyn asserted, “can be concluded only by representatives of all regions and nationalities of Russia; the People’s Commissars do not possess the right to conclude peace on behalf of all Russia. Moreover, whereas the Bolsheviks are attempting to reach a separate peace with the Central Powers, Ukraine insists on a general peace”.[10]
That the dispatch of representatives to Brest did not signify a definitive alignment with the Central Powers is evident from the fact that negotiations with the Entente powers intensified immediately thereafter. Since Ukraine had been under the rule of Russia – a member of the Entente – until the October Revolution, numerous consuls of the Allied states continued to reside in Kyiv and Odesa even after the upheaval. In addition, British and French military officers and diplomats were stationed in Romania, monitoring the situation in southwestern Russia after the revolution. For the Entente, two objectives were paramount: first, to prevent Ukraine from falling under the influence of the Central Powers; second, to organize a common front against the Bolsheviks. In pursuit of both aims, Britain, France, and the United States recognized Ukraine as a temporary negotiating partner, offering promises of financial and military assistance, yet at the same time urging Ukraine to cooperate with other regional authorities in former Russia and adopting a cautious stance toward formal recognition of Ukrainian independence. The fear was that granting independence too readily to unstable regional governments would result in the complete disintegration of Russia and create a dangerous power vacuum that could strengthen both the Central Powers and the Bolsheviks.[11] This position did not contradict the diplomatic orientation of the UNR leaders, who sought not complete independence but the future creation of a federation. Ukrainian representatives could thus pursue the strategy of requesting provisional recognition of statehood while presenting the goal of a future reunified Russia under federal principles. Oleksandr Shul’hyn, known to be pro-Entente, cultivated cordial relations with representatives of the Allied powers.[12]
Among Britain, the United States, and France, the country most proactive in supporting Ukraine was France. General Georges Tabouis, who came to serve as France’s principal representative of interests, had originally been stationed with the Russian army in Kam’ianets’-Podil’s’kyi and occasionally visited Kyiv; he had even met with Symon Petliura in September 1917.[13] On 18 November, Tabouis held a meeting with Shul’hyn, offering immediate promises of financial and military assistance.[14]On 5 December, he visited several members of the General Secretariat, including its head, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, and declared that although the Entente had not yet formally recognized Ukraine, it would assuredly provide support for the sake of victory over its enemy.[15] On 16 December, the French government, acting through General Henri Berthelot, commander of the French military mission in Romania, appointed Tabouis as “commissar to the Ukrainian government”.[16] Tabouis was vested with authority to grant provisional recognition of Ukrainian independence, yet he himself adopted a cautious stance toward immediate recognition after observing conditions in Kyiv. Moreover, the formal recognition of Ukraine would have required coordination with both Great Britain and the United States.
On 13 December, Picton Bagge, the British consul in Odesa, was dispatched to Kyiv as an “unofficial agent” representing British interests. Earlier that month, Britain and France had reached an understanding regarding their respective spheres of influence in southwestern Russia, under which Ukraine was placed within the French sphere, and Bagge was instructed to follow the lead of Tabouis in dealings with the People’s Republic.[17] Upon learning that the French government had vested Tabouis with the authority to recognize Ukrainian independence, Robert Cecil of the British Foreign Office instructed Bagge that, should Tabouis issue such a declaration, Britain was to follow suit.[18] While Britain and France were thus prepared to extend recognition to Ukraine, the United States remained reluctant to intervene. Washington limited its involvement to sending Carl Jenkins, the former consul in Riga, to Kyiv as an “observer”, while restricting his direct contacts with the UNR leaders. On 25 December, the French ambassador to Washington, Jean Jules Jusserand, informed the State Department that Tabouis, as commissar to the Ukrainian government, had been dispatched for the purpose of recognition, and requested clarification of the American position.[19] In response, Acting Secretary of State Frank Polk stated that while the United States was carefully monitoring the situation, it had “not reached a decision to recognize individual governments of Russia”.[20] On 2 January 1918, Secretary of State Robert Lansing likewise wrote to Ambassador David R. Francis in Petrograd that “no independent state will be recognized until the will of the Russian people is more clearly expressed”, reflecting the United States’ overall reluctance to intervene in Russian affairs at this juncture.[21] Jenkins, for his part, reported through the Consul General in Moscow that prompt Allied support was necessary to shield Ukraine from the Central Powers; yet the report, dated 3 January, did not reach Washington until 2 March (New Style).[22] In short, although the embryonic stage of diplomatic relations had been reached, Tabouis’s caution and America’s hesitancy prevented negotiations in Kyiv from bearing immediate fruit.
At the same time that the Allied powers dispatched envoys to Kyiv, Ukraine likewise sent a mission to Iași, the provisional capital of Romania. On 4 January the mission’s head visited the representatives of Britain, the United States, France, and Italy stationed in Iași. He explained that while Ukraine’s ultimate goal was the creation of a federal Russia, the government – realizing the difficulty of realizing this immediately – sought the temporary recognition of Ukrainian independence by the Entente and the establishment of official diplomatic relations. The Allied envoys, however, were already aware that Ukraine had dispatched representatives to Brest-Litovsk and entered into negotiations with the Central Powers. On the following day, the Allied representatives demanded, as a condition for recognition of independence and provision of military aid, that Ukraine refrain from concluding a separate peace with their enemy.[23] The Ukrainian mission could not provide such an assurance because – as he explicitly informed the Allied mission – the Ukrainian delegation at Brest had been vested with full powers, including the authority to conclude a peace treaty.[24] Thus, in Iași as well, Ukraine failed to secure immediate recognition from the Entente powers.
