|
|
From the very beginning of World War I in
August 1914, the western Ukrainian lands, in particular Galicia and Bukovina,
were in the center of military activity along the eastern front. As a result,
Galician and Bukovinian political life was restricted largely to the activity
of its leaders, who spent most of the war years in the imperial Habsburg
capital of Vienna.
When the Austrian parliament was reconvened in May 1917, the Ukrainian
Parliamentary Representation led by Ievhen Petrushevych refused flatly any
future political status that would place the Ukrainians of Galicia in the
same province with the Poles. Hence, the old call for the division of Galicia was
reiterated once again, although now it was the minimal demand of the
Ukrainian leaders. The Austrian response was the same as before
—procrastination. The Habsburg government continued to argue that no internal
structural changes to the empire could be made until the end of the war. In
February 1918, at the negotiations which led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
the Austrian government did promise that a law outlining the division of Galicia would
be drawn up by July of that year. Nothing came of the promise, however.
Still, many Galician Ukrainians continued to hope that their political needs
could be met within the context of the Habsburg Empire.
Austria's
Ukrainians prepare for their postwar future
By the fall
of 1918, however, when it became obvious that the Central Powers had lost the
war, certain Galician and Bukovinian Ukrainians began to prepare for the
inevitable change in the status of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By late 1918,
the international situation had altered radically. The Entente powers had
already adopted as their war aim the so-called Fourteen-Point Peace Program
issued in January 1918 by the United
States president Woodrow Wilson, with its
proclamation that a future peace should be governed by the principle of
national self-determination. One of Wilson's
Fourteen Points proposed independence for a restored Poland.
Another called for autonomy for all the peoples of Austria-Hungary, although many in
the empire understood 'autonomy' to mean national self-determination or
independence. The Ukrainians, like other Habsburg peoples, took the Entente's
proclamations seriously. The first to respond to the new political
environment were Ukrainian officers in the Austro-Hungarian Army, who in
September 1918 organized in L’viv (Lwow) (Lwow) the Central Military
Committee to coordinate plans with the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (then
stationed in Bukovina) for the eventual
seizure of power.
Sich Rifleman /
1918
Reconstruction by O.
Rudenko
Realizing
that the old order was doomed, on 16 October 1918 Emperor Charles (reigned
1916-1918) issued a manifesto proposing that the Austro-Hungarian Empire be
transformed into a federal state and calling upon the nationalities to
organize themselves for that transformation. Once again, Vienna was responding to a pressing
political crisis with a solution that was too little too late. Federalism was
hardly an acceptable proposal for national movements that already had
embarked on separate paths toward independence and were acting as if the
empire already had ceased to exist. The Ukrainians, however, ever hopeful of
a Habsburg solution, responded.
Four days before the October 16 manifesto, Galicia's
best-known Ukrainian leaders — Ievhen Petrushevych, Iuliian Romanchuk, and
Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts'kyi (back home after his release from detention
in a Russian monastery) — had met to make plans to convoke a Ukrainian
constituent assembly. The emperor's manifesto now seemed to confirm the
legality of such an assembly. With the cooperation of other political and
religious leaders from Galicia
and Bukovina, the Ukrainian National Council
(Ukrains'ka Narodna Rada) was constituted in L’viv (Lwow) (Lwow) on 18
October. The new council chose Ievhen Petrushevych as its president and,
invoking the principle of national self-determination, proclaimed the
existence of a state on all Ukrainian lands within Austria-Hungary. Transcarpathia
was also included in the proposed Ukrainian state, even though no
representatives from that region were present at the L’viv (Lwow) (Lwow)
national council. Despite the proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, there was
no mention of secession from Austria-Hungary.
This meant that the Ukrainians left open the possibility of belonging to a
federation within the Habsburg Empire and, therefore, acted within the
'legal' guidelines of the 16 October imperial manifesto.
West
Ukrainian independence and war
The Ukrainian
National Council did, however, claim the right to rule over the territories
it considered its own, and on 1 November it demanded that the viceroy in Galicia (Karl
Huyn) surrender his authority. Faced with pressure by Ukrainian units of the
imperial army, the last Habsburg viceroy turned over his governmental offices
to the Ukrainians. That same day, the National Council proclaimed that the
state, which had first been called into being on 18 October, was henceforth
an independent country. Thus, in November 1918 became the 'second' Ukrainian
independence day. Two weeks later, the new state was given the name West Ukrainian
National Republic (Zakhidn'o-Ukrains'ka Narodna Respublika).
