I. THE TRYPILIAN CULTURE AND THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD AND COPPER AGE IN UKRAINE
Perhaps the most sophisticated culture of the early Neolithic Period in Europe, the Tripilian culture existed on Ukrainian territories for over three millennia. During the 6th millennium BC, Trypilian tribes began settling in low-lying riverbank areas and on plateaus in the Dnieper River and Boh River basins. They were, most probably, primitive agricultural and cattle-raising tribes that migrated to Ukraine from the Near East and from the Balkans and Danubian regions. Scholars have identified three periods in the development of this culture--early (5400-3500 BC), middle (3500-2750 BC), and late (2750-2250 BC). The differentiation of periods is characterized by an increase in population and the geographic spread of the culture as well as by changes in settlement patterns, the economy, and the spiritual life of the people. (A detailed discussion of the Tripilian culture can be found, among others, in volume 1 of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's fundamental History of Ukraine-Rus'.) As a result of incursions by other cultures (particularly the Pit-Grave culture) into Ukrainian territory during the Copper Age in the mid-3rd to early 2nd millennium BC, many characteristic Trypilian traits changed, were absorbed by other tribes, or disappeared... Learn more about the Trypilian culture and the Neolithic Period and Copper Age in Ukraine by visiting the following entries:
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NEOLITHIC PERIOD. The closing phase of the Stone Age, lasting in Ukraine from ca 5000 to 2500 BC. The Neolithic Period was characterized by the development of agriculture and pottery manufacturing, the establishment of sedentary agriculturally based settlements, the use of polishing techniques for stone tools, the emergence of increasingly complex systems of religious belief, and the growth of tribal social orders. This epoch was also marked by the existence of a greater diversity of cultures than in either the Paleolithic Period or Mesolithic Period. By far the most developed culture was the agrarian Trypilian culture, which existed throughout most of Right-Bank Ukraine until the Bronze Age. Other groups that existed during this period include the Pitted-Comb Pottery culture, the Serednii Stih culture, and the Boh-Dniester culture. The Neolithic Period ended with the introduction of metal technology during the Copper Age... |
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TRYPILIAN CULTURE. A Neolithic-Bronze Age culture that existed in Right-Bank Ukraine ca 5400 to 2000 BC. It is named after a site near Trypilia in the Kyiv region uncovered by Vikentii Khvoika in 1898. The major economic activities of the early Trypilians were agriculture and animal husbandry, supplemented by hunting, fishing, and food gathering. The basic tools of the Trypilian culture were made of stone, bone, and flint. Some bronze items, especially fishhooks, bracelets, and rings, have been found at Trypilian excavations. The Trypilian culture is especially known for its ceramic pottery. In the early period, handbuilt large vessels for storing grains, pots, plates, colanders, and the like were all common. Earthenware was also used to make figurines of women, scale models of homes, jewelry, and amulets. The exterior of the pottery was decorated with inscribed ornamentation in the form of spiralling bands of parallel double lines... |
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KHVOIKA, VIKENTII (Czech: Chvojka), b 1850 in Semin, near Prelouc, Bohemia, d 2 November 1914 in Kyiv. A pioneering Ukrainian archeologist of Czech origin. As an active member of the Kyiv Society of Antiquities and Art, he helped found the Kyiv City Museum of Antiquities and Art in 1899; he became the director of its archeological department in 1904. From 1893 to 1903 Khvoika discovered, excavated, and studied the Kyrylivska settlement in Kyiv and other Paleolithic sites, sites of the Neolithic Trypilian culture, Bronze Age and Iron Age tumuli and fortified settlements in Ukraine's forest-steppe, and the 'burial fields' of cremation urns and settlements of the Zarubyntsi culture and the Cherniakhiv culture. He was a leading proponent of the theory that the Slavic inhabitants of the middle Dnieper Basin were autochthonous. He also excavated and studied medieval palaces, fortifications, and churches in Chyhyryn (1903), Kyiv, and Bilhorod... |
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PIT-GRAVE CULTURE (or Yamna culture from yama [pit]). A Copper Age-Bronze Age culture of the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BC that existed along the Dnieper River, in the steppe region, in the Crimea, near the Danube estuary, and in locations east of Ukraine (up to the Urals). This culture took its name from pit graves used for burials in family or clan kurhans. Corpses were covered with red ocher and laid either in a supine position or on their sides with flexed legs. Grave goods included egg-shaped pottery containing food, stone, bone, and copper implements, weapons, and adornments. The culture's major economic occupation was animal husbandry, with agriculture, hunting, and fishing of secondary importance. The people of this culture usually lived in surface dwellings in fortified settlements. They had contacts with tribes in northern Caucasia and with Trypilian culture tribes in Ukraine... |
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KURHAN. A term from the Turkic word for mound or stronghold, used in Eastern Europe for a tumulus or barrow, that is, an earthen or stone mound built over a grave. Kurhans first appeared in the steppes north of the Caspian Sea and Black Sea and in Subcaucasia and Transcaucasia during the upper Neolithic Period and the Copper Age (3rd century BC). They vary in height from 3 to over 20 m, and in diameter from 3 to over 100 m. The oldest kurhans in present-day Ukraine date from the early period of the Pit-Grave culture. Sometimes the mound was encircled by a cromlech and topped by a stone baba, an anthropomorphic statue. The dead were interred or cremated and deposited together with their worldly goods and valuables in timber graves, vaults, catacombs, or pits. Kurhans were then thrown up over them. They usually occur in groups, indicating that clans and tribes had designated burial grounds... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries dealing with the Trypilian culture and the Neolithic Period and Copper Age in Ukraine were made possible by a generous donation from BOHDAN AND ALEXANDRA BULCHAK of Toronto, ON, Canada.
II. THE KYIVAN RUS' STATE AND ITS UKRAINIAN PRINCIPALITIES
In the 9th century the Varangians from Scandinavia conquered the proto-Slavic tribes on the territory of today's Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia and laid the groundwork for the Kyivan Rus? state. Kyiv became the centre and capital of the new realm. The first period of Kyivan Rus? history can be characterized as the era of expansion, which saw Kyiv extend its authority over all of the east-Slavic tribes. The second period, associated primarily with the reigns of Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise, was the era of internal consolidation as a result of which Kyivan Rus? became one of the pre-eminent states of Europe. The internecine wars between Rus' princes, which began after the death of Yaroslav the Wise, led to the political fragmentation of the state into a number of principalities. In the Ukrainian lands, the Kyiv principality, Turiv-Pynsk principality, Volodymyr-Volynskyi principality, Halych principality, Chernihiv principality, and Pereiaslav principality emerged as independent and separate entities, with their own political and economic peculiarities. The quarreling between the princes left Rus? vulnerable to foreign attacks, and the invasion of the Mongols in 1236?40 finally destroyed the state... Learn more about the Kyivan Rus' state and its Ukrainian principalities by visiting the following entries:
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KYIVAN RUS'. The first state to arise among the Eastern Slavs. It took its name from the city of Kyiv, the seat of the grand prince from about 880 until the beginning of the 13th century. At its zenith, it covered a territory stretching from the Carpathian Mountains to the Volga River, and from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea. The state's rapid rise and development was based on its advantageous location at the intersection of major north-south and east-west land and water trade routes with access to two major seas, and favorable local conditions for the development of agriculture. In the end, however, the state's great size led to the development of centrifugal tendencies and local interests that limited its political and social cohesion. This, and its proximity to the Asian steppes, which left it vulnerable to invasions of nomadic hordes, eventually contributed to the decline of Kyivan Rus'... |
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KYIV PRINCIPALITY. The central principality in Kyivan Rus?. It was formed in the mid-9th century and existed as an independent entity until the mid-12th century, when it became an appanage principality. Its basic territory consisted of the area of Right-Bank Ukraine inhabited by the tribes of Polianians and Derevlianians. The Prypiat River usually formed the northern boundary, the Dnieper River the eastern, and the Sluch River and Horyn River the western. The southern boundary was the most dynamic; at times it was as far south as the southern Boh River and Ros River, while at other times (end of the 11th century) it stopped at the Stuhna River. Kyiv, the capital of the principality, lay on the crossroads of the trade routes from north to south and east to west that joined Asia to Europe. This favorable location fostered the development of trade and the principality's prosperity. The oldest cities were Kyiv, Vyshhorod, Ovruch, and Bilhorod... |
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CHERNIHIV PRINCIPALITY. One of the largest and mightiest political entities of Kyivan Rus? in the 11th-13th century. The principality was formed in the 10th century and retained some of its distinctiveness until the 16th century. Its basic territory consisted of the basins of the Desna River and Seim River in Left-Bank Ukraine, which were settled by the Siverianians and partly by the Polianians in the south. Eventually the principality expanded to encompass the territory of the Radimichians and some of the lands settled by the Viatichians and Drehovichians. Chernihiv was the capital of the principality, which included a number of towns and cities, such as Novhorod-Siverskyi, Starodub, Briansk, Putyvl, Kursk, Liubech, Hlukhiv, Chechersk, Kozelsk, Homel, and Vyr. Until the 12th century the domain and influence of the principality expanded far into the northeast (the Murom-Riazan land) and into the southeast (Tmutorokan principality)... |
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PEREIASLAV PRINCIPALITY. In his will Prince Yaroslav the Wise designated an appanage principality with its capital in Pereiaslav and bequeathed it to his son, Vsevolod Yaroslavych, who ruled it from 1054. When Vsevolod ascended the Kyivan throne in 1078, he continued ruling Pereiaslav principality as well. While it was independent, the principality bordered on Kyiv principality along the Dnieper River and the Desna River to the west, and was separated from Chernihiv principality to the north and northeast by the Oster River, the inaccessible marshes of the Smolynka River, and the Romen River and the Sula River. Until the first half of the 12th century the principality also controlled the Seim region as far east as Kursk. Its southern and eastern borders reached at times as far as the Sosna River, a right tributary of the Don River, but fluctuated because of constant incursions of the Pechenegs, Torks, and Cumans... |
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VOLODYMYR-VOLYNSKYI PRINCIPALITY. A principality of medieval Kyivan Rus?, covering the upper and middle reaches of the Buh River and the tributaries of the Prypiat River. It was formed in the 10th century out of territories inhabited by the Volhynians. Vsevolod, the son of Volodymyr the Great, was its first ruler. The Liubech congress of princes in 1097 awarded the principality to Davyd Ihorovych, and the Vytychiv congress of princes in 1100 overturned that decision in favor of Sviatopolk II Iziaslavych. Volodymyr Monomakh seized the territory and placed it under his son, Andrii. Then it was ruled by Iziaslav Mstyslavych for two decades. After his death the principality was divided among his sons, and became independent of Kyiv. Volodymyr-Volynskyi principality reached its apex under Roman Mstyslavych (1170-1205), who merged the principality with Halych principality in 1199, thereby creating the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia... |
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HALYCH PRINCIPALITY. A principality of medieval Kyivan Rus? that emerged in the mid 12th century. Prince Volodymyrko Volodarovych, who inherited the Zvenyhorod principality in 1124, the Peremyshl principality in 1129, and the Terebovlia principality and Halych land in 1141, established his capital in princely Halych in 1144. Volodymyrko's son, Yaroslav Osmomysl, the pre-eminent prince of the Rostyslavych house, enlarged Halych principality during his reign (1153-87) to encompass all the lands between the Carpathian Mountains and the Dniester River as far south as the lower Danube River. Trade and salt mining stimulated the rise of a powerful boyar estate in Galicia. When Volodymyr Yaroslavych, the last prince of the Rostyslavych house, died in 1199, the boyars invited Prince Roman Mstyslavych of Volhynia to take the throne. Roman Mstyslavych united Galicia with Volhynia and thus created the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the history of Kyivan Rus' and its Ukrainian principalities were made possible by a generous donation from BOHDAN AND ALEXANDRA BULCHAK of Toronto, ON, Canada.