Meanwhile, the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk proceeded favourably. Although the Ukrainian delegation – dispatched in early December to participate in the armistice talks – arrived only after the negotiations had already concluded, it nevertheless held an informal meeting with General Max Hoffmann, Chief of Staff of the German Eastern Front (Ober Ost). At the meeting, the delegation declared that “the Ukrainian People’s Republic does not recognize the authority of the Council of People’s Commissars to conclude peace on behalf of all Russia”, to which Hoffmann responded that if Germany were to receive an official statement from the Ukrainian government refusing to recognize the Sovnarkom as the government of all Russia, then Germany would refrain from discussing the Ukrainian question with the Bolshevik representatives. From this meeting, the Ukrainian envoys gained the expectation of obtaining German recognition of statehood.[25] At the same time, the German side also began to seriously consider the potential utility of employing Ukraine for its own purposes. The peace negotiations at the end of December thus commenced on the basis of the favourable impressions established in this initial encounter.
For a time during the peace negotiations with the Central Powers, the People’s Republic continued to adhere to its established course: the eventual creation of a federal Russia, with the construction of a Ukrainian state and its autonomous participation in diplomacy as a preliminary stage. Prior to its departure for Brest, the People’s Republic called upon the other regional governments of former Russia to represent their respective interests at Brest as constituent parts of a future federal Russia.[26] At the first session held in Brest on 4 January Oleksandr Sevriuk likewise declared that Ukraine was part of a federal Russian republic but that Ukraine would conduct diplomacy as an independent state for as long as the Sovnarkom obstructed its formation.[27]
Germany, the leading power among the Central Powers, pursued interests in Ukraine that diverged fundamentally from those of the Entente. Above all, famine-stricken Germany and Austria-Hungary sought to obtain grain from Ukraine’s fertile lands and aimed to incorporate Ukraine into their sphere of economic influence. While the weakening of the Bolsheviks was important to Germany as well, Berlin was equally unwilling to see Russia’s various forces coalesce into a revived enemy state. Consequently, the formation of a group of national states as buffer zones between the Central Powers and Russia appeared to be the optimal solution. In such a scenario, Ukraine needed to exist as an independent state.[28] Germany did not regard the Third Universal, which emphasized the preservation of Russia’s unity, as a document sufficient to establish Ukraine as a subject of international law, therefore demanding the drafting of a new memorandum. In response, on 10 January Vsevolod Holubovych declared in a memorandum that “the Ukrainian People’s Republic, until such time as a common federal government is constituted in Russia and the question of the division of international legal representation between the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the future federal government is settled, shall embark upon the construction of self-standing international legal relations”. Thus, while still reserving the possibility of an all-Russian or Eastern European federation, the UNR publicly proclaimed itself a subject of international law.[29]With this memorandum, Ukraine was recognized as an equal participant and entered into concrete peace negotiations.
The Fourth Universal, or “Declaration of Independence”, was issued under the circumstances described above: Ukraine continued to seek recognition from the Entente while negotiations with the Central Powers at Brest were proceeding favourably. Its provisions concerning the structure of the state closely corresponded to the memorandum presented at Brest. The Universal proclaimed that the Ukrainian People’s Republic was to become an independent and sovereign state; that the General Secretariat was to be renamed the Council of People’s Ministers; and that the institutional foundations of statehood were to be consolidated. At the same time, however, the Universal explicitly affirmed that Ukraine would in the future establish federal relations with the other republics of the former Russian territories. The Fourth Universal should therefore not be regarded as a simple shift in the Ukrainian national movement from federalism to separatist independence. Rather, it was simultaneously a declaration of sovereignty – a condition required by the Central Powers for peace – and an articulation of the prospect of Russian reunification in federal form, as the Entente would have desired.[30]
As outlined above, Ukraine sought to secure support from both camps wherever possible, pursuing an all-encompassing diplomatic strategy. Yet, the more smoothly negotiations at Brest advanced, the more reluctant the Entente became to extend formal recognition to Ukraine. Three days before the conclusion of peace, Shul’hyn visited the French representative Tabouis and the British representative Bagge to inquire as to the conditions under which Ukraine might avoid a rupture with the Entente, even if it signed the peace treaty with the Central Powers. According to Tabouis’s memoirs, however, it was already too late.[31] The British Foreign Office had instructed Bagge to inform Kyiv that if Ukraine were to deliver grain to the Central Powers, Britain would provide no financial assistance whatsoever.[32] Nevertheless, with the Red Army advancing on Kyiv, Ukraine urgently required military support and could not afford to interrupt the negotiations at Brest. The signing of the peace treaty on 27 January – followed on the same day by the Bolshevik capture of Kyiv – prompted the Entente representatives to entrust the protection of their nationals to the Spanish consul as a representative of a neutral state, and to depart the city.[33] On 9 March, German forces entered Kyiv together with the leaders of the People’s Republic. In this way, the conflicts surrounding constitutional visions and diplomatic orientations since the October Revolution reached a provisional resolution in the form of alignment with the Central Powers and the path of independence.
GERMAN OCCUPATION AND DEFEAT: THE HETMANATE,
APRIL–DECEMBER 1918
As seen in the previous section, amid the turmoil following the October Revolution, leaders of the Ukrainian movement shifted flexibly between independence and federalism in accordance with diplomatic circumstances. The more significant axis of political division was not the form of statehood but the question of socialism. In this respect, the UNR leaders were resolute socialists. In a country where the agrarian countryside predominated, Ukrainian socialism was rooted in land redistribution and bore the character of an SR-type socialism. This, however, proved fundamentally incompatible with the principal clause of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, namely the obligation to deliver grain to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The German army, bypassing the Ukrainian government, issued a directive demanding the treaty’s implementation, but the Rada persisted in its own land policy. On 23 April Wilhelm Groener, the German chief of staff, together with Ambassador Alfons Mumm and Austrian Ambassador János Forgách, concluded that the establishment of a more compliant government was necessary.[34] Local landowners and middle peasants, resentful of having their estates expropriated, shared this view. Before long, the name of Pavlo Skoropadsky (Skoropads’kyi) – descendant of a Hetman of the early modern Cossack state and a general in the Russian Imperial Army – emerged as a candidate to head the new government. Skoropadsky met with Groener and accepted the conditions presented to him. On 29 April with the open cooperation of the German army and conservative Ukrainians, a coup d’état brought the Hetmanate, with Skoropadsky as the Hetman, into being.