Ievhen Petrushevych (centre) with the members of his cabinet (December, 1918)
Blossoming
out of a dying empire, western Ukrainian independence seems to have been
achieved with ease. But appearances are frequently deceiving. The Poles were
not about to let the Ukrainians take over what they considered their own
national patrimony, Galicia
– both the heavily Ukrainian-populated eastern half and the Polish western
half. Several Polish organizations in L’viv (Lwow) (Lwow) armed themselves,
and on in November, the same day the Austrians surrendered the reins of
government, the Ukrainians found themselves engaged in a war with the local
Poles. Initially, the Ukrainians held L’viv (Lwow) and other cities in
eastern Galicia,
but by 21 November they had been driven from their new capital, and they were
forced to move their government, first to Ternopil' and in early January to
Stanyslaviv.
In the midst
of war with the Poles, the Ukrainian National Council passed a law on 13
November 1918 that formally created an independent West Ukrainian
National Republic.
Its territory was to include the Ukrainian-inhabited lands of Galicia (primarily east of the San River), of
Bukovina, and of Transcarpathia (parts of seven counties in northeastern Hungary). It
was only in eastern Galicia,
however, that the Ukrainians were able, at least for a while, to set up an
administration, because Bukovina had already
been occupied by Romanian troops, on 11 November, and with the exception of
the short-term presence of a few troops Transcarpathia never came under West
Ukrainian control.
Until the
convocation of parliament (Soim), to which elections were planned for June
1919, the supreme authority of the West
Ukrainian National
Republic rested in the
National Council headed by Petrushevych. To administer the lands under its
control, the National Council set up the Provisional State Secretariat on 9
November 1918, which was headed first by Kost' Levyts'kyi and then, beginning
with the new year, by Sydir Holubovych. The proposed parliament, which never
came into existence, was to have 226 members, 66 of whom were to be from
national minorities (33 Poles, 27 Jews, and 6 Germans). Also, as early as io
November 1918 the Galicians made plans to unite with their fellow Ukrainians
in Dnieper Ukraine.
These plans were formalized on 3 January 1919, when the National Council,
meeting by then in Stanyslaviv, passed a law approving the unification of the
West Ukrainian
National Republic
with the Ukrainian National Republic
in Dnieper Ukraine.
The Galicians sent a delegation to Kiev, where, on 22 January 1919 (the
'third' Ukrainian independence day), a great national manifestation before
the Cathedral of St Sophia proclaimed, 'From this day the two parts of a
single Ukraine – the West Ukrainian National Republic (Galicia, Bukovina, and
Hungarian Rus' [Transcarpathia]) – that have been separated from each other
are merging together.' In theory, the West
Ukrainian National
Republic became the Western Province
(Zakhidnia Oblast') of the Ukrainian
National Republic.
In fact, the western Ukrainians led a rather separate political, military,
and diplomatic existence.
By the spring
of 1919, that existence was becoming more and more threatened. In January,
the western Ukrainian armed forces had been reorganized into the Galician
Ukrainian Army (under General Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko), and within a
month this effective fighting force was able to push back the Poles and
surround L’viv (Lwow) (Lwow). Their efforts, however, were soon to be
undermined by the military and diplomatic superiority of their enemy.
   
Galician Ukrainian Army commanders:
From left to right: Mikhaylo Grekiv, Mykhailo
Omelianovych-Pavlenko, Myron Tarnawski, Mykola Yunakiv
Street fighting in
L’viv (Lwow) in February, 1919, as seen by Polish artist Wojcziech Kossak:
Armed Polish high
school students exchange fire with GUA at the old cemetery.
In the world
of international politics, Ukraine
had a serious problem. Both Dnieper Ukraine and eastern Galicia were
relatively unknown in the West. Poland,
in contrast, had strong support among the Entente, which by early 1918 had
made Poland's
independence one of its war aims. As in the old Austrian Galician days, in
crucial moments, the Habsburg government had favored Polish over Ukrainian
interests, so in 1919 the victorious Entente powers allowed Polish interests
to prevail over those of the relatively unknown and therefore unimportant
Galician Ukrainians.
Not that the
Galician Ukrainians were completely unknown. The leading Entente powers,
already meeting at the Paris Peace Conference in early 1919, all had 'eastern
experts.' Some were not only aware of but even sympathetic to Ukrainian
demands. The Ukrainians, for their part, had diplomatic representatives
preparing memoranda in Paris, and immigrants in the United States and Canada
were lobbying their respective governments to recognize the cause of Ukrainian
independence, whether in Galicia or in Dnieper Ukraine. After all, President
Wilson's inspiring principle of self-determination for nations could
certainly be applied to the Ukrainians in eastern Galicia.