III. VOLODYMYR THE GREAT AND THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF RUS'-UKRAINE
Over the 35 years of his rule, Grand Prince Volodymyr of Kyiv expanded the borders of Kyivan Rus' and turned it into one of the most powerful states in Eastern Europe. He conquered and united the East Slavic tribes, divided his realm into lands, and installed his sons or viceroys to govern them. Initially he attributed his victories to the support he received from pagan deities. Later he became convinced that a monotheistic religion would consolidate his power, as Christianity and Islam had done for neighboring rulers. His choice was determined after the Byzantine emperor Basil II turned to him for help in defeating his rival. Volodymyr offered military aid only if he was allowed to marry Basil's sister, and Basil agreed to the marriage only after Volodymyr promised to convert himself and his subjects to Christianity. Volodymyr and his family were baptized in December 987. The mass baptism of the citizens of Kyiv took place on 1 August 988, and the remaining population of Rus' was slowly converted, sometimes by force. The adoption of Christianity as the official religion facilitated the unification of the Rus' tribes and the establishment of foreign dynastic, political, cultural, religious, and commercial relations, particularly with the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria, and Germany... Learn more about Volodymyr the Great and the Christianization of Ukraine by visiting the following entries:
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VOLODYMYR THE GREAT (Valdamar, Volodimer, Vladimir), b ca 956, d 15 July 1015 in Vyshhorod, near Kyiv. Grand prince of Kyiv from 980; son of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych and Malusha; half-brother of Yaropolk I Sviatoslavych and Oleh Sviatoslavych; and father of 11 princes by five wives, including Sviatopolk I, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstyslav Volodymyrovych, and Saints Borys and Hlib. In 969 Grand Prince Sviatoslav I named Volodymyr the prince of Novgorod, where the latter ruled under the guidance of his uncle, Dobrynia. In 977 a struggle for power broke out among Sviatoslav's sons. Yaropolk seized the Derevlianian land and Novgorod, thereby forcing Volodymyr to flee to Scandinavia. In 980 Volodymyr returned to Rus' with a Varangian force, expelled Yaropolk's governors from Novgorod and took Polatsk. Later that year he captured Kyiv and had Yaropolk murdered, thereby becoming the grand prince... |
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CHRISTIANIZATION OF UKRAINE. Christianity was known on the present territory of Ukraine as early as the first century AD. At first Christianity won converts among the Greek colonists who settled the northern coasts of the Black Sea. The Primary Chronicle mentions Saint Andrew's mission on the Black Sea coast at Synope and his blessing of present-day Kyiv. According to traditional belief the popes Saint Clement I (90-100) and Saint Martin (649-55) were exiled to the Crimea. The proximity of the Slav-settled lands to the Greek colonies on the Black Sea must have been an important factor in the spread of Christianity among the Slavic tribes. More concrete data on the presence of Christianity on Ukrainian territories extend back to the 3rd century, when the Goths invaded these territories from the north. At first the Goths destroyed the Christian colonies and then conducted forays into Asia Minor, bringing back slaves from as far away as Cappadocia. These slaves acquainted the Goths with Christianity... |
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PRINCESS OLHA (Olga), b ca 890, d 11 July 969 in Kyiv. Kyivan Rus' princess and Orthodox saint; wife of Prince Ihor and mother of Sviatoslav I Ihorovych. Olha was Sviatoslav's regent during his minority (945-57) and his later military campaigns. After Ihor's death she subdued the rebellious Derevlianians and avenged his slaying. She expanded and strengthened the central power of Kyiv. In foreign affairs she was mainly concerned with political relations with Constantinople. Olha was the first Kyivan Rus' ruler to become a Christian. Olha urged Sviatoslav to become a Christian, but he remained a pagan. He allowed a Christian community to develop in Kyiv, however, thereby paving the way for the Christianization of Ukraine by his son and Olha's grandson, Volodymyr the Great.... |
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BYZANTINE EMPIRE. Byzantium was originally a Greek colony, founded ca 660 BC on the European side of the Bosporus. In 326 Constantinople was built on the site of Byzantium, and in 330 the city became the capital of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, which endured until 1453 and played an important role in the history of Eastern Europe and the Near East. Byzantine chronicles mention Rus' attacks in about 842 and a Rus' siege of Constantinople in 860. In the 10th century relations between Rus' and Byzantium intensified. The Christianization of Ukraine was facilitated by the trade between Rus' and Byzantium, conducted along the Varangian route, and by the Byzantine colonies on the northern coast of the Black Sea. With Volodymyr the Great's adoption of Christianity in 988-9 Ukraine came under Byzantine religious influence. Like other southeastern European nations it inherited from Byzantium not only the Christian faith but also its culture... |
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CHURCH OF THE TITHES (Desiatynna tserkva). The first and largest stone church in Kyiv and the burial place of the Kyivan princes. Dedicated to the Dormition, it was built by Byzantine and Rus' artisans between 989 and 996 amid the palaces of Grand Prince Volodymyr the Great, who set aside a tithe of his income for its construction and maintenance (hence the name). The church was besieged and ruined in 1240 by Batu Khan's Mongol horde. Excavations of the foundations indicate that it was a three-nave structure with six pillars and wide, covered galleries on the sides. It occupied an area of approx 1,700 sq m. Its numerous cupolas in cruciform arrangement distinguished it from Byzantine prototypes and made it a model in the further development of Ukrainian architecture... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with Volodymyr the Great and the Chtistianization of Rus'-Ukraine were made possible by a generous donation from ARKADI MULAK-YATSKIVSKY of Los Angeles, CA, USA.
IV. THE MEDIEVAL PRINCIPALITY OF GALICIA-VOLHYNIA
After the death of Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kyiv in 1054, Kyivan Rus' disintegrated into 5 and then 13 separate principalities, including Halych principality and Volodymyr-Volynskyi principality. Prince Roman Mstyslavych of Volhynia took Halych in 1199 and in 1202 he occupied Kyiv with its domains, thereby creating a powerful state in western Rus'. Following a period of boyar rebellions in the first decades of the 13th century, his son, Danylo Romanovych, consolidated his control of Galicia and Volhynia in the 1240s. He also took the Rus' territories occupied by Lithuania in the north and extended his rule beyond Kyiv in the east. After the enormous destruction wreaked by the Mongol invasion of Rus' in 1239-41, Danylo Romanovych was forced to pledge allegiance to Batu Khan of the Golden Horde. Nonetheless, his Principality of Galicia-Volhynia retained a considerable degree of independence even after the destruction of other Rus' principalities on Ukrainian territories. His policies were continued by his son Lev Danylovych and other members of the Romanovych dynasty. The death of the last Ukrainian prince of Galicia, Yurii II Boleslav, in 1340 marks the end of the Princely era in the history of Ukraine... Learn more about the history of medieval Galicia-Volhynia by visiting the following entries:
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PRINCIPALITY OF GALICIA-VOLHYNIA. A state founded in 1199 by Roman Mstyslavych, the prince of Volhynia from 1170, who united Galicia and Volhynia under his rule. The Romanovych dynasty ruled the state until its demise in 1340. Because of the close alliance between his two sons, Danylo Romanovych, who ruled Halych, and Vasylko Romanovych, who ruled Volodymyr-Volynskyi, the Galician-Volhynian state attained the apex of its power during Danylo's reign. Following teh Mongol ivasion of Rus' in 1239-41, Danylo strove to rid his realm of the Mongol yoke by attempting, unsuccessfully, to establish military alliances with other European rulers. His son and successor, Lev Danylovych (1264-1301), accepted Mongol suzerainty. Lev made Lviv the new capital in 1272 and took part of Transcarpathia, including Mukachiv, from the Hungarians in 1280 and the Lublin land from the Poles ca 1292. The last prince of Galicia, Yurii II Boleslav, was poisoned by Galician boyars who offered the throne to the Lithuanian prince Liubartas.... |
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DANYLO ROMANOVYCH, 1201-64. Prince of Volhynia and Galicia of the Romanovych dynasty, king of Rus' (from 1253). After the death of his father, Prince Roman Mstyslavych, in 1205, unrest among the boyars forced Danylo to take refuge at the Hungarian court, and later, with his mother and brother, Vasylko Romanovych, in small principalities in Volhynia. Following a long struggle with neighboring princes and Galician boyars (1219-27) Danylo unified Volhynia. He failed in several attempts to gain control of Halych, but finally succeeded in 1238, with the support of the burghers. The next year he took Kyiv, which had entered his sphere of influence earlier, and placed Voivode Dmytro in charge of the principality. However, the Mongol invasion of 1239-41, during which Kyiv, Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and Halych were destroyed, interfered with Danylo's plans for the unification of all Ukrainian territories.... |
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LEV DANYLOVYCH, b ca 1228, d ca 1301. Prince of Galicia from 1264; son of King Danylo Romanovych, brother of Mstyslav Danylovych and Shvarno Danylovych, and father of Yurii Lvovych. He had dynastic ties with Hungary through his marriage to Konstancia, the daughter of Bela IV. Lev inherited the Halych land, the Peremyshl land, and the Belz land from his father in 1264. In 1268 he murdered Vaisvilkas after Vaisvilkas abdicated and gave the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to his son-in-law, Shvarno, instead of to Lev. Lev inherited the Kholm land and Dorohychyn land after Shvarno's death ca 1269. He made Lviv (which was named after Lev) his capital in 1272. A vassal of the Tatars from the early 1270s, he had their support during his campaigns against Lithuania (1275, 1277), Poland (1280, 1283, 1286-8), and Hungary (1285)... |
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PRINCELY HALYCH. City located at the site of present-day Krylos, dating back to the turn of the 9th century. An important trade and cultural center of medieval Rus', it reached the height of its power in the second half of the 12th century. The suburbs or lower town, the location of the city's river port, is now the site of modern Halych; monasteries, churches, and small fortified settlements were also located on the city's outskirts. From 1144 it was the capital of Yaroslav Osmomysl's Halych principality, and from 1199 the capital of Roman Mstyslavych's Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. In 1238 Danylo Romanovych established his residence at Halych. Three years later the city was razed by the Mongols. Archeological excavations uncovered the remains of the Dormition Cathedral (built in 1157), the city walls, castle moats, and many stone buildings of the lower town as well as Yaroslav Osmomysl's sarcophagus and skeleton... |
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VOLODYMYR-VOLYNSKYI. A city (2001 pop 38,300) on the Luha River and a raion center in Volhynia oblast. One of Ukraine's oldest cities, it is first mentioned in the chronicles under the year 988, as the fortified trading town of Volodymyr and the seat of the Volodymyr eparchy. In the 12th century it was the center of Volodymyr-Volynskyi principality, and in 1199 it became part of the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia. Frequent Tatar attacks (1240, 1260, 1491, and 1500) brought about its decline. In the late 14th century it came under Lithuanian rule, and in 1431 it obtained the rights of Magdeburg law. From 1569 the town belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky set up a school there in 1577, and a Basilian college operated there in the 18th century. In 1795 the town was annexed by the Russian Empire and served as a county center in Volhynia gubernia.... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the history of the medieval Principality of Galicia-Volhynia were made possible by a generous donation from Dr. MICHAEL DASHCHUK of Toronto, ON, Canada.
V. BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKY, THE COSSACK-POLISH WAR, AND THE PEREIASLAV TREATY OF 1654
Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky is one of the most celebrated and at the same time most controversial political figures in Ukraine's early-modern history. A brilliant military leader, his greatest achievement in the process of national revolution was the formation of the Cossack Hetman state of the Zaporozhian Host (1648-1782). His statesmanship was demonstrated in all areas of state-building--in the military, administration, finance, economics, and culture. At the same time, at the height of the Cossack-Polish War (1648-57), Khmelnytsky concluded the fateful Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654 with Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich of Muscovy, as a result of which Ukraine became a protectorate of the tsar and was placed in the Muscovite sphere of influence. Some of the most prominent Ukrainian intellectuals, such as Taras Shevchenko, criticized Khmelnytsky for this strategic error which resulted in the centuries of Muscovite/Russian domination over Ukraine. Learn more about Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Cossack-Polish War, and the Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654 and its consequences for Ukraine's historical fate by visiting the following entries:
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KHMELNYTSKY, BOHDAN, b ca 1595-6, d 6 August 1657 in Chyhyryn. Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host from 1648 to 1657, founder of the Hetman state (1648-1782). By birth he belonged to the Ukrainian lesser nobility and bore the Massalski, and later the Abdank, coat of arms. His father, Mykhailo, served as an officer under the Polish crown hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski. Bohdan received his elementary schooling in Ukrainian, and his secondary and higher education in Polish at a Jesuit college, possibly in Jaroslaw, but more probably in Lviv. At school he acquired a broad knowledge of world history and fluency in Polish and Latin. Later he acquired a knowledge of Turkish, Tatar, and French. The Battle of Cecora (1620), in which he lost his father and was captured by the Turks, was his first military action. After spending two years in Istanbul, he was ransomed by his mother and returned to Ukraine... |
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COSSACK-POLISH WAR (1648-57). The conflict began in 1648 as a typical Cossack uprising but quickly turned into a war of the Ukrainian populace, particularly the Cossacks and peasants, against the Polish Commonwealth. Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky assumed leadership of the Ukrainian forces. The war can be divided into six phases. January-November 1648. In this period a series of brilliant Cossack victories aroused the whole Ukrainian people and won wide support for Bohdan Khmelnytsky. What was strictly a Cossack rebellion became transformed into a mass movement against the Polish nobility. On 21 January 1648 Khmelnytsky led a small unit of registered Cossacks and Zaporozhian Cossacks in an attack on the Polish garrison on Bazavluk Lake (on the Dnieper River) and overpowered it. This freed the Zaporozhian Sich from Polish control and won the Zaporozhian Cossacks over to Khmelnytsky's side. He was elected hetman... |
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JAN II CASIMIR VASA, b 22 March 1609 in Cracow, d 16 December 1672 in Nevers, France. King of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania in 1648-68; the son of Sigismund III Vasa. The last ruler of the Vasa dynasty to occupy the Polish and Lithuanian thrones, Jan was elected king after the death of his brother Wladyslaw IV Vasa. During his reign the Polish magnates pressed him to expend Poland's resources on winning the Cossack-Polish War of 1648-57. In 1649 and 1651, he personally directed military campaigns against Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Cossacks in Ukraine... |
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VYHOVSKY, IVAN, b ?, d 19 March 1664 in Olkhivka, near Korsun. Hetman of Ukraine in 1657-9 and close confederate of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. He studied at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy, worked in the Kyiv civic court, and joined the Lutske Brotherhood of the Elevation of the Cross. Before the Cossack-Polish War he was secretary to a Polish starosta in Lutske, and in 1648 served in a crown force under the command of Stanislaw Rewera Potocki. He was captured by the Tatars at the Battle of Zhovti Vody. His release was arranged by Khmelnytsky, who admired his learning and experience. Vyhovsky then joined forces with the hetman. He became the military chancellor and then general chancellor; he participated in diplomatic negotiations and drafted some of the more important treaties of the time. After Khmelnytsky's death he became the guardian of and second-in-command to Yurii Khmelnytsky... |
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PEREIASLAV TREATY OF 1654. A fateful alliance the Hetman state under Bohdan Khmelnytsky concluded with Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich during the Cossack-Polish War. After the Crimean Tatar army betrayed the Cossacks for the third time during the siege of Zhvanets in 1653, and Khmelnytsky realized he could no longer rely on Ottoman support against Poland, the hetman was forced to turn to Muscovy for help. Moscow responded favorably to an alliance with Ukraine because it would prevent closer Ukrainian-Turkish ties. Negotiations began in January 1654 in Pereiaslav between Khmelnytsky and his General Military Council on one side and Muscovite envoys led by Vasilii Buturlin on the other. They were concluded in April in Moscow by the Ukrainians Samiilo Bohdanovych-Zarudny and Pavlo Teteria and by A. Trubetskoi, V. Buturlin, and other Muscovite boyars... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the Cossack-Polish War (1648-57) were made possible by a generous donation from ARKADI MULAK-YATSKIVSKY of Los Angeles, CA, USA.
VI. THE COSSACK HETMAN STATE (1648-1782)
The Khmelnytsky Uprising and the Cossack-Polish War led to the establishment of the Cossack Hetman state. At the time of Bohdan Khmelnytsky's death, the Cossacks controlled the former Kyiv, Bratslav, and Chernihiv voivodeships, an area inhabited by about 1.5 million people. The entire area was divided into 16 military and administrative regions corresponding to the territorially based regiments of the Cossack army. At the pinnacle of the Cossack military-administrative system stood the hetman. Assisting the hetman was the General Officer Staff, which functioned as a general staff and a council of ministers. The capitals of the Hetman state were Chyhyryn (1648-63), Hadiach (1663-8), Baturyn (1669-1708 and 1750-64), and Hlukhiv (1708-34). From 1654 the Hetman state was nominally a vassal of Muscovy. The political relationship between the two countries was renegotiated with the election of each new hetman, which led to the steady erosion of the Hetmanate's sovereignty. In the 18th century, the increasing political control of the Hetman state by Russia precluded the independent evolution of its administrative, financial, and judicial institutions. During the reign of Catherine II (1762-96) Ukrainian autonomy was progressively destroyed and the office of hetman was finally abolished by the Russian government in 1764... Learn more about the history of the Ukrainian Hetman state by visiting the following entries:
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HETMAN STATE or Hetmanate. The name of the Ukrainian Cossack state, which existed from 1648 to 1782. It came into existence as a result of the Cossack-Polish War and the alliance of the registered Cossacks with the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Sich and other segments of the Ukrainian populace. The territory of the state at the time of its first hetman, Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1648-57), consisted of most of central Ukraine as well as part of Belarus. In 1663 the Hetman state in Right-Bank Ukraine came under Polish domination, while the Left Bank came under Muscovite control. A period of civil war ensued, known as the Ruin, as various Left- and Right-Bank hetmans, backed by their respective supporters, attempted to re-establish a unitary state. Despite these efforts, the partition of the Hetmanate was confirmed by the Muscovite-Polish Treaty of Andrusovo (1667) and the Eternal Peace of 1686. When the Cossacks were abolished by Poland in 1700 on the Right Bank, the Hetmanate was left with only the lands of the Left Bank... |
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HETMAN. (from the German Hauptmann and the Polish hetman: 'leader'). In the Polish Kingdom in the 16th century, local military commanders and administrators were known as hetmans. The title was also used for the supreme military commander both in Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At the end of the 16th century the commander of the Cossacks, originally known as the elder (starshyi), also became known as the hetman. The first Cossack hetmans included Kryshtof Kosynsky, Severyn Nalyvaiko, Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, and Taras Fedorovych. From 1648 the hetman was the head of the Cossack Hetman state. In this capacity he had broad powers as the supreme commander of the Cossack army; the chief administrator and financial officer, presiding over the state's highest administrative body, the General Officer Staff; the top legislator; and from the end of the 17th century, the supreme judge as well. The first hetman who was also head of the state was Bohdan Khmelnytsky... |
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REGIMENTAL SYSTEM. The administrative, territorial, military, and judicial structure of the 17th- to 18th-century Hetman state and Slobidska Ukraine. Under Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky there were initially 22 regiments, which were named after towns where their headquarters were located. Their colonels and other officers (Cossack starshyna) had jurisdiction over both the Cossacks and the civilian population in their territories. The colonels belonged to the hetman's Council of Officers. Before 1648 they had been appointed by the Polish government. Hetman Khmelnytsky, however, frequently appointed colonels personally. From the hetmancy of Ivan Samoilovych to that of Ivan Mazepa they were elected by a regimental council in the presence of the hetman's representatives. After 1709 Peter I and other Russian tsars appointed or dismissed colonels by fiat, and often chose Russians, Moldavians, Serbs, and other foreigners. Hetman Danylo Apostol's government had the right only to recommend candidates to the tsar... |
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COMPANY SYSTEM. In the Cossack Hetman state and in Slobidska Ukraine the company (sotnia) administration consisted of the captain (sotnyk) and the company officers, including the town or company otaman, secretary, aide-de-camp, and flag-bearer. The captain was the company's commander in chief and carried out in its territory military, administrative, fiscal, and judicial functions similar to those performed by the colonel in the regiment territory, including keeping peace and public order in the company. He was the head of the company court, which looked into civil and minor criminal matters involving Cossacks and sometimes even the civilian population in the company's territory. Originally the captain was elected by a company council and confirmed by a higher, regimental or hetman, government. But from Ivan Mazepa's hetmancy the captain was usually appointed by the colonel or the hetman himself. After Mazepa's defeat at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, captains were often appointed by the tsar's government... |
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COSSACK STARSHYNA or simply starshyna (officers). General title applied to persons holding positions of authority in a Ukrainian Cossack regiment and in the administration of the Hetman state (1648-1782). The starshyna was divided into the General Officer Staff and regimental and company staffs. A regimental starshyna consisted of a colonel, an oboznyi (quartermaster, artillery commander), a judge, a chancellor, an osaul (aide-de-camp, the colonel's closest aide), and a khorunzhyi (flag-bearer, protector of the regimental banner). A company staff consisted of a captain, company or town otaman (lieutenant), a scribe, an osaul, and a flag-bearer. Often the term 'Cossack starshyna' was applied to the entire social elite of the Hetman state, including the notable military fellows, who did not hold government or military posts. In the 18th century, the Cossack starshyna established itself as a gentry elite in Left-Bank Ukraine... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries dealing with the Cossack Hetman state were made possible by a generous donation from ARKADI MULAK-YATSKIVSKY of Los Angeles, CA, USA.
VII. THE PERIOD OF "THE RUIN" AND THE PARTITION OF UKRAINE IN THE LATE 17th CENTURY
The death of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky was followed in Ukraine by a period of instability and decline which culminated at the time of the "Ruin." An important event that precipitated Ukraine's political decline took place on 17-18 June 1663 when thousands of common Cossacks, Zaporozhians, and 'non-Cossack volunteers' assembled at a chorna rada near Nizhen to elect a new hetman for Left-Bank Ukraine. In a sequence of events described later in the historical novel by Panteleimon Kulish, Moscow-backed adventurer Ivan Briukhovetsky managed to sway the Zaporozhians and chern' (poorest Cossacks and peasants) with his demagoguery and promises and was elected hetman. He went on to execute his rival Cossack officers and sign a pact with Moscow whereby he placed Ukraine under the direct authority of the tsar. In subsequent years Muscovy succeded in inflaming class and religious differences within the Hetman state and provoking a civil conflict which led to a bloody internecine warfare. Ukraine became divided along the Dnieper River into two hostile regions. Neighboring states (Poland, Muscovy, the Ottoman Empire) interfered in Ukrainian internal affairs, and the policies of various Ukrainian leaders were skewed by efforts to curry favor among the various occupational forces. The Ukrainian Orthodox church was subordinated to the Moscow patriarchate in 1686, and Hetman state lost many of its sovereign powers... Learn more about the destructive legacy of the time of the Ruin by visiting the following entries:
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RUIN. A period in the late 17th century in the history of Ukraine, characterized by the disintegration of Ukrainian statehood and general decline. Some historians (eg, Mykola Kostomarov) correlate it with the tenures of three Moscow-backed hetmans (Ivan Briukhovetsky, Demian Mnohohrishny, and Ivan Samoilovych) and limit it chronologically to 1663-87 and territorially to Left-Bank Ukraine. Other historians consider the Ruin to apply to both Left- and Right-Bank Ukraine from the death of Bohdan Khmelnytsky to the rise of Ivan Mazepa (1657-1687). During the Ruin Ukraine became divided along the Dnieper River into Left-Bank Ukraine and Right-Bank Ukraine, and the two halves became hostile to each other. Ukrainian leaders during the period were largely opportunists and men of little vision who could not muster broad popular support for their policies. The hetmans who did their utmost to bring Ukraine out of decline were Ivan Vyhovsky, Petro Doroshenko, and Ivan Samoilovych... |
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KHMELNYTSKY, YURII, 1641-85. Hetman of Ukraine (1657, 1659-63) and hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine (1677-81, 1685); the younger son of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. His father, who hoped to establish a hereditary hetmancy, designated him as his successor after the death of his older son, Tymish Khmelnytsky. Although this was opposed by many Cossacks, who favored an elected hetmancy, Yurii was initially chosen hetman while his father was still alive. After his father's death in 1657, however, when it became clear that the 16-year-old was incapable of governing on his own, the Cossacks elected Ivan Vyhovsky as hetman. Subsequently, Vyhovsky lost the support of the Cossacks and abdicated in September 1659. Khmelnytsky was again elected hetman of Ukraine, supported primarily by the pro-Muscovite Cossack families. Capitalizing on the anarchy that was developing in Ukraine and Khmelnytsky's inexperience and weakness, the Muscovite government forced Khmelnytsky to ratify the Pereiaslav Articles of 1659, which limited the sovereign rights of Ukraine... |
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BRIUKHOVETSKY, IVAN, b ?, d 18 June 1668. Hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine. Briukhovetsky was a registered Cossack and Bohdan Khmelnytsky's courier and diplomatic emissary. After Khmelnytsky's death Briukhovetsky went to the Zaporozhian Sich (1659) and became its otaman (1661-3). In 1663 at the Chorna rada near Nizhen he was elected hetman with the support of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and the Cossack masses (chern). After doing away with his opponents, Col Yakym Somko and Col Vasyl Zolotarenko, he went to Moscow and signed the Moscow Articles of 1665, thereby placing Ukraine under the direct authority of the tsar and his voivodes and thus relinquishing Ukraine's autonomy. For this he received the title of boyar, land, and the hand of Prince Dolgoruky's daughter. By this time Briukhovetsky had forfeited the support of the population. An angry Cossack mob killed him in the village of Budyshchi near Opishnia... |
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DOROSHENKO, PETRO, b 1627 in Chyhyryn, d 19 November 1698 near Moscow. Hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine from 1665 to 1676. He served under Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky in a military and diplomatic capacity. After Khmelnytsky's death Doroshenko supported Ivan Vyhovsky and signed the Treaty of Hadiach in 1658. In January 1666 he was elected hetman of Right-Bank Ukraine. Doroshenko's main aim was to restore the Hetman state on both banks of the Dnieper River. In the struggle with Poland over Right-Bank Ukraine, Doroshenko crushed the Polish army with Crimean Tatar help at Brailiv in Podilia. Meanwhile a revolt against Muscovy broke out on the Left Bank, where after Ivan Briukhovetsky's execution Doroshenko was proclaimed hetman of all Ukraine on 8 June 1668. However, an unexpected Polish offensive forced Doroshenko to return to the Right Bank. His opponents on the Left Bank took advantage of the situation and, with Muscovite support, elected Demian Mnohohrishny hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine... |
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MNOHOHRISHNY, DEMIAN, b ca 1630 in Korop, Chernihiv region, d after 1701 in Selenginsk Staryi, Siberia. Hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine. In June 1668 Hetman Petro Doroshenko appointed Mnohohrishny acting hetman in Left-Bank Ukraine. In the autumn Mnohohrishny pledged loyalty to the tsar and was recognized as 'Siversk hetman.' On 13 March 1669 he was elected full hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine. A staunch supporter of Ukrainian independence, he spoke out against Muscovite encroachments and Muscovy's territorial concessions to Poland, and later he conducted secret negotiations with Petro Doroshenko and sent him money and troops to fight the Poles. Mnohohrishny favored autocratic rule by a strong hetman. He did not trust the senior Cossack starshyna, and appointed many of his relatives colonels and captains and granted them estates. The aggrieved Cossack starshyna engineered a Moscow-supported coup and Mnohohrishny was arrested in Baturyn on 23 March 1672 and secretly taken in chains to Moscow... |
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SAMOILOVYCH, IVAN, b near Skvyra, d 1690 in Tobolsk, Siberia. Cossack leader. During the tenure of Hetman Demian Mnohohrishny he served as colonel of Chernihiv regiment and as general judge. After Mnohohrishny was deposed, Samoilovych was elected hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine. He sought to unite Left-Bank Ukraine and Right-Bank Ukraine under his rule and fought against the Right-Bank hetman, Petro Doroshenko. On 17 March 1674 a council of 10 senior Cossack starshyna officers of Right-Bank Ukraine recognized him as their hetman, but he could not rule de facto until Doroshenko abdicated, on 19 September 1676. Samoilovych opposed a Muscovite-Polish alliance, but he supported peaceful relations between Moscow and the Crimean Khanate and Turkey. The Chyhyryn campaigns, 1677-8, of the Turks, however, which devastated Right-Bank Ukraine and resulted in a mass forced migration to Left-Bank Ukraine (1680), brought about Samoilovych's political demise... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the period of the Ruin at the end of the 17th-century were made possible by the financial support of the MICHAEL KOWALSKY AND DARIA MUCAK-KOWALSKY ENCYCLOPEDIA ENDOWMENT FUND at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Edmonton, AB, Canada).