The Hetmanate, established under these circumstances, was long regarded by contemporaries aligned with the Rada – as well as by historians sympathetic to their position – as a reactionary regime divorced from the will of the nation. One of the principal reasons for the Hetmanate’s unpopularity among Ukrainian nationalists was the alleged prevalence of Russians within its bureaucracy and military. Certainly, the government of the Hetmanate was from the outset a non-socialist regime, in sharp contrast to the policies of the Rada. Yet a closer examination of the backgrounds and activities of its leaders makes it difficult to characterize the Hetmanate as simply a Russian regime. Contrary to the image of Pavlo Skoropadsky as a German puppet harbouring a Great Russian heart, his memoirs reveal both an understanding of and an affection for Ukrainian culture, and he was viewed favourably by contemporary moderate Ukrainian nationalists.[35] Among the most significant figures in the first cabinet, serving as deputy prime minister and minister of education, was Mykola Vasylenko, a Kadet and a member of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives, who represented the moderate wing of Ukrainian nationalism. Until the February Revolution, Vasylenko had led the Kiev committee of the Kadet Party and had sided with Hrushevsky in pressing for decentralization against the central party committee, which refused to recognize Ukrainian territorial autonomy. As minister of education, he promoted the establishment of Ukrainian universities and cultural and artistic institutions. His successor in the ministry, Petro Stebnyts’kyi, a former leader of the Ukrainian community in Petrograd, became the driving force of the Hetmanate’s “Ukrainianization” policy. Likewise, Borys Butenko, the Kadet minister of transportation, advanced the Ukrainization of his ministry.[36]
Following the establishment of the Hetmanate, the Kadet Kiev Committee convened a “Ukrainian Kadet Party Congress”, at which it adopted a platform endorsing the line of Ukrainian independence through alignment with the Central Powers.[37]The decision of Kadet members from Ukraine to cooperate with the Skoropadsky's regime and to accept ministerial posts in the government of the independent Ukrainian state demonstrates that it is misleading to classify the Kadets simply as a “Russian party”. Local Kadets in Ukraine included not only self-identified Ukrainians such as Vasylenko and Butenko, but also nationally ambiguous intellectuals who felt a sense of belonging to both Ukrainian and Russian language and culture. As Dmytro Doroshenko, the Hetmanate’s Foreign Minister, observed, those who assumed ministerial office did so on the basis of accepting the existence of a Ukrainian state; regardless of whether their origin or self-identity was that of a Great Russian, they were committed to the construction of Ukraine as a territorial state.[38]
The Hetmanate promptly recognized the provisions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluded by the People’s Republic, thereby continuing the independentist policy through alignment with the Central Powers pursued by the previous government. Until the autumn of 1918, its foreign policy aimed primarily at securing international recognition of Ukrainian independence. Ambassadors were dispatched to Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire, while the government also sought to establish diplomatic relations with neutral states. Fearing secret contacts with the Entente, Germany restricted the official dispatch of Ukrainian diplomats to neutral countries until October.[39] Even so, Ambassador Fedor Steingel’ in Berlin maintained contacts with the Spanish and Finnish ambassadors, while in Switzerland the local Ukrainian leader Ievmen Lukashevych acted in practice as a diplomat.[40] The Hetmanate also conducted relations with other successor states of the former Russian Empire as independent states: on 7 August it concluded a preliminary treaty with the Don, whereby both sides recognized each other’s sovereignty.[41] Armenia and Georgia, for their part, requested that the Hetmanate recognize their independence.[42] In accordance with the treaty signed in March between the Central Powers and Soviet Russia, Ukraine and Russia likewise entered into peace negotiations as independent states.
By the autumn, however, as the defeat of the Central Powers in the war became more probable, a reorientation of diplomatic policy toward the Entente began to be considered. On 15 October Dmytro Doroshenko delivered an important address before the Council of Ministers regarding the future direction of foreign policy. He argued that Ukraine must “dispel the false rumours circulating among the Entente concerning Ukraine and its relations with the Central Powers and Great Russia, for the sake of our country’s future interests” and proposed the dispatch of special diplomatic missions to Britain, the United States, and France. The rumour in question, which was widely spread among the Entente after Brest, was that “Ukraine” was merely a fiction of the Central Powers’ eastern policy and that, geographically and ethnically, it was in fact part of Great Russia. Doroshenko’s proposal was adopted, and it was further decided that an extraordinary meeting would be held on 17 October to deliberate on the broader course of foreign policy.[43]
At the 17 October session, however, nine ministers issued a statement opposing Doroshenko’s basic line of maintaining an independent orientation while simultaneously seeking closer ties with the Entente, and they demanded the signatures of the remaining ministers. While affirming that Ukraine’s distinctiveness and national culture were “great objectives”, the statement argued that “through integration with the other states of Russia, Ukraine would attain greater autonomy and authority in its relations with foreign powers than if it remained isolated and alone”. In other words, the statement maintained that if foreign policy was to shift toward the Entente, then state-building should likewise be redirected from independence toward a federalist path.[44] Thus, federalism was advanced as a constitutional arrangement capable of satisfying both the Entente’s anticipated desire for Russian reunification and Ukraine’s own aspiration to preserve its autonomy.