VIII. HETMAN IVAN MAZEPA, TSAR PETER I, AND THE BATTLE OF POLTAVA (1709)
Hetman Ivan Mazepa was one of the most enigmatic and inspiring Ukrainian leaders. Although there have been controversial assessments of his reign, he has remained a symbol of Ukrainian independence. His main goal as hetman of Ukraine was to unite all Ukrainian territories in a unitary state that would be modeled on existing European states but would retain the features of the traditional Cossack order. Initially Mazepa believed that Ukraine could coexist with Russia on the basis of the Pereiaslav Treaty of 1654. However, when Tsar Peter I embarked on a policy of annihilating Ukrainian autonomy and abolishing the Cossack order, Mazepa began secret negotiations with the king of Poland and with Charles XII of Sweden, and forged with them an anti-Russian coalition in 1708. Mazepa's efforts at organizing a broad anti-Russian front in Eastern Europe proved unsuccessful, and his and Charles XII's defeat at the Battle of Poltava on 8 July 1709 sealed Ukraine's fate. Having condemned Mazepa as a traitor, Peter I ordered the Russian and Ukrainian churches to anathematize him. Thereafter, imperial, both Russian and Soviet, propagandists and historians did their utmost to vilify this Ukrainian patriot and statesman... Learn more about Ivan Mazepa and other actors of the fateful Battle of Poltava (1709) by visiting the following entries:
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MAZEPA, IVAN, b 20 March 1639 in Mazepyntsi, near Bila Tserkva, d 2 October 1709 in Bendery, Bessarabia. Hetman of Ukraine in 1687-1709; son of Stepan-Adam Mazepa and Maryna Mazepa. He studied at the Kyivan Mohyla College and at the Jesuit college in Warsaw. While a page at the court of Jan II Casimir Vasa in Warsaw, he was sent by the king to study in Holland. In 1656-9 he learned gunnery in Deventer and visited Germany, Italy, France, and the Low Countries. After his return to Warsaw Mazepa continued his service as a royal courtier, and in 1659-63 he was sent on various diplomatic missions to Ukraine. The legend of his affair with Madame Falbowska and his subsequent punishment by being tied to the back of a wild horse was first popularized by the Polish memorialist J. C. Pasek... |
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POLTAVA, BATTLE OF. The turning point in the Great Northern War (1700-21) between Sweden and Russia. When Hetman Ivan Mazepa learned that Tsar Peter I intended to abolish the autonomy of the Hetman state, he began secret negotiations with Charles XII of Sweden to ensure that Ukraine would not be annexed by Poland in the event of a Swedish victory. After the main Swedish army entered Ukraine, Mazepa openly sided with Charles against Peter.... |
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PETER I, b 9 June 1672 in Moscow, d 8 February 1725 in Saint Petersburg. Russian tsar from 1682 and first Russian emperor from 1721; son of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. In 1696, after deposing the Muscovite regent, his half-sister, Sofiia Alekseevna, Peter conducted an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy that affected the Hetman state, Slobidska Ukraine, and the Zaporizhia throughout his reign. He exploited Ukraine economically and militarily as part of Russia's participation in the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire; the expansionist Russo-Turkish wars of 1695-6 and 1710-13; the Northern War with Sweden (1700-21), by which Russia gained a foothold on the Baltic Sea coast; and the war with Persia (1722-3), which fortified Russia's hold in Transcaucasia and the Caspian Sea littoral. Those wars exacted a heavy human and economic toll in Ukraine... |
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CHARLES XII, b 17 June 1682 in Stockholm, d 30 November 1718 in Fredrikshald, Norway. King of Sweden from 1697. In the Great Northern War (1700-21) against the coalition of Russia, Denmark, and Saxony (headed by the Polish king Frederick Augustus II), Charles conquered Denmark, occupied Poland, and forced Augustus to abdicate. In the course of the war with Russia Charles entered into negotiations with Hetman Ivan Mazepa, which were soon formalized in a Ukrainian-Swedish alliance. In the fall of 1708 Charles advanced into Ukraine, where in 1709 he suffered defeat by Russia in the decisive Battle of Poltava... |
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ORLYK, PYLYP, b 11 October 1672 in Kosuta, Ashmiany county, Vilnius voivodeship, Lithuania, d 26 May 1742 in Iasi, Moldavia. Cossack statesman and hetman-in-exile. A nobleman of Bohemian ancestry, he studied at the Jesuit college in Vilnius and until 1694 at the Kyivan Mohyla College. In 1699 he became a senior member of the Hetman state's General Military Chancellery and in 1706 Hetman Ivan Mazepa appointed Orlyk general chancellor. In that capacity he was Mazepa's closest aide, facilitated Mazepa's secret correspondence with the Poles and Swedes, and assisted Mazepa in his efforts to form an anti-Russian coalition in Eastern Europe. After the defeat at the Battle of Poltava in July 1709, Orlyk fled abroad with Mazepa and became a leader of the first Ukrainian political emigration. After Mazepa's death, on 16 April 1710, Orlyk was elected hetman, with the backing of Charles XII of Sweden, in Bendery. The chief author of the Constitution of Bendery, he pursued policies aimed at liberating Ukraine from Russian rule... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the reign of Hetman Ivan Mazepa and the Battle of Poltava (1709) were made possible by the financial support of the MICHAEL KOWALSKY AND DARIA MUCAK-KOWALSKY ENCYCLOPEDIA ENDOWMENT FUND at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Edmonton, AB, Canada).
IX. THE LAST RULERS OF THE HETMANATE AND THE DISSOLUTION OF UKRAINIAN AUTONOMY
The Russian victory in the Battle of Poltava in 1709 freed Tsar Peter I from any further restraint in his policy aimed at absorbing Ukraine into the Russian Empire. Devastated by war, Russian repressions, and a plague epidemic, Left-Bank Ukraine became a military colony. The Cossack army was put under Russian command, and the hetman became subject to constant supervision by Russian residents of the tsar. In 1722 Peter I set up the Little Russian Collegium, which sharply reduced the powers of the Ukrainian government. Cultural and religious life was also subjected to restrictions: Ukrainian printing was proscribed in 1720, and the Kyivan Mohyla Academy was repressed. Several decades later Empress Catherine II completed the policy of centralization and institutional Russification that Peter I began in Ukraine. In 1764 she forced the abdication of the last Cossack hetman, Kyrylo Rozumovsky, and restored the Little Russian Collegium. The task of its president, Count Petr Rumiantsev, was to gradually eliminate Ukrainian autonomy. He neutralized the Ukrainian elite by recruiting their members into Russian service and giving them rank and promotions. In 1775 the Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed. By 1782 all the traditional Cossack regiments of the Hetman state were abolished. The imperial bureaucracy replaced Ukrainian administrative, judicial, and fiscal institutions and social and legal norms were replaced with Russian ones. In 1783 the Russian system of conscription and serfdom was extended into Ukraine. The Ukrainian elite acquiesced becaused they benefited from the changes: the 1785 charter gave them the privileges of Russian nobility. The Hetman state and the Cossack social order ceased to exist and Ukraine was transformed into a province of Russia... Learn more about the last rulers of the Cossack Hetman state and the dissolution of Ukrainian autonomy in the 18th century by visiting the following entries:
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SKOROPADSKY, IVAN, b 1646 in Uman, d 14 July 1722 in Hlukhiv. Cossack leader and hetman of Ukraine (1708-22). After the Turks leveled Uman in 1674, he moved to Left-Bank Ukraine, where he served under Hetman Ivan Samoilovych. In 1706 Mazepa appointed him colonel of Starodub regiment. Skoropadsky was elected hetman at the Council of Officers in Hlukhiv on 6 November 1708. Peter I never fully trusted him, however; he refused to ratify the Reshetylivka Articles of 1709 drawn up by Skoropadsky for a new agreement between Ukraine and Russia, and he held up the official documents confirming Skoropadsky as hetman until 1710. Skoropadsky, with the troops of Cossacks loyal to him, nevertheless fought alongside Russian troops in the Battle of Poltava. Following his victory, Peter I stationed 10 dragoon regiments on Ukrainian territory at the expense of the local population and interfered increasingly in Ukraine's internal affairs. The capital of the Hetman state was moved to Hlukhiv in 1709, and the hetman became subject to constant supervision by Russian residents of the tsar... |
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POLUBOTOK, PAVLO, b ca 1660, d 29 December 1724 in Saint Petersburg. Cossack statesman. Because of his involvement in Cossack starshyna conspiracies against Hetman Ivan Mazepa, he was barred from government positions until 1706, when he was appointed colonel of Chernihiv regiment. After Mazepa's defeat at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and flight abroad, Polubotok submitted his candidacy for the position of hetman, but Peter I did not trust him and favored Ivan Skoropadsky's candidacy instead. After Skoropadsky's death in 1722, Polubotok became acting hetman. Peter, however, forbade the election of a new hetman and created the Little Russian Collegium to rule in the Hetman state in place of the General Military Chancellery. Polubotok's repeated appeals to Peter to abolish the collegium, fully restore the starshyna's privileges, and allow the election of a new hetman angered the emperor and resulted in the arrest of Polubotok in November 1723. He was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg's Peter and Paul Fortress, where he died a year later... |
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APOSTOL, DANYLO, , b 14 December 1654, d 28 January 1734 in Sorochyntsi, Myrhorod regiment. Colonel of the Myrhorod regiment and then hetman of Left-Bank Ukraine in 1727-34. At first Apostol opposed Ivan Mazepa, then supported him. In November 1708, however, he abandoned Mazepa and the Swedes and joined Peter I. The martial law established in Ukraine by Peter I after his victory at the Battle of Poltava, the rule of the Little Russian Collegium, and other restrictions on Ukrainian autonomy persuaded Apostol to side with the Ukrainian officers under the leadership of Pavlo Polubotok. Apostol was the initiator of the Kolomak Petitions in 1723, which led to the imprisonment of Polubotok in Saint Petersburg and the deportation of Apostol. The influential Prince Aleksandr Menshikov, however, supported Apostol for his own economic reasons and helped to secure his election as hetman in 1727. The Authoritative Ordinances imposed on Ukraine by the Russian government in 1728 limited the powers of the hetman considerably. Apostol's rule was characterized by a compromise between the old political arrangements and the new, which were more restrictive of Ukraine's autonomy... |
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ROZUMOVSKY, KYRYLO, b 29 March 1728 in Lemeshi, Kyiv regiment, d 15 January 1803 in Baturyn, Chernihiv gubernia. The last hetman (1750-64) of the Cossack Hetman state. He was brought to Saint Petersburg as the brother of Oleksii Rozumovsky, Empress Elizabeth I's favorite. Elizabeth agreed to restore the office of hetman under the pressure of O. Rozumovsky and other Ukrainian nobles, and she chose Kyrylo for the position. Rozumovsky sought to rebuild the Hetmanate as an independent state. With his support, the reformist faction of the Cossack starshyna proposed a system of enlightened absolutism for the Hetman state with a hereditary monarchy (the Rozumovsky dynasty) and a constitutional parliament. Rozumovsky's wide-ranging program for modernizing the Hetman state and the political activation of the Ukrainian nobility were completely at odds with the aims of the Russian government, and from the 1750s the government began limiting the Hetmanate's economic and political rights. Finally, the new empress, Catherine II, forced Rozumovsky's resignation in November 1764, and placed the Hetmanate under the control of the Little Russian Collegium... |
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LITTLE RUSSIAN COLLEGIUM. (Malorosiiska kolehiia). Two distinct administrative institutions set up in Ukraine in the 18th century by the imperial Russian government. The first collegium was established by Peter I in 1722. Its purpose was to oversee and monitor the activities of the hetman and the Cossack officers in Ukraine. The collegium consisted of six staff officers from Russian regiments and garrisons stationed in Ukraine and a procurator, all of whom were appointed by the tsar. Taking advantage of the interregnum after Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky's death, the collegium usurped the powers of the hetman and acted as the highest administrative, judicial, and financial body in Ukraine. Its interference in the affairs of the hetman administration and arbitrary behavior aroused the indignation of the Cossack officers and the collegium was abolished in 1727. The second collegium was established by Catherine II in 1764. With the abolition of the Hetman state it was to act as the highest governing body in Ukraine. Its task was to eradicate the last vestiges of Ukraine's autonomy, destroy the Cossack starshyna, and increase the economic exploitation of Ukraine... |
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CATHERINE II, b 5 May 1729 in Stettin, Prussia, d 17 November 1796 in Saint Petersburg. A member of the German Anhalt-Zerbst princely house; empress of Russia, 1762-96. The reign of Catherine II was marked by an extremely reactionary internal policy (the institution of a system of total serfdom, and the expansion of the rights and privileges of the Russian nobility) and by a highly successful imperialistic foreign policy (wars with Turkey; the partitions of Poland). Catherine's policies towards the non-Russian nations and peoples of the empire were centralist, especially with respect to Ukraine. In 1764 the hetman office was abolished, and in the 1780s Ukraine's autonomy was wholly liquidated. In 1765 the regiments of Slobidska Ukraine were abolished, and in 1775 the Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed. In 1783 the Crimea and in the 1790s the entire Right-Bank Ukraine were incorporated into the empire. In the cultural sphere, Catherine's reign was marked by further Russification in Ukraine. The rights and interests of the Ukrainian church were curtailed and in Right-Bank Ukraine Catherine's government advanced a policy aimed at the annihilation of the Ukrainian Catholic church... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries featuring the last rulers of the Cossack Hetmanate and the dissolution of Ukrainian autonomy were made possible by the financial support of the MICHAEL KOWALSKY AND DARIA MUCAK-KOWALSKY ENCYCLOPEDIA ENDOWMENT FUND at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Edmonton, AB, Canada).
X. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848-9 AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE UKRAINIAN POLITICAL MOVEMENT IN WESTERN UKRAINE
The Revolution of 1848-9 in the Habsburg monarchy played a decisive role in the process of the emergence of Ukrainian political organizations and the shaping of the modern Ukrainian identity in Western Ukraine. Prior to the revolution there had been a Ukrainian national revival in Galicia and Transcarpathia, but the movement had been entirely cultural. With the outbreak of the revolution, however, the Ukrainian question became a political question. The first representative Ukrainian political organization was founded in Lviv on 2 May 1848, the Supreme Ruthenian Council. The major political goal advocated by Ukrainians during the revolution was the creation of a predominantly Ukrainian crown land within the Habsburg monarchy. Although the relatively underdeveloped Ukrainian movements in Transcarpathia and Bukovyna were as yet unclear on the point, the Ukrainians of Galicia repeatedly emphasized in their publications that the Ukrainians of the Habsburg monarchy were part of the same distinct Ukrainian nation that could be found in Ukraine in the Russian Empire. In June 1848 the Ukrainians of Galicia and Bukovyna participated in the first parliamentary elections ever held on Ukrainian territory and 30 Ukrainians were elected to the constituent Austrian Reichstag. The first Ukrainian-language newspaper, Zoria halytska, began to appear in Lviv on 15 May 1848, and the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia, a Ukrainian literary and educational society, was established later that year. When the revolution was defeated in the fall of 1849, many of the achievements of the revolutionary years were undone. The Ukrainian leadership assumed a conservative 'Old Ruthenian' or Russophile orientations, but the legacy of revolutionary achievements shaped the Ukrainiphile populist movement which became dominant in Galicia at the end of the 19th century... Learn more about the Revolution of 1848-9 in the Habsburg monarchy by visiting the following entries:
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REVOLUTION OF 1848-9 IN THE HABSBURG MONARCHY. The unsuccessful democratic revolution that encompassed much of Europe in 1848-9, which broke out also in the Habsburg monarchy, including the Ukrainian territories. Inspired by a republican revolution in Paris in February 1848, demonstrations broke out in Vienna in March. By mid-month, under pressure from the people, Emperor Ferdinand I had dismissed his reactionary adviser Klemens von Metternich, authorized the formation of a national guard, and promised to establish a parliament. The news of those revolutionary events reached the Ukrainian territories of Galicia, Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia on the weekend of 18-19 March. Immediately crowds gathered in the squares of Lviv, where Polish democrats circulated a petition calling for civil rights and the abolition of serfdom. In Chernivtsi mobs attacked the unpopular mayor and police commissioner. In the small, largely Magyarized towns of Transcarpathia the population gathered to discuss the 12 demands put forward by radical Hungarian activists in Pest... |
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SUPREME RUTHENIAN COUNCIL. The first legal Ukrainian political organization in modern times, founded in May 1848 in Lviv. The Supreme Ruthenian Council was established in direct response to the Revolution of 1848?9 in the Habsburg monarchy, in particular to the formation in Galicia of the Polish People's Council (Rada Narodowa), which declared itself the representative political body for the province. The emergence of the Supreme Ruthenian Council in turn prompted the creation of yet another council, the pro-Polish Ruthenian Congress. Encouraged by the Austrian governor of Galicia, Count Franz Stadion, over 300 Ukrainians representing various social groups (except the peasantry) met on 2 May at the chancery of Saint George's Cathedral. They organized a council of 30 members (eventually increased to 66). The purpose of the Supreme Ruthenian Council was to strengthen the Ukrainian people in Austria by encouraging publications in Ukrainian, introducing the Ukrainian language in schools and the local administration, and defending the constitutional rights of Ukrainians... |
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ZORIA HALYTSKA (Galician Star). The first Ukrainian-language newspaper, published in Lviv weekly from May 1848, semiweekly in 1849?52, and then weekly again to 1857 (a total of 717 issues). As the organ of the Supreme Ruthenian Council until 1850, the newspaper stressed the separateness of the Ukrainian nation and the ethnic unity of Ukrainians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire. In 1850-4 Zoria halytska was funded by the Stauropegion Institute and controlled by Russophiles. Throughout most of this period it was called Zoria halytskaia and was published in the artificial Ukrainian-Russian yazychiie. It was a journal from 1853. In late 1854 it was taken over by Ukrainophiles, but financial difficulties forced it to fold. Zoria halytska published news and articles on political, economic, religious, and community affairs. From 1850 it devoted much attention to literature. It was actively supported by the Greek Catholic clergy, and in 1853-4 it published a religious supplement... |
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HALYTSKO-RUSKA MATYTSIA. A literary and educational society established in June 1848 in Lviv by the Supreme Ruthenian Council. Modeled on Serbian (1826), Czech (1831), and other similar predecessors, the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia fostered schooling and general cultural enlightenment by publishing popular-science literature, grammars, and textbooks. Rev Mykhailo Kuzemsky was its first head. In 1850 it had 193 dues-paying members, 69 of whom were priests. In 1861 its statute was ratified. In the 1860s it was taken over by the Russophiles (Yakiv Holovatsky, Antin Petrushevych, B. Didytsky, and others), who promoted the use of the artificial, bookish yazychie language and later even Russian. Consequently, the Galician populists founded the Prosvita society in 1868. The activity and influence of the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia declined in the 1880s, but it continued to exist (with periods of inactivity, 1895?1900, 1909?22) until 1939. The Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia published about 60 books and some scholarly serials... |
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PEOPLE'S HOME IN LVIV. The oldest and wealthiest Ukrainian cultural-educational institution in Galicia. The People's Home was established in 1849 by the Supreme Ruthenian Council with the express purpose of developing Ukrainian national and cultural life throughout Galicia. The institution was based on a Czech model. The Austrian government granted it land near Lviv University, on which a building was erected in 1851-64. Over time it amassed a substantial number of assets, including several buildings and a church in Lviv, two villages in the Peremyshl region, a museum, a library, and a publishing house. The People's Home provided a spiritual haven and organizational center for various organizations and causes, most notably the Halytsko-Ruska Matytsia society (which undertook cultural-educational work and published school textbooks). Until the 1860s its work was conducted in the conservative and clerical-minded spirit of the Old Ruthenians. The leadership of the People's Home then fell into the hands of Russophiles, who took it over completely in 1872... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries featuring the Revolution of 1848-9 in the Habsburg Monarchy were made possible by a generous donation from the FRANKO FOUNDATION of Toronto, ON, Canada.