In the end, Hetman Skoropadsky, still dependent on German forces, postponed any sweeping shift in foreign policy at this juncture. Instead, a new cabinet was formed that reinforced the independence-oriented course. Many of those who signed the 17 October declaration were excluded from ministerial office. The Armistice of 11 November on the Western Front, however, brought the German orientation to an end. With a turn toward the Entente thus rendered unavoidable, on 14 November Skoropadsky issued a proclamation to all citizens of Ukraine, declaring the restoration of the unity of the Russian state on the basis of federal principles. Pro-Rada historians once claimed that this proclamation revealed Skoropadsky's “Great Russian” orientation. Yet, closer examination of its content reveals that it, too, envisioned a confederal model of federalism in which Ukraine was to occupy an autonomous status.[45] In his memoirs, Skoropadsky himself recalled: “I wanted the continued existence of Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation. I wished Ukraine to occupy its rightful place within this closely bound union of regions and states in which all regions and states would be united as equals into a powerful organic whole”.[46] Thus, one month after the memorandum of the Nine Ministers, the Hetman himself sanctioned the turn toward an Entente-aligned federalist course. This shift was immediately conveyed in practice when Skoropadsky instructed his representatives in Iași to circulate the proclamation among the Entente powers.[47] The reorientation was also reflected in personnel changes, most notably the replacement of Doroshenko as foreign minister with Georgii Afanasiev, one of the signatories of the Nine Ministers’ memorandum.
Once the federalist course had been adopted, the Ukrainian State – just as the Central Rada had done a year earlier – proposed the formation of a federation to the regional governments that had emerged in Russia. On 20 November Foreign Minister Afanasiev dispatched telegrams to the Don, Kuban, and Terek governments, to Georgia, and to the Volunteer Army led by Anton Denikin, proposing that a congress be convened in Kyiv “to discuss the question of restoring the unity of Russia”.[48] During the earlier period of independence under the Central Powers, the Don and Georgia had sought reciprocal recognition of sovereignty from Ukraine; now, however, they were regarded as partners in the project of creating a federal Russia. According to a subsequent telegram, the date of the proposed congress was set for 18 December.[49]
Within the Hetmanate, optimism grew regarding the possibility of securing support from the Entente. Shul’hyn, who had served as a UNR Foreign Minister and was now ambassador to Bulgaria, argued that since the Entente did not wish to see Bolshevik expansion either, Ukraine could adopt the attitude of “wishing for protectors from Germany’s brutal domination” and thereby solicit Entente assistance while leaving the maintenance of order to German troops until the arrival of Entente forces.[50]Steingel’, the ambassador to Germany, likewise predicted in a letter of 26 November that “before long, the Hetman government will be recognized by the Entente. The Entente troops are stationed in Novorossiia and Sevastopol’. In the near future, they will begin their advance into the interior of the country”.[51] Skoropadsky’s federalist declaration itself was based on reports from “a few reliable persons” who claimed that the Entente would be prepared to negotiate if Ukraine abandoned the path of independence. His plan was simple: if the French representative who was responsible for Ukraine as part of France’s sphere of influence came to Kyiv, negotiated with the Hetmanate, and proclaimed recognition on behalf of the Entente, matters could quickly be settled.[52] In fact, Emile Henno, who represented France in the region, also supported the continuation of the Skoropadsky's regime, believing that combating the Bolsheviks required the cooperation of all forces of the former Russian Empire. The Entente mission in Iași presented Henno’s position as the collective stance of the Entente as a whole.[53] Moreover, Germany, too, considered it more advantageous not to abandon Skoropadsky's regime and hand Ukraine over to the Bolsheviks, but rather to maintain its military presence even after the armistice and, at the appropriate moment, transfer military authority to the Entente. Thus, a temporary situation arose in which the Ukrainian State was, for a time, acknowledged by both wartime coalitions. The collusion of the Central Powers, the Entente, and local forces for the purpose of combating the Bolsheviks was also realized in the Baltic region and was therefore by no means an unrealistic prospect.
However, Denikin’s Volunteer Army, which was regarded as both a partner in federal formation and a cornerstone of the Entente’s anti-Bolshevik policy, pursued the goal of a “one and indivisible Russia”, that is, the restoration of a unitary state, and thus refused to tolerate federalism. Many of the former Imperial Russian Army officers leading the Volunteer Army inherited the imperial-era view that the Ukrainian people were simply a part of the Russian nation. Furthermore, the political influence of Russian nationalists, centred around Vasilii Shul’gin, prevented the Volunteer Army from conceding, even temporarily, to Ukrainian autonomy or independence. Skoropadsky's federalist declaration, in which Ukraine was granted an autonomous position, was equally unacceptable to the Volunteer Army. They regarded Skoropadsky as “a traitor who had exploited foreign powers hostile to Russia in order to create an independent Ukrainian state” and had no intention of entering into cooperation with him.[54] In their insistence on a unitary state, the Volunteer Army was uncompromising even toward the Entente: from their perspective, the Entente should only support the reconstitution of Russia under a centralized unitary government and had to oppose any movement toward autonomy by local authorities. In the end, Henno, who prioritized cooperation with the Volunteer Army, never left Odesa, and negotiations in Kyiv like those of late 1917 never took place.[55] Moreover, in forming a united front against the Bolsheviks, the Hetmanate refused to recognize Denikin as supreme commander and sought instead to have the Ukrainian army participate as an independent force, while Denikin remained adamant about his own sole command.[56]
Thus, as the Entente-oriented policy yielded no concrete results due to conflicts among the anti-Bolshevik forces, the uprising of the Directorate, representing the pro-Rada faction opposed to the Hetmanate, rapidly expanded. Rising up on 15 November, the insurgents, who promised the restoration of the Rada’s land policy, gained the support of peasants weary of the Hetmanate’s landlord-favouring policies and soon achieved superiority across wide swathes of Ukraine. Although the German army initially acted to suppress the uprising, the revolution in Germany made large-scale intervention in Ukraine unfeasible, and the troops gradually assumed a neutral stance. The Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian State criticized this neutrality on the grounds that it contradicted the Entente’s desire to maintain order,[57] but German forces withdrew before the Entente could mount any effective intervention to sustain the Skoropadsky's regime. On 14 December, Kyiv fell to the Directorate, Skoropadsky abdicated on the same day, and the federal formation congress scheduled for 18 December was never convened.
THE SEARCH FOR AN ANTI-BOLSHEVIK FRONT: THE DIRECTORATE, DECEMBER 1918 – FEBRUARY 1919
The transition from the Hetmanate to the Directorate mirrored the earlier shift from the UNR to the Hetmanate in that it was defined less by differences over diplomatic orientation or constitutional vision than by the divide in land policy. The Directorate annulled the laws of the Hetmanate and proclaimed the restoration of the socialist policies of the UNR. Upon seizing power, Directorate chairman Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Chekhivs’kyi advanced policies that were virtually Bolshevik in nature, rallying under the banner of proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie. At the outset, the Directorate also adopted an explicitly anti-Hetman position on state formation. In other words, it cast Skoropadsky's declaration of federal formation as a proclamation of Ukraine’s Russification, while presenting itself as the force that restored Ukrainian independence.
In December 1918, the Directorate issued an “Appeal to All Nations and Their Governments”, portraying the First UNR under the Central Rada as a victim of German imperialism, which had imposed an unfavourable peace through military force. Germany, it declared, had handed Ukraine over to a reactionary state headed by the “Russian general” Skoropadsky, but through their uprising the Ukrainian people had once again chosen a free and independent democratic People’s Republic. The appeal expressed the hope that those countries which had endorsed US President Woodrow Wilson’s principle of national self-determination would recognize the UNR in the sphere of international relations.[58] Thus, while the appeal clearly reflected an Entente orientation through its denunciation of Germany and invocation of Wilson, it nevertheless premised the UNR’s state form on the foundation of full independence. From December into January, the Directorate government appointed diplomatic missions to the various Entente powers, as well as to Odesa, where Allied intervention forces were stationed. The initial aim was to pursue the independentist path, with envoys directly negotiating with the Entente to secure recognition and military support. In practice, however, the Directorate shared with the Hetmanate the same structural constraint – namely, the way diplomatic alignments imposed limits on state formation. Since the postwar order was already being shaped under Entente leadership, the Directorate’s leaders too were compelled to pursue a federalist course that the Allies preferred.
While the Entente had supported the maintenance of the Skoropadsky's regime, it was initially highly negative toward the Directorate. In fact, the Allies possessed little information about the forces within Ukraine, and at times even reported that the Directorate’s military commander, Symon Petliura, was a Bolshevik leader.[59] The identification of the Directorate with the Bolsheviks was also a perspective actively promoted by the Volunteer Army, which recognized only a “one and indivisible Russia”. The Volunteer Army naturally refused to acknowledge the Directorate government and instead requested that the Allied forces suppress it as a bandit force, no different from the Bolsheviks. However, once the Directorate had established its authority in Ukraine and its representatives arrived in Odesa, the Entente began to regard it as a power that could play a role within the anti-Bolshevik front, and concrete negotiations were initiated.
A key figure in the negotiations with the Entente was Arnold Margolin, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Directorate, who headed the diplomatic mission to Odesa. Arriving there in late January 1919, Margolin held frequent meetings with Henry Freydenberg, the Chief of Staff of the French garrison. As a result, he secured from France a promise of military and financial support under conditions that included temporary French control over Ukraine’s railways and finances, the removal of the most left-leaning leaders in the government, namely Vynnychenko and Chekhivs’kyi, the subordination of the Ukrainian army to the command of Allied officers, and Ukraine’s eventual incorporation into a federal Russia. Margolin agreed to all of these terms, and a finalized text awaited only his signature.[60]
Margolin also held discussions on the future formation of a federation with the representatives of the Don, Kuban, and Belarusian governments, who, like himself, had come to Odesa seeking Entente support. Together they adopted a resolution addressed to the Allies. Drafted by Margolin, the resolution presented an alternative vision for the reconstitution of Russia, opposing the Volunteer Army’s call for a “one and indivisible Russia” with a federation composed of states representing distinct nationalities and regions. “At present, a federation imposed from above can be conceived only through foreign assistance and intervention, by means of coercion. Aside from this path of a federation from above, the only remaining course is that of a federation from below, based on voluntary agreement among equal state entities formed on the ruins of the former Russia”.[61] The memorandum was published in Odesan newspapers, attracting the attention of Entente representatives.[62]
Thus, like the Hetmanate in its final days, the Directorate government also shifted toward an Entente-federalist course and, in practice, entered negotiations on federation with the regional governments of the former Russian Empire. However, the Volunteer Army, which sought to position itself at the centre of the anti-Bolshevik front, stubbornly refused to allow the realization of the Franco-Ukrainian agreement, insisting instead on presenting itself as the sole representative of a “one and indivisible Russia”. The Volunteer Army would accept no concessions toward federalism. As a result, the agreement remained unsigned and in suspension when, on 5 February the Red Army entered Kyiv, and Entente intervention forces from France and Greece were successively routed in southern Ukraine by a peasant insurgent army led by Ataman Nykyfor Hryhor’iev. By the end of March, the French intervention troops decided to withdraw from Odesa, and by the end of April they had also withdrawn from Sevastopol.[63]
Even after the Directorate fled Kyiv for Vinnytsia in southwestern Ukraine, Margolin and other diplomatic envoys continued their activities in the Entente capitals, but the rift with the White forces remained unbridged.[64] By the end of 1919, as Denikin’s and Kolchak’s armies suffered a series of defeats against the Reds, the Entente itself grew reluctant to intervene further in Russian affairs. The alliance concluded between Ukraine and Poland in 1920 also ended in collapse once both Poland and Soviet Russia moved toward peace negotiations. In the Treaty of Riga of 1921, Poland recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty not in the Directorate but in Soviet Ukraine. Having lost all external support, the Directorate government, along with its military defeat, lost its territorial base within Ukraine and survived only as a government-in-exile, continuing its activity in interwar Europe.