XI. UKRAINIAN POPULISM AND ITS GRASS-ROOTS "ORGANIC WORK" IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY
The Ukrainian populist movement that emerged in the second half of the 19th century, first in Russian-ruled Ukraine and soon afterwards in Western Ukraine, played a cucial role in the evolution of Ukrainian national life and the formation of modern Ukrainian national identity. The populists, who included primarily members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, idealized the people (narod), which, practically speaking, meant the peasantry. The main tenets of Ukrainian populism were federalism, the emancipation of the peasantry, and the recognition of the cultural distinctiveness of the Ukrainian people. While some populists became involved in revolutionary activities, the dominant trend was for peaceful change and the majority of populists focused on the "organic work" among the peasants. Initially, this work focused on educational and cultural endeavors, such as Ukrainian Sunday schools for adults and children, village reading rooms, and various publishing activities of such organizations as the Prosvita (Enlightenment) society. Later, in their attempt to help Ukrainians improve their lives through their own resources, populist organizations became involved in economic activities, most notably in the co-operative movement. Populists also played an inportant role in various aspects of social work (including sports, physical-education, and scouting organizations) and health care (such as the temperance movement whose efforts to battle the wide-spread problem of alcoholism among the peasants were particularly effective in Western Ukraine)... Learn more about the Ukrainian populist movement in the late 19th and early 20th century by visiting the following entries:
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POPULISM, RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN. Populism in Russian-ruled Ukraine began to crystallize following the Crimean War, when the Russian government began enacting fundamental reforms to prepare the groundwork for the modernization of Russia. The Ukrainian populist movement began with the return from exile of the old members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, the appearance of the khlopoman movement, and the organization of hromadas in the late 1850s. The Cyrillo-Methodians were the first to formulate a populist political platform based on social and national emancipation, albeit couched in religious and romantic terms. In Kyiv Volodymyr Antonovych, leader of the khlopomany, issued a typically populist manifesto in which he called on the Polish lords to renounce their privileges and work for the benefit of the people among whom they lived, the Ukrainian peasantry. Members of the hromadas organized Sunday schools to teach literacy to peasants and workers, supported and contributed to Ukrainian populist journals, and promoted Ukrainian scholarship... |
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WESTERN UKRAINIAN POPULISM. A cultural and then political movement initiated in the 1860s by the young Ukrainian intelligentsia in Galicia (known commonly as narodovtsi, or populists). It arose in counterpoint to the clerical conservatism of the older intelligentsia, who had become disillusioned with the possibility of independent Ukrainian national development after the failure of efforts to secure full national emancipation and had begun to orient itself increasingly (both culturally and politically) to Russia. The narodovtsi sought to help Ukrainians better themselves through their own resources. They identified themselves with Ukrainians in the Russian Empire and insisted on the use of vernacular Ukrainian language in literature and education. Their movement, deeply influenced by the writings of Taras Shevchenko, Markiian Shashkevych, Panteleimon Kulish, and others, built on the traditions of the Ukrainian national revival of the 1830s and 1840s as represented by the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood in Kyiv, the Ruthenian Triad, and the Supreme Ruthenian Council in Lviv... |
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PROSVITA SOCIETIES. Ukrainian community organizations active in Ukraine from the late 1860s to the 1940s and in other countries from the early 20th century. Prosvita societies were first established in Galicia and became most developed there. The first Prosvita society was founded in Lviv in 1868 by a group of young populists. Initially these societies had a general educational purpose and incorporated only the intelligentsia, but over time they assumed a mass character and diversified into a number of areas of activity. In several instances they laid the groundwork for the establishment of economic co-operatives, educational societies, and other groups that were instrumental in the Ukrainian national movement. In central and eastern Ukraine the development of Prosvita societies was stymied by political hostility of the Russian government to the Ukrainian populist ideals that underpinned their work. Nevertheless, the small number of Prosvitas established after the Revolution of 1905 had a substantial impact on the development of Ukrainian national consciousness... |
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CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT. In Russian-ruled Ukraine, the co-operative movement began in the 1860s: the first consumer co-operative was established in Kharkiv in 1866. The first credit co-operative appeared in Hadiach in 1869. The movement grew rapidly after the Revolution of 1905, and from then on national aspirations, particularly the demand for independent co-operative associations, became increasingly marked in the co-operative movement in Ukraine. The origins of the Ukrainian co-operative movement in Galicia in the 1870s were connected with the efforts mainly of the clergy to alleviate misery among the peasants by organizing self-help fraternal loan associations, community warehouses, and other enterprises in parishes and communities. But only the co-operatives that were founded under the 1873 Austrian law on commercial-trade associations proved to be truly viable. From 1904 the Provincial Audit Union was the auditing center of the Ukrainian co-operative movement in Galicia. It developed into the leading organizational and ideological center of the movement... |
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SICH SOCIETIES. Associations that began with a mass physical-education and fire-fighting organization that was active in Galicia from 1900 to 1930 and then spread to Bukovyna, Transcarpathia, and Ukrainian communities abroad. Beyond its immediate practical purpose, it strove to promote national consciousness and to raise the educational and cultural level of the peasantry and working class. Organized by leading members of the Ukrainian Radical party, its ideology was secular and somewhat anticlerical. The first Sich society was founded by Kyrylo Trylovsky in Zavallia, Sniatyn county, in May 1900. A central association for all of Galicia was formed in Stanyslaviv in 1908. The number of local societies increased steadily; by 1913 there were over 900 branches, with a combined membership of 80,000. Sich members wore the local folk costume, a crimson sash over the shoulder inscribed with the wearer's place-name, and a hat decorated with a red feather and a star-shaped badge. The Sich societies held annual county and, later, province-wide congresses... |
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TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. The earliest Ukrainian temperance movement was begun in Galicia in the 1840s. Modeled on Irish temperance missions and societies, it was part of a wider sobriety campaign supported by the Catholic church in many parts of Europe. By the 1850s, however, the movement had faltered. The impetus for the movement's revival was provided by the publication in 1869 of Rev Stepan Kachala's pamphlet and by two pastoral letters from Metropolitan Yosyf Sembratovych in 1874 on the harmful effects of alcohol and the need for sobriety missions. Priests began to encourage temperance from their pulpits, and the best orators from among the clergy went among the general population and proclaimed the sobriety message. Their activity gave rise to an upsurge in missions, the goal of which was the establishment of sobriety brotherhoods. The Prosvita society contributed further to the spread of sobriety through the provision of temperance literature and the engagement of speakers on the topic. In Russian-ruled Ukraine, a widespread temperance movement never developed and those efforts that existed were usually localized... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries featuring the Ukrainian populist movement in the late 19th and early 20th century were made possible by the financial support of the CANADIAN FOUNDATION FOR UKRAINIAN STUDIES.
XII. THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL REPUBLIC AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, 1917-20
At the final stages of the First World War, a powerful struggle for an independent Ukrainian state developed in the central Ukrainian territories, which, until 1917, were part of the Russian Empire. The newly established Ukrainian government, the Central Rada, headed by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, issued four universals, the Fourth of which, dated 22 January 1918, declared the independence and sovereignty of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) on 25 January 1918. The session of the Central Rada on 29 April 1918 ratified the Constitution of the UNR and elected Hrushevsky president. That same day, however, a coup d'etat was staged with the support of the Germans by conservative circles. Gen Pavlo Skoropadsky was proclaimed hetman of the Ukrainian State, which replaced the UNR. The Ukrainian political formations that opposed the hetman formed the Ukrainian National Union and, later, the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic, headed by Volodymyr Vynnychenko. Following Pavlo Skoropadsky's 14 November 1918 proclamation of the federation of Ukraine with Russia, the Directory began an anti-hetman uprising that culminated on 14 December in the restoration of the republican rule of the UNR... Learn more about the revolutionary events of 1917-20 by visiting the following entries:
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STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE (1917-20). The term used to describe the political, military, and diplomatic activities to achieve Ukrainian statehood in all Ukrainian territories. At first this struggle concerned the central Ukrainian territories. On 17 March the Central Rada was created in Kyiv and on 25 January 1918 it declared the independence and sovereignty of the Ukrainian National Republic. Mykhailo Hrushevsky was elected president. However, a coup d'etat was staged with the support of the Germans by Gen Pavlo Skoropadsky created the Ukrainian State, which replaced the UNR. The anti-hetman uprising that culminated on 14 December restored the republican rule of the UNR and the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic introduced the labor principle of rule with the Labor Congress as the highest legislative body and with the Council of National Ministers as the executive organ. In the western Ukrainian lands that formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ukrainian National Rada (UNRada) was formed in Lviv on 18-19 October 1918 and proclaimed a Ukrainian state on the territory of Galicia, northern Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia... |
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CENTRAL RADA. At first, an all-Ukrainian center that united political, community, cultural, and professional organizations; later, after the All-Ukrainian National Congress (17-21 April 1917), the revolutionary parliament of Ukraine that directed the Ukrainian national movement and by the four Universals of the Central Rada led Ukraine from autonomy to independence. The Central Rada was founded in Kyiv on 17 March 1917 on the initiative of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives with the participation of other political parties. Mykhailo Hrushevsky was chosen in absentia as the chairman of the Rada. After the All-Ukrainian National Congress the Rada was composed of 150 members, elected from Ukrainian political parties, professional and cultural organizations, and delegates from the gubernias. At the congress a new presidium of the Rada was elected, with Hrushevsky as president and Serhii Yefremov and Volodymyr Vynnychenko as vice-presidents... |
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HETMAN GOVERNMENT. The antisocialist Ukrainian government formed after the coup d'etat of Gen Pavlo Skoropadsky in Kyiv on 29 April 1918. This coup was backed by the generals of the German and Austrian armies that occupied Ukraine after the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and by former tsarist officers. On the day of the coup Skoropadsky issued two edicts that together constituted a provisional constitution for the new regime. The Central Rada and the Council of National Ministers of the Ukrainian National Republic and their laws and land reforms were abolished, and the right of private land ownership was reinstated. All legislative and executive powers were transferred to the hetman, who at the same time was proclaimed commander in chief of the military. Although its social and economic policies were a failure, the Hetman government did achieve certain successes in diplomacy in establishing a consular service and, particularly, in education and culture... |
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HRUSHEVSKY, MYKHAILO, b 29 September 1866 in Kholm, d 25 November 1934 in Kislovodsk, North Caucasus krai, RSFSR. The most distinguished Ukrainian historian; principal organizer of Ukrainian scholarship, prominent civic and political leader, publicist, and writer; member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society from 1894, the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1923, and the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1929. Hrushevsky's father, Serhii, was a Slavist and pedagogue. In 1869 the family moved to Caucasia where Hrushevsky graduated from the classical gymnasium in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) (1886). While still a gymnasium student he began to write belles-lettres in Ukrainian; his first publication was a story that appeared in the newspaper Dilo in 1885. Hrushevsky graduated in 1890 from the Historical-Philological Faculty at Kyiv University where he was a student of Volodymyr Antonovych... |
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SKOROPADSKY, PAVLO, b 15 May 1873 in Wiesbaden, Germany, d 26 April 1945 in Metten, Bavaria. Ukrainian noble, general, and statesman; scion of the Skoropadsky family. After the February Revolution of 1917 Skoropadsky oversaw the Ukrainization of the 34th Corps as the 1st Ukrainian Corps. He was elected honorary otaman of the Ukrainian Free Cossacks in October 1917. In October-November of that year the disciplined 60,000-man First Corps and the Free Cossacks under his command controlled the Vapniarka-Zhmerynka-Koziatyn-Shepetivka railway corridor. It disarmed and demobilized pro-Bolshevik military units returning from the fronts and thereby prevented them from attacking Kyiv and plundering Ukraine. As an opponent of the Central Rada's socialist policies Skoropadsky initiated a right-wing conspiracy known as the Ukrainian People's Hromada, consisting of his fellow noble landowners and loyal officers... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the history of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-20 were made possible by the financial support of the MICHAEL KOWALSKY AND DARIA MUCAK-KOWALSKY ENCYCLOPEDIA ENDOWMENT FUND at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Edmonton, AB, Canada).