CONCLUSION
The view that the political objectives of the Ukrainian national liberation movement after 1917 developed in a linear progression from autonomism, to federalism, and ultimately to independence rests on a simplified evolutionary stage theory of the movement. It is true that Ukrainian independence was only rarely mentioned until the summer of 1917; however, after the October Revolution, it became a realistic political goal. Yet the orientation toward independence never entirely eliminated the prospect of federalism; whenever cooperation with the Entente became necessary, the formation of a federation was always put back on the table. Indeed, what most leaders of the Ukrainian movement sought was to secure political autonomy in which the Ukrainian language would be used as the official language in educational, administrative, and judicial institutions, and in which a regional assembly would represent Ukrainian interests. That goal could be achieved through either independence or federalism. Any personal leaning by individual politicians toward independence or federalism was never strong enough to define or restrict the constitutional vision of the Ukrainian movement as a whole.
Furthermore, the analysis in this study of the close interrelationship between diplomatic orientation and constitutional vision can also be applied to the pro-Soviet choices made by segments of the Ukrainian intelligentsia after 1919. Left-leaning Ukrainians who criticized Petliura’s highly militarized Directorate regime, including Vynnychenko and Hrushevsky, increasingly turned toward cooperation with the Soviet authorities in Moscow and Kharkiv. With the official proclamation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, closely tied to Soviet Russia, the Bolsheviks came to be regarded as a third belligerent force with whom rapprochement on a basis of “confederal federalism” appeared feasible. As Christopher Gilley argues, the Soviet sympathies of some Ukrainian national activists should be attributed not only to pragmatism, but also to ideological affinities and compromises that had been shaped by the wartime experience of shifting flexibly between federalist and independent paths.[65] More broadly, the persistence of federalist alternatives can also be observed in the former Habsburg lands, where plans existed for a loose union of Central European states. It may be said that interwar Central and Eastern Europe was a world in which the principle of self-determination – understood as the alignment of national communities with political units – was widely accepted as a norm, yet its application did not preclude incorporation into larger federative structures. In this respect, the Soviet Union, composed of national republics formally endowed with the right of secession, can likewise be seen as part of the “new Europe” that emerged from the Great War.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARCHIVAL SOURCES:
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Die Deutsche Okkupation der Ukraine: Geheimdokumente (Strasbourg: Éditions Prométhée, 1937)
Dorošenko, Dmytro, Moji spomyny pro davnje mynule (1901–1914 rr.) (Kyjiv: Tempora, 2007)
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LITERATURE
Akulov, Mikhail, ‘The Third Path or An Imperial Roundabout? Skoropadsky’s Ukraine, Technocrats, and the “Great Russian Lobby”’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 69.4 (2021), 593–627
Baumgart, Winfried, Deutsche Ostpolitik, 1918: von Brest-Litowsk bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (Vienna: R. Oldenbourg, 1966)
Brinkley, George A., ‘Allied Policy and French Intervention in the Ukraine, 1917–1920’, in The Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution, ed. by Taras Hunczak (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 323–51
Chernev, Borislav, Twilight of Empire: The Brest-Litovsk Conference and the Remaking of East-
-Central Europe, 1917–1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017)
Fedyshyn, Oleh, Germany’s Drive to the East and the Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–1918 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971)
Fieschi, Pascal, ‘L’intervention française à Odessa (décembre 1918 – mars 1919) vue à travers l’action du “Consul de France”, Emile Henno’, Cahiers slaves, 14 (2016), 161–72
Gilley, Chris, ‘Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s Mission to Moscow and Kharkov’, Slavonic and East European Review, 84.3 (2006), 508–37
Gilley, Christopher, ‘The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian emigration: Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi and the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 54.3 (2006), 345–74
Golczewski, Frank, Deutsche und Ukrainer, 1914–1939 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2010)
Hagen, Mark von, ‘Federalisms and Pan-movements: Re-Imagining Empire’, in Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700–1930, ed. by Jane Burbank, Mark von Hagen, and Anatolyi Remnev (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), pp. 494–510
Korol’ov, Hennadii, Federatyvni proekty v Tsentral’no-Skhidnii Ievropi: vid ideolohichnoi utopii do real’noi polityky (1815–1921 pp.) (Kyiv: K.I.S., 2019)
Korol’ov, Hennadii, Ukrains’kyi federalizm v istorychnomu dyskursi: XIX – pochatok XX stolittia (Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukrainy NANU, 2010)
Kratkaja zapiska istorii vzaimootnošenij Dobrovolʹčeskoj Armii s Ukrainoj (Rostov-na-Donu, 1919)
Lindheim, Ralph and George Luckyj, eds, Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine: An Anthology of Ukrainian thought from 1710 to 1995 (Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, 1996)
Margolin, Arnolʹd, Ukraina i politika Antanty: Zapiski evreia i grazhdanina (Berlin: S. Efron, 1922)
Melentyeva, Mariya. ‘Liberals and the Ukrainian Question in Imperial Russia, 1905–1917’, Revolutionary Russia, 33.2 (2020), 151–71
Mohrenschildt, Dimitri Sergius von, Toward a United States of Russia: Plans and Projects of Federal Reconstruction of Russia in the Nineteenth Century(Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981)
Munholland, John Kim, ‘The French Army and Intervention in Southern Russia: 1918–1919’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 22.1 (1981), 43–66
Murata, Yuki, ‘Multiple Paths to Autonomy: Moderate Ukrainians in Revolutionary Petrograd’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 22.2 (2021), 255–84
Procyk, Anna, Russian Nationalism and Ukraine: The Nationality Policy of the Volunteer Army during the Civil War (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1995)
Pyrih, Ruslan, Hetʹmanat Pavla Skoropadsʹkoho: miž Nimeččynoju i Rosijeju (Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukrainy NANU, 2008)
Remer, Claus, Die Ukraine im Blickfeld deutscher Interessen : ende des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1917/18 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1997)
Remy, Johannes, ‘“It Is Unknown where the Little Russians Are Heading to”: The Autonomy Dispute between the Ukrainian Central Rada and the All-Russian Provisional Government in 1917’, Slavonic and East European Review, 95.4 (2017), 691–719
Rudnytsky, Ivan L., Essays in Modern Ukrainian History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987)
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Skoropadsʹkyj, Pavlo, Spohady. Kinecʹ 1917 – hrudenʹ 1918, 2nd edn (Kyiv: Nash format, 2016)
Tabouis, Georges, ‘Comment je devins Commissaire de la République Française en Ukraine’, in Praci Ukrajinsʹkoho naukovoho instytutu, ed. by Roman Smalʹ-Stocʹkyj, 53 vols (Varšava: Ukrajinsʹkyj naukovyj instytut, 1930–1939), VIII (1932), pp. 142–61
[1] Ivan L. Rudnytsky, Essays in Modern Ukrainian History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 389–416.
[2] On the federalism in Ukrainian and Russian intellectual history, see Hennadii Korol’ov, Ukrains’kyi federalizm v istorychnomu dyskursi: XIX – pochatok XX stolittia (Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukrainy NANU, 2010); Hennadii Korol’ov, Federatyvni proekty v Tsentral’no-Skhidnii Ievropi: vid ideolohichnoi utopii do real’noi polityky (1815–1921 pp.) (Kyiv: K.I.S., 2019); Dimitri Sergius Von Mohrenschildt, Toward a United States of Russia: Plans and Projects of Federal Reconstruction of Russia in the Nineteenth Century (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981); Mark von Hagen, ‘Federalisms and Pan-movements: Re-Imagining Empire’, in Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700–1930, ed. by Jane Burbank, Mark von Hagen, and Anatolyi Remnev (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), pp. 494–510. See also the translation of the texts by Kostomarov, Drahomanov, and Hrushevsky in Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine: An Anthology of Ukrainian thought from 1710 to 1995, ed. by Ralph Lindheim and George Luckyj (Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
[3] On the development of Ukrainian autonomy-building in 1917, see Johannes Remy, ‘“It Is Unknown where the Little Russians Are Heading to”: The Autonomy Dispute between the Ukrainian Central Rada and the All-Russian Provisional Government in 1917’, Slavonic and East European Review, 95.4 (2017), 691–719; Yuki Murata, ‘Multiple Paths to Autonomy: Moderate Ukrainians in Revolutionary Petrograd’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 22.2 (2021), 255–84. For the Kadet Kiev Committee, see Mariya Melentyeva, ‘Liberals and the Ukrainian Question in Imperial Russia, 1905–1917’, Revolutionary Russia, 33.2 (2020), 151–71.
[4] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada: Dokumenty i materialy, ed. by Vladyslav Verstjuk and others, 2 vols (Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1996), I, pp. 334–38.
[5] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada, I, pp. 399–402.
[6] Tsentralʹnyj deržavnyj archiv vyščych orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnja Ukrajiny (Central State Archives of the Higher Authorities and Administration of Ukraine, hereafter TsDAVO), f. 2592, op. 2, spr. 23, ark. 2–4, 10.
[7] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada, I, 455–59.
[8] TsDAVO, f. 2592, op. 1, spr. 23, ark. 2.
[9] Ibid., ark. 11.
[10] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada, II, p. 16.
[11] The British representatives dispatched to Ukraine often described the recognition of Ukrainian statehood as a “gamble”. Proposed Autonomy of Ukraine; Ukraine Question; Parliamentary Question on Ukraine; Attitude of Ukraine, 7 December 1917, The National Archives (hereafter TNA), London, Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 371, vol. 3012. See also, David Saunders, ‘Britain and the Ukrainian Question (1912–1920)’, English Historical Review, 103.406 (1988), 40–68 (pp. 62–64).
[12] Silver Shipped to Vladivostok; Recognition of Ukraine Government; Situation in Caucasus; Message from Military Attache for O. M. I., 25–26 December 1917, TNA, FO 371, vol. 3019.
[13] Georges Tabouis, ‘Comment je devins Commissaire de la République Française en Ukraine’, in Praci Ukrajinsʹkoho naukovoho instytutu, ed. by Roman Smalʹ-Stocʹkyj, 53 vols (Varšava: Ukrajinsʹkyj naukovyj
instytut, 1930–1939), VIII (1932), pp. 142–61 (pp. 142–44).
[14] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada, I, p. 459.
[15] TsDAVO, f. 4404, op. 1, spr. 1, ark. 15.
[16] TsDAVO, f. 2592, op. 3, spr. 3, ark. 8.
[17] British Representatives in South Russia; Financial Assistance to Bessarabian Government; Rewards for Russian Troops, 25–26 December 1917, TNA, FO 371, vol. 3019.
[18] Financial Support for General Alexieff; Ukraine; Consular Assistance in Russia; Financing of Caucasus Movement, 8–9 January 1918, TNA, FO 371, vol. 3283.
[19] ‘Jusserand to the Secretary of State, 7 January 1918’, in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Russia (hereafter Foreign Relations), ed. by Joseph V. Fuller (Washington DC: US Govt. Print. Off., 1932), II, p. 655.
[20] ‘Polk to Jusserand, 11 January 1918’, in ibid.
[21] ‘The Secretary of State to Francis, 15 January 1918’, in ibid., p. 743.
[22] ‘The Consul General at Moscow to the Secretary of State, 16 January 1918’, in ibid., pp. 657–60.
[23] ‘Sharp to the Secretary of State, 22 January 1918’, in Foreign Relations, II, pp. 660–63; Banquet for Ukrainian Delegates at Jassy; Financial Assistance for Ukraine; Visit of Ukraine Delegates to Jassy, 18–21 January 1918, TNA, FO 371, vol. 3283.
[24] ‘Sharp to the Secretary of State, 26 January 1918’, in Foreign Relations, II, pp. 663–64.
[25] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada, I, pp. 521–23, 525–26.
[26] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada, II, p. 43.
[27] ‘Minutes of the preliminary meeting, 4 January 1918’, in Ereignisse in der Ukraine 1914–1922: deren Bedeutung und historische Hintergründe, ed. by Theophil Hornykiewicz, 4 vols (Philadelphia: W. K. Lypynsky East European Research Institute, 1966–1969), II (1966), pp. 50–51, 53.