XIII. A BATTLE FOR UKRAINE: THE UKRAINIAN-SOVIET WAR, 1917-21
Shortly after the October Revolution of 1917, a military struggle for control of Ukraine began and was waged intermittently until 1921 by Ukrainian independentist forces and pro-Bolshevik elements seeking to establish Soviet rule. Notwithstanding the creation of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) on 20 November 1917, the Bolsheviks planned to seize power in Ukraine with the aid of Russian or Russified urban elements, Russian garrisons, and army units stationed near the front. Their armed uprising in Kyiv on 11 December 1917 was unsuccessful, however, and the Bolshevized army units were deported from Ukraine in stages. A pro-Bolshevik force under Yevheniia Bosh moving in on Kyiv was also disarmed by Ukrainian troops under Pavlo Skoropadsky and then sent off to Russia. However, in December 1917 a 30,000-strong Red Guards army from Russia set off for Ukraine starting the war that would eventually lead to the establishment of Soviet rule in all of central and eastern Ukraine... Learn more about the history of the fateful Ukrainian-Soviet War by visiting the following entries:
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UKRAINIAN-SOVIET WAR, 1917-21. The invasion of Ukraine by pro-Soviet forces in early 1918 was accompanied by uprisings initiated by local Bolshevik agitators in cities throughout Left-Bank Ukraine. The Central Rada prepared for the defense of Kyiv by sending advance forces of volunteers to Poltava and Bakhmach. One of those, the Student Battalion, was annihilated by a vastly larger Bolshevik force at the Battle of Kruty on 29 January. On 9 February Soviet troops under Mikhail Muravev's command entered Kyiv and then carried out brutal reprisals against the Ukrainian civilian population. After taking Kyiv the Bolsheviks launched an offensive in Right-Bank Ukraine, but the tide changed following Ukraine's signature of the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the entry of German and Austrian troops into the conflict in late February as allies of the Central Rada... |
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ARMY OF THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL REPUBLIC. Unlike the Ukrainian Galician Army, the regular armed forces of the Western Ukrainian National Republic, the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic was never a regular, well-structured organization, but was made up of various armed volunteer units. The formation of Ukrainian units in the Russian army was part of the process of general disintegration of the multinational Russian army along national lines that had begun at the front and in the rear immediately after the February Revolution of 1917. Instances of spontaneous Ukrainianization on the front became widespread. In units that were nationally mixed, the Ukrainian soldiers formed their own subunits, in which both discipline and fighting ability were superior and resistance to the Bolshevik appeals for demobilization was stronger than in other subunits... |
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PETLIURA, SYMON, b 10 May 1879 in Poltava, d 25 May 1926 in Paris. Statesman and publicist; supreme commander of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic and president of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. He entered the Poltava Theological Seminary in 1895 but was expelled in 1901 for belonging to a clandestine Ukrainian hromada. From 1900 he was also active in a political cell in Poltava that became the nucleus of the Revolutionary Ukrainian party. In 1909 he moved to Moscow and worked there as a bookkeeper until 1912, when he became coeditor, with Oleksander Salikovsky, of the Russian-language monthly Ukrainskaia zhizn' (1912-17). In 1916 and until the beginning of 1917 he was deputy plenipotentiary of the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos aid committee on the Russian western front. In June 1917 he was appointed general secretary of military affairs in the first General Secretariat of the Central Rada... |
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PARTISAN MOVEMENT IN UKRAINE, 1918-22. As government and public order in the Russian Empire dissolved after the February Revolution of 1917, a host of partisan groups sprang up in Ukraine. Differing in size and political orientation, they never formed a unified force behind a single leader or program and often switched their support from one to another of the major contenders for control of Ukraine. Formed mostly from among the Ukrainian peasantry, the movement defended the broad social and political goals of the revolution and sided increasingly with the national aspirations of the Ukrainian people. After the defeat of the UNR Army, the partisan movement became the chief opponent of Bolshevik power in Ukraine. The first partisan groups were formed in 1917 in the Kyiv region to defend the local population from roving bands of soldiers returning from the front. The peasant brigades then took part in resisting the Bolshevik offensive on Kyiv in January-February 1918... |
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WINTER CAMPAIGNS. Offensives of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic behind the lines of the Volunteer Army and Red Army in 1919-20 and 1921. The First Winter Campaign lasted from 6 December 1919 to 6 May 1920. As conventional military action in the Ukrainian-Soviet War became impossible, the UNR government decided to demobilize those units unfit for battle and to send its battle-ready troops behind enemy lines to conduct partisan warfare until it could set up a regular front. The Second Winter Campaign took place in November 1921, while the UNR government and its disarmed army were in Poland, and the partisan movement was still active in Ukraine. The goal of the raid behind the Bolshevik lines was quite bold: to unify the partisan operations and to sweep the Soviet regime from Ukraine... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the Ukrainian-Soviet War of 1917-21 were made possible by a generous donation from Dr. MICHAEL DASHCHUK of Toronto, ON, Canada..
XIV. THE WESTERN UKRAINIAN NATIONAL REPUBLIC AND THE WAR IN GALICIA, 1918-19
After the independent Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) was established in January 1918 on the central Ukrainian territories, in the western Ukrainian lands that formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ukrainian National Rada was formed in Lviv in October 1918 and proclaimed a Ukrainian state on the territory of Galicia, northern Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia. It assumed power in Galicia on 1 November 1918 and in the Ukrainian part of Bukovyna on 6 November. On 9 November the UNRada announced the establishment of the Western Ukrainian National Republic (ZUNR) and formed a government. The Polish rejection of Ukrainian efforts to take control of eastern Galicia lead to an armed conflict between the Ukrainian Galician Army and the Polish troops. On 22 January 1919 the union of the ZUNR with the UNR was solemnly proclaimed in Kyiv; following this event, the ZUNR officially became the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic... Learn more about the history of ZUNR and the Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918-19, by visiting the following entries:
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WESTERN UKRAINIAN NATIONAL REPUBLIC (ZUNR). A nation-state established on the Ukrainian ethnic territory of former Austria-Hungary on 19 October 1918 by the Ukrainian National Rada in Lviv. The Constitution of 13 November 1918 determined its name and defined the territory of the ZUNR as that which encompassed the Ukrainian regions of the Austrian crown lands of Galicia and Bukovyna and the Transcarpathian Szepes komitat, Sros komitat, Zemplen komitat, Ung komitat, Bereg komitat, Ugocsa komitat, and Maramaros komitat. A Ukrainian government took power on 1 November 1918 in Galicia, on 6 November in Bukovyna, and on 19 November in Transcarpathia. The governments in the last two territories were short-lived. In spite of the Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, the government of the ZUNR held out longest in eastern Galicia... |
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UKRAINIAN-POLISH WAR IN GALICIA, 1918-19. The Ukrainian-Polish War broke out in late 1918 as a result of the Polish rejection of Ukrainian efforts to establish an independent state?the Western Ukrainian National Republic?in the wake of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The major issue of dispute in the conflict was control over eastern Galicia, a predominantly Ukrainian ethnic territory regarded by the Poles as an integral part of the historical Polish realm. As the boundaries of the new Polish state had not yet been established, and the ZUNR had not been granted international diplomatic recognition, the matter was ultimately reduced to a question of control by military force. The outbreak of hostilities can be dated to 1 November, when Poles in Lviv organized resistance to Ukrainian efforts to take control of the city... |
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NOVEMBER UPRISING IN LVIV, 1918. The first stage of armed conflict in the Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918-19. The proclamation of the Ukrainian National Rada on 18 October 1918 concerning the founding of an independent Ukrainian state initiated preparations on the part of Ukrainians for taking power in eastern Galicia. The Rada originally hoped to establish a Ukrainian administration with the support of the Austrian authorities, but when those hopes were only partially fulfilled, it decided to act unilaterally. The seizure of Lviv was planned originally for 3 November 1918. It was to be carried out by the Ukrainian soldiers who constituted the majority of the Austrian troops garrisoned in the city as well as by a brigade of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen garrisoned in Bukovyna. The creation in Cracow of the Polish Liquidation Commission compelled the Ukrainian politicians to move up the date of the operation... |
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UKRAINIAN GALICIAN ARMY (UHA). The regular army of the Western Ukrainian National Republic. It was formed around a nucleus consisting of the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen and other Ukrainian detachments of the Austro-Hungarian army, which recognized the authority of the Ukrainian National Rada and took part in the November Uprising in Lviv, 1918. The UHA was a well-organized and disciplined force. It was established as a regular army of the ZUNR by the law of 13 November 1918 on compulsory military service, which empowered the State Secretariat for Military Affairs to divide the country into military districts, to define an organizational structure for the army, and to call up Ukrainian males between the ages of 18 and 35 for military duty... |
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PETRUSHEVYCH, YEVHEN, b 3 June 1863 in Buzke, Galicia, d 29 August 1940 in Berlin. Lawyer, political leader, and president of the Western Ukrainian National Republic. An executive member of the National Democratic party, he was elected to the Austrian parliament and to the Galician Diet and served as vice-chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation in Vienna (1910-16) and the Ukrainian caucus in the Diet (1910-14). At the end of 1916 he was elected chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation in the Austrian parliament and was recognized as the leading Ukrainian politician of his day. With a number of other Slavic leaders he proposed to transform Austria-Hungary into a federation of national states, including a Ukrainian one composed of eastern Galicia, northern Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries associated with the history of the Western Ukrainian National Republic and the Ukrainian-Polish War of 1918-19 were made possible by the financial support of the MICHAEL KOWALSKY AND DARIA MUCAK-KOWALSKY ENCYCLOPEDIA ENDOWMENT FUND at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Edmonton, AB, Canada).
XV. NATIONAL COMMUNISTS AND THE UKRAINIZATION POLICIES IN THE 1920s
The national-communist policies of Ukrainization grew out of the weakness of early Soviet governments in Ukraine following the Revolution of 1917 and the failed Ukrainian struggle for independence. As early as 1920 Mykola Skrypnyk attributed this weakness to national hostility between the Ukrainian peasantry and the Russified workers, which was reflected in the Ukrainophobic policies of the Soviet authorities. The way to legitimize Soviet rule in Ukrainian eyes lay in the gradual de-Russification of the proletariat in Ukraine and its adoption of Ukrainian culture. The Borotbists, led by Oleksander Shumsky, offered a similar analysis. Despite widespread opposition to Ukrainization within the largely Russian CP(B)U, ex-Borotbists, such as Shumsky, Vasyl Blakytny, Serhii Pylypenko, and Mykhailo Semenko, were given considerable authority over Ukrainian cultural policy. Under Skrypnyk's supervision all postsecondary education was rapidly Ukrainized while the Ukrainian language was promoted among the government bureaucracy and in the military. This process resulted, among others, in the brilliant flourishing of Ukrainian literature (led by such writers as Mykola Khvylovy), culture, and scholarship. The successes of Ukrainization fostered the myth that Ukrainians had achieved a measure of national liberation within the Soviet framework, but the hopes of the national communists were brutally quashed. As part of wide-ranging repressions directed against Ukrainians, in 1932 Stalin ordered the CP(B)U to halt the implementation of Ukrainization and root out 'national deviations' from the Party line. The 1933 Party purge singled out 'national communists' as primary targets. The suicide of Khvylovy in May 1933 and that of Skrypnyk in July 1933 mark the end of openly expressed national-communist ideas in Ukraine... Learn more about national communism and the Ukrainization policies of the 1920s by visiting the following entries:
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NATIONAL COMMUNISM. A current within the Communist movement or Communist parties that attempted to reconcile national interests with Marxist-Leninist doctrine in order to sanction a national road to socialism. National communism emerged as a political phenomenon in Ukraine in 1918 and has had many counterparts elsewhere. The first Bolshevik to state a national-communist position was Vasyl Shakhrai, a leader of the Poltava Bolshevik organization, who argued that the national question had to be solved in tandem with social problems. In 1919, a group of disaffected Bolsheviks led by Yurii Lapchynsky advocated an independent Soviet Ukraine led by a new Ukrainian party that would select its own leadership and control its own military and economic resources. Some Ukrainian leftists, disenchanted with the policies of the Ukrainian socialist parties, also became national communists. The Borotbists favored federation with Soviet Russia but refused any subordination of Soviet Ukraine to Russia and believed Soviet Ukraine should be led by Ukrainians... |
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UKRAINIZATION. A series of policies pursued by the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1923-33 to enhance the national profile of state and Party institutions and legitimize Soviet rule in Ukrainian eyes. These policies included the following measures: making Party and state cadres fluent in Ukrainian and familiar with Ukrainian history and culture; actively recruiting Ukrainians into the Party apparatus; establishing separate Red Army units with Ukrainian as the language of command; financially supporting non-Communist cultural institutions, such as the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; developing a pro-Communist Ukrainian intelligentsia to play the leading role in the 'Ukrainian cultural process'; and vastly expanding education and publishing in Ukrainian to raise the social prestige of Ukrainian culture. Ukrainization evolved from an attempt to make the Soviet regime more palatable to the Ukrainian people into the larger project of de-Russifying the urban environment and establishing Ukrainian as the dominant language throughout society... |
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SHUMSKY, OLEKSANDER, b 2 December 1890 in Zhytomyr county, Volhynia gubernia, d 18 September 1946 en route to Kyiv from Saratov, Russia. Revolutionary and national-communist leader. After the February Revolution of 1917 he became a leading member of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, which he represented in the Central Rada. In May 1918, he became a leader of the left faction of the Borotbists. During the second Soviet occupation of Ukraine the Borotbists entered into an entente with the CP(B)U, and Shumsky was appointed commissar of education in the Soviet Ukrainian government. He introduced policies to combat Russification and foster a Ukrainian cultural rebirth. After participating in negotiations on the Peace Treaty of Riga he served as the first and only Soviet Ukrainian ambassador to Poland. After returning to Ukraine in February 1923, Shumsky replaced Volodymyr Zatonsky as Ukraine's commissar of education and actively implemented social and cultural Ukrainization policies... |
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KHVYLOVY, MYKOLA, b 13 December 1893 in Trostianets, Kharkiv gubernia, d 13 May 1933 in Kharkiv. Prominent Ukrainian writer and publicist of the Ukrainian cultural renaissance of the 1920s. Born Mykola Fitilev, he graduated in 1916 from the Bohodukhiv Gymnasium. In Kharkiv in 1921, with Volodymyr Sosiura and Maik Yohansen, he signed a landmark literary manifesto Our Universal to the Ukrainian Workers and Ukrainian Proletarian Artists. After publishing two poetry collections, he switched to writing prose. Khvylovy experimented boldly in his prose, introducing into the narrative diaries, dialogues with the reader, speculations about the subsequent unfolding of the plot, philosophical musings about the nature of art, and other asides. In his brief period of creativity (less than five years) he masterfully depicted the revolution in Ukraine and the first hints of its degeneration, using a rich gallery of characters, most of them members of the intelligentsia. At the same time Khvylovy played a key role in the life of Ukrainian literary organizations... |
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VOLOBUIEV, MYKHAILO, b 24 January 1900 in Mykolaiv, Kherson gubernia, d 20 June 1972 in Rostov-na-Donu. Ukrainian economist of Russian origin. He worked in the Central Administration for Political Education and as a professor of political economy at the Kharkiv Mechanical and Machine-Building Institute. In 1928 he published a major article, 'Do problemy ukrains'koi ekonomiky' (On the Problem of the Ukrainian Economy). Rejecting the view that the Russian Empire was a unified economic system, he argued that Ukraine should be studied as a separate national-economic entity with its own path of development, and that its separateness should be respected under the Soviet regime. He defended Ukraine's right to control its economic development and its national budget. Volobuiev showed how central control of the economy combined with Russian chauvinism resulted in exploitation of Ukraine. His arguments gained wide support in Ukraine but were attacked vehemently by Party authorities as 'bourgeois nationalist' and anti-Soviet... |
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SKRYPNYK, MYKOLA, b 25 January 1872 in Yasynuvata, Bakhmut county, Katerynoslav gubernia, d 7 July 1933 in Kharkiv. Bolshevik leader and Soviet Ukrainian statesman. After his first arrest in 1901, Skrypnyk abandoned his studies at the Saint Petersburg Technological Institute and became a full-time Marxist revolutionary. During the Bolshevik coup in Petrograd in November 1917, he was a member of the supreme command of the military-revolutionary committee. He returned as a Bolshevik commissar to Ukraine and persuaded the CC CP(B)U to introduce Ukrainization policies and actively advocated the development of a Ukrainian 'proletarian' culture and literature and Ukraine's political and economic autonomy. A dogmatic Leninist, he remained a determined enemy of the opponents of Soviet rule, including the Ukrainian 'nationalists.' At the same time he saw Russian great-power chauvinism and centralism as the chief threats to Ukrainian culture and fought against them... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries featuring the Ukrainian national communism and Ukrainization policies of the 1920s were made possible by the financial support of the MICHAEL KOWALSKY AND DARIA MUCAK-KOWALSKY ENCYCLOPEDIA ENDOWMENT FUND at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Edmonton, AB, Canada).