[28] On Germany’s Ukrainian policy during the First World War, see Winfried Baumgart, Deutsche Ostpolitik, 1918: von Brest-Litowsk bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (Vienna: R. Oldenbourg, 1966); Claus Remer, Die Ukraine im Blickfeld deutscher Interessen: ende des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1917/18 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1997); Oleh Fedyshyn, Germany’s Drive to the East and the Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–1918 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971); Frank Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer, 1914–1939 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2010).
[29] ‘Minutes of the Plenary Meeting of the Peace Conference, 10 January 1918’, in Ereignisse, II, pp. 66–67.
[30] Ukrajinsʹka Centralʹna rada, II, pp. 102–04. For the context, see also Borislav Chernev, Twilight of Empire: The Brest-Litovsk Conference and the Remaking of East-Central Europe, 1917–1918(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017).
[31] Tabouis, ‘Comment je devins Commissaire de la République Française en Ukraine’, pp. 159–60.
[32] Germany and the Ukraine; Ukraine Peace Negotiations at Brest-Litovsk; Situation in South Russia, 9–29 January 1918, TNA, FO 371, vol. 3309.
[33] TsDAVO, f. 2592, op. 4, spr. 32, ark. 60.
[34] Die Deutsche Okkupation der Ukraine: Geheimdokumente (Strasbourg: Editions Prométhée, 1937), p. 56.
[35] Pavlo Skoropadsʹkyj, Spohady. Kinecʹ 1917 – hrudenʹ 1918, 2nd edn (Kyiv: Nash format, 2016).
[36] Ukrajinsʹka deržava (kvitenʹ–hrudenʹ 1918 roku): dokumenty i materialy, ed. by Ruslan Pyrih, 2 vols (Kyiv: Tempora, 2015), II, p. 85. For diverse backgrounds of Hetmanate ministers, see Ruslan Pyrih, Hetʹmanat Pavla Skoropadsʹkoho: miž Nimeččynoju i Rosijeju (Kyiv: Instytut istorii Ukrainy NANU, 2008); Mikhail Akulov, ‘The Third Path or An Imperial Roundabout? Skoropadsky’s Ukraine, Technocrats, and the “Great Russian Lobby”’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 69.4 (2021), 593–627.
[37] Sʺezdy i konferencii konstitucionno-demokratičeskoj partii. 1905–1920 gg., ed. by Valentin Šelochaev, 3 vols (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2000), III, bk. 2: 1918–1920 gg., pp. 152–74.
[38] Dmytro Dorošenko, Moji spomyny pro davnje mynule (1901–1914 rr.) (Kyjiv: Tempora, 2007), p. 254.
[39] Ukrajinsʹka deržava, II, p. 306.
[40] Dorošenko, Moji spomyny, p. 273; Ukrajinsʹki dyplomatyčni predstavnyctva v Nimeččyni (1918—1922). Dokumenty i materialy, ed. by Vasylʹ Danylenko and Natalija Kryvecʹ (Kyjiv: Smoloskyp, 2012), p. 66.
[41] TsDAVO, f. 3766, op. 1, spr. 126, ark. 3.
[42] TsDAVO, f. 3766, op. 1, spr. 125, ark. 18–19; spr. 134, ark. 9–17.
[43] Ukrajinsʹka deržava, I, p. 333.
[44] Ibid., pp. 326–29.
[45] Ibid., pp. 68–69.
[46] Skoropadsʹkyj, Spohady, p. 271.
[47] ‘Sharp to the Secretary of State, 26 November 1918’, in Foreign Relations, II, p. 700.
[48] TsDAVO, f. 3766, op. 1, spr. 146, ark. 9.
[49] Ibid., ark. 12–13.
[50] TsDAVO, f. 3766, op. 3, spr. 2, ark. 51.
[51] Ukrajinsʹki dyplomatyčni predstavnyctva, p. 85.
[52] Skoropadsʹkyj, Spohady, p. 314.
[53] ‘Sharp to the Secretary of State, 10 December 1918’, in Foreign Relations, II, p. 701. Despite his frequent appearance in local documents, Henno’s competence and the status conferred on him by the Paris government remained unclear. Pascal Fieschi, ‘L’intervention française à Odessa (décembre 1918 – mars 1919) vue à travers l’action du “Consul de France”, Emile Henno’, Cahiers slaves, 14 (2016), 161–72.
[54] Anna Procyk, Russian Nationalism and Ukraine: The Nationality Policy of the Volunteer Army during the Civil War (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1995), p. 55; Kratkaja zapiska istorii vzaimootnošenij Dobrovolʹčeskoj Armii s Ukrainoj (Rostov-na-Donu, 1919).
[55] Skoropadsʹkyj, Spohady, pp. 321–22.
[56] Ukrajinsʹka deržava, I, p. 403.
[57] Ibid.
[58] TsDAVO, f. 3696, op. 1, spr. 66, ark. 2–4.
[59] ‘Minister in Romania (Vopicka) to the Secretary of State, 19 December 1918’, in Foreign Relations, II, pp. 703–04.
[60] George A. Brinkley, ‘Allied Policy and French Intervention in the Ukraine, 1917–1920’, in The Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution, ed. by Taras Hunczak (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 323–51 (pp. 339–40); Arnolʹd Margolin, Ukraina i politika Antanty: Zapiski evreia i grazhdanina (Berlin: S. Efron, 1922), pp. 123–24.
[61] TsDAVO, f. 3766, op. 1, spr. 146, ark. 17–19.
[62] Margolin, Ukraina i politika Antanty, pp. 112–19.
[63] John Kim Munholland, ‘The French Army and Intervention in Southern Russia: 1918–1919’, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 22.1 (1981), 43–66.
[64] On Ukrainian–White–Entente relations after 1919, see Procyk, Russian Nationalism, pp. 93–164.
[65] Christopher Gilley, ‘The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian emigration: Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi and the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 54.3 (2006), 345–74; Chris Gilley, ‘Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s Mission to Moscow and Kharkov’, Slavonic and East European Review, 84.3 (2006), 508–37.