XVI. THE STALINIST COLLECTIVIZATION CAMPAIGN AND THE FAMINE-GENOCIDE OF 1932-3
After Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin managed to consolidate his control of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) in Moscow. One by one he expelled his allies and potential rivals from the Party and then destroyed them. In the late 1920s he announced the policy of 'socialism in one country,' whereby he abandoned the New Economic Policy and embarked on a program of rapid industrialization and collectivization, which was enforced by means of widespread terror. During the collectivization drive the land of the more prosperous peasants (labelled 'kulaks') was confiscated to create collective farms. At the same time, impossibly high grain delivery quotas were levied on the peasants; this grain was then sold by the government at high prices in order to pay for the implementation the First Five-Year Plan. When the kulaks and other peasants refused or were unable to meet these unrealistic quotas, practically all their grain stocks were confiscated. Special detachments of urban activists searched the homes of collective and independent farmers and seized all the grain they could find to fulfill the delivery quota. Peasants were forbidden to save grain for seed, feed, or even human comsumption; all of it was removed. To minimize peasant opposition, a law introduced the death penalty 'for violating the sanctity of socialist property.' This state of affairs led to the terrible, man-made Famine-Genocide of 1932-3, which resulted in several million deaths from starvation and related diseases in Ukraine... Learn more about the Stalinist collectivization and the Famine-Genocide of 1932-3 by visiting the following entries:
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STALIN, JOSEPH (real name: Yosif Dzhugashvili), b 21 December 1879 in Gori, Georgia, d 5 March 1953 in Moscow. Soviet political leader and absolute dictator of the USSR. In 1922, as people's commissar of state control and then general secretary of CC of the Russian Communist Party, Stalin rejected the concept of a union of independent and equal republics and advocated instead the incorporation of the national republics into the Russian SFSR. Although his idea was rejected, the Russian republic was made the cornerstone of the new union. Stalin relied on the Russian state bureaucracy to convert the Union into a centralized, totalitarian empire. After Lenin's death he created a mass personality cult that glorified first Lenin and then himself as an all-powerful and all-knowing leader. In the late 1920s he abandoned the New Economic Policy and embarked on a program of rapid industrialization and collectivization, which was enforced by means of widespread terror. Millions of Ukrainian peasants were starved to death during the Famine-Genocide of 1932-3, millions of people were imprisoned in concentration camps, and hundreds of thousands were executed by the secret police... |
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COLLECTIVIZATION. In Soviet terminology the transformation of agriculture from private-capitalist to collective-socialist production. The All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) introduced forced collectivization because there was not enough capital to fulfill the First Five-Year Plan of rapid industrialization. Additional capital could be secured only by increasing exports of farm products, and so large quantities of them had to be purchased at low prices. The Soviet government also wanted to deprive the peasants of their own means of production and to draw excess labor resources from the countryside into the cities. At first the government of the Ukrainian SSR resisted the decisions coming from Moscow about an accelerated, forced collectivization, but in November 1930 it agreed to collectivize 70 percent of the land by the spring of 1931. The extent of resistance among the Ukrainian peasants can be seen in the official statistics: during 1931 alone arson was reported on 24.7 percent of the new collective farms, poisoning of cattle on 3.8 percent, destruction of machinery on 9.6 percent, and assault on Party activists on 44 percent. Revolts and uprisings broke out in many villages... |
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COLLECTIVE FARM (Ukrainian: kolhosp; Russian: kolkhoz). In the Ukrainian SSR collective farms were introduced in 1928-33 during the government-enforced collectivization drive. Collectivization was achieved by the abolition of privately owned farms and the intervention of political and police agencies. Apart from the land, which belonged to the state, members of the collective farms owned their principal means of production in common. The main purpose of the collective farms in the Soviet economic system was to provide the state with the maximum cost-free capital for developing heavy industry, arming the military, and maintaining the bureaucracy. Taking into account the demand for agricultural products inside the country and abroad, the government assigned maximal delivery quotas and minimal delivery prices. The government then sold the products delivered by the collective farms at the highest prices, thus reaping a huge profit. The profits of this operation were appropriated by the state treasury through the turnover tax. These profits were to a large extent absolute rents that the state exacted from the collective farms... |
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KULAK (Ukrainian: KURKUL). A Russian term for a peasant who owned a prosperous farm and a substantial allotment of land, which he worked with the help of hired labor. In the Soviet period the term 'kulak' became an ambiguous Party construct but with a fundamentally negative connotation. At times it was applied to all well-to-do peasants; at other times it was used to tar all peasants who opposed Soviet rule. Soviet leaders regarded the prosperous peasant strata as their chief internal enemy. Any rural revolt was attributed to 'kulaks.' At the beginning of the collectivization drive in 1929 the Party decided to 'liquidate the kulak as a class.' The law allowing land leasing and hired labor was abolished and the confiscation of the kulaks' property and their arrests and deportation to Siberia was allowed. Beginning in February 1930, government orders were zealously pursued by special armed dekulakization brigades. Peasants were informed that their property no longer belonged to them and were forbidden to leave their villages without permission. By 10 March 1930, 11,374 peasant families--one-third of all those dekulakized--had been arrested and deported from the 11 regions targeted for rapid collectivization in Ukraine... |
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GRAIN PROCUREMENT. The means by which the state obtains large grain reserves to feed the armed forces, the civil service, and the industrial work force, to use as export, and to be fully able to satisfy the consumption needs of the population. In 1920-1, when the main anti-Bolshevik forces had been defeated, Ukrainian grain deliveries to the Soviet state amounted to 2.6 million t out of a gross harvest of about 8.6 million t. This expropriation, combined with drought and reduced sowings, led to the famine of 1921?2 and millions of deaths in the five southern gubernias of Ukraine. After collectivization began in the late 1920s, extremely high delivery quotas were levied. When the kulaks and other peasants refused or were unable to meet them, practically all their grain stocks were confiscated. After the 'liquidation of the kulaks as a class,' the collective farms and state farms assumed the burden of grain deliveries. Peasant opposition to collectivization caused agricultural production to decline dramatically, yet the state continued to demand delivery of the same and even greater grain quotas. This state of affairs led to the terrible, man-made Famine-Genocide of 1932-3... |
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FAMINE-GENOCIDE OF 1932-3 (Holodomor). The mass murder by Stalin?s Soviet regime of millions of Ukrainian peasants. This tragic event was (1) a planned repression of the peasants of Soviet Ukraine for massively resisting the Stalinist state?s collectivization drive; (2) a deliberate offensive aimed at undermining, terrorizing, and neutralizing the nucleus and bulwark of the Ukrainian nation and recent Ukrainization efforts; and (3) the result of the forced export of grain, other foodstuffs, and livestock in exchange for the imported machinery the USSR required for the implementation of the Stalinist policy of rapid industrialization. In 1932 Ukraine had an average grain harvest of 146.6 million centers (15.5 million centers more than in 1928), and there was no climatic danger of famine. Yet, because of onerous forced grain requisition quotas that the Bolshevik state imposed upon the Ukrainian rural population, the peasants already experienced hunger in the spring of 1932. The grain collections were brutally carried out by 112,000 special Bolshevik agents sent to Ukraine to extract grain by using terror against both collectivized and independent farmers. Consequently mass starvation and disease became rampant, resulting in millions of deaths... |
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The preparation, editing, and display of the IEU entries featuring the Stalinist collectivization campaign and the Famine-Genocide of 1932-3 were made possible by a generous donation from ARKADI MULAK-YATSKIVSKY of Los Angeles, CA, USA.
XVII. THE UKRAINIAN INSURGENT ARMY: THE WORLD WAR II COMBATANTS IN UKRAINE
Although they have not yet been recognized by the Ukrainian state as war veterans who deserve official government pensions, the former soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) can justly be considered the unsung heros of World War II in Ukraine. In its struggle against the German and Soviet occupational regimes, the UPA's ultimate goal was an independent and unified Ukrainian state. At the height of the UPA's power, its units were composed not only of ethnic Ukrainians, but also of Azerbaidzhani, Uzbek, Georgian, and Tatar soldiers, and the UPA organized the Conference of the Oppressed Nations of Eastern Europe and Asia in order to support liberation struggles of other nations. After the Soviet 'Great Blockade' in the Carpathian Mountains in 1946, denied food and shelter, and forced to fight on the march at extremely low temperatures, the UPA (with the exception of the units operating in Ukrainian ethnic territories annexed by Poland after 1944) was forced to demobilize most combat troops. The UPA's underground armed struggle continued until 1954. Learn more about the struggle for Ukrainian independence during World War II by visiting the following entries:
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UKRAINIAN INSURGENT ARMY (Ukrainska povstanska armiia). A Ukrainian military formation which fought from 1942 to 1949, mostly in Western Ukraine, against the German and Soviet occupational regimes. Its immediate purpose was to protect the Ukrainian population from German and Soviet repression and exploitation; its ultimate goal was an independent and unified Ukrainian state... |
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POLISIAN SICH. A Ukrainian insurgent formation, organized in June 1941 by Taras Borovets under the aegis of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic. Its earliest anti-Soviet activities in Sarny county consisted of attacking NKVD jails and Soviet Army mobilization centers and capturing arms and ammunition. In July 1941 the Sich was recognized by the German authorities as a local militia, whose primary mission was to clear Polisia of the remnants of the Soviet Army. With the elimination of the Soviet partisan threat, the Germans forced the Polisian Sich to demobilize (15 November 1941). In March 1942 Borovets reactivated it, this time as an anti-Nazi insurgent force, and renamed it the Ukrainian Insurgent Army... |
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SHUKHEVYCH, ROMAN (noms de guerre: Dzvin, Shchuka, Tur, Taras Chuprynka, R. Lozovsky), b 17 July 1907 in Krakovets, Yavoriv county, Galicia, d 5 March 1950 in Bilohorshcha, near Lviv. Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Home Leadership, chairman of the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR), and its general secretary for Military Affairs... |
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UKRAINIAN SUPREME LIBERATION COUNCIL (Ukrainska holovna vyzvolna rada, or UHVR). A body formed toward the end of the Second World War by members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to provide political leadership for Ukrainian independentist forces. It proclaimed itself the 'supreme organ of the Ukrainian people in its war of revolutionary liberation.' The council's organizers hoped to establish a broader political and social base for armed resistance to both the German and the Bolshevik occupational forces and sought to attract support from outside the OUN, although the OUN would continue to serve as the UHVR's ideological and organizational foundation... |
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