Drawing the map of postwar Europe
From left to right: Lloyd George,
Orlando, Clemenceau, and Wilson (Paris,
1919)
But whereas
the Ukrainians were limited to memoranda and proclamations, the Poles had
official representation at the Paris Peace Conference and could make their
case known directly, especially through their popular (in western circles)
spokesperson, the concert pianist and first Polish minister of foreign
affairs, Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Since the beginning of 1919, Paderewski had
been suggesting in a rather demagogic fashion that any ideas of Ukrainian
statehood only reflected the bankrupt political aims of the German and Austrian
enemy, who had hoped to divide and rule the western regions of the former
Russian Empire. Those areas, he argued, should rightfully become the eastern
regions of a restored Polish state. As for the Ukrainians, according to
Paderewski, they were all Bolsheviks, an epithet implying they were a great
danger to the Entente and to European stability in general. Not all the
peacemakers in Paris were taken in by
Paderewski's flowery rhetoric, however, and on several occasions during the
spring of 1919 there were attempts to establish an armistice between
Ukrainian and Polish armed forces, which would have left at least some of
eastern Galicia
in Ukrainian hands. But such intervention was of no avail.
Finally, in
April 1919 the well-trained and well-equipped Polish Army, consisting of
100,000 men under General Jozef Haller, arrived in Poland. Haller's army had
experience fighting alongside the Entente in France, and it was expected to
stave off the threat of a westward advance by Soviet Russia. Stopping the Bolsheviks
was certainly something the Entente would welcome, but instead the Polish
government sent Haller and his forces to Galicia. Despite stiff resistance
on the part of the Ukrainian Galician Army (especially during the Chortkiv
offensive in June), by 16-18 July 1919 the Poles had succeeded in driving the
Ukrainians and their government out of Galicia.
 
Polish president
Paderewski (left) and the Polish cavalry charge (right)
as seen by Polish
artist Wojcziech Kossak
And as for Wilson's principle of
the right of nations to self-determination? It was sacrificed in the face of
what at the time was considered an even greater danger – Bolshevism. That
danger was outlined in a cable, dated 25 June, from the Entente powers in Paris to the government of Poland
in Warsaw:
With a view to protecting the persons and
property of the peaceful population of eastern Galicia
against the dangers to which they are exposed by the Bolshevik bands [sic],
the Supreme Council of the Allied and Associated Powers have decided to
authorize the forces of the Polish
Republic to pursue
their operations as far as the river Zbruch. ... This authorization does not
in any way affect the decisions to be taken later by the Supreme Council for
the settlement and political status of Galicia.'
Despite the
cable's qualifications, Poland
was in effect given an imprimatur from the victorious Entente to occupy all
of Galicia.
The West Ukrainian government-in-exile
In the midst
of the deteriorating military situation, the National Council of the West Ukrainian
National Republic
invested its president, Ievhen Petrushevych, with the title of dictator. This
gave him full authority to determine the political and military policies of
the West Ukrainian National
Republic. After the
defeat at the hands of the Poles, Petrushevych left Galicia, going eastward
across the Zbruch River to nearby Kam"ianets'-Podil's'kyi, where the
Ukrainian National Republic under Petliura's leadership was itself trying
desperately to survive a Bolshevik offensive that was rapidly bringing under
its control most of Dnieper Ukraine.In theory, according to the January 1919
declaration of Ukrainian unity, Petrushevych and his government were a part
of Petliura's Ukrainian National Republic. In Kam"ianets'-Podil's'kyi,
the Galician and Dnieper Ukrainians had a chance to test their proclaimed
unity. Their failure to cooperate could not have been greater. Chapter 38
outlined how, given the situation, Petliura favored an alliance with Poland as a
means of repelling the Bolshevik and White Russian advances from the east.
Fresh from a brutal military defeat, Petrushevych would have nothing to do
with the Poles, and some of his supporters (especially the military) favored
an alliance with one of Petliura's archenemies — the White Russian general,
Denikin.
Besides these tactical differences, there were other reasons why the Galician
Ukrainians were reluctant to cooperate with the Dnieper Ukrainians.
Petrushevych and his entourage felt that Galicia was the most developed
region of Ukraine in terms of national culture and, most important at the
moment, in terms of effective military strength. The old Piedmont theory was
still uppermost in their minds. In other words, Galicia should first be made into
a strong, independent Ukrainian state, and then other Ukrainian lands would follow
its lead. Finally, the Galicians continued to have great faith in the Entente
and in the Paris Peace Conference, from which they expected a confirmation of
their national rights. Little did they realize that the political maneuvering
which had brought some successes in pre-1914 Austria meant nothing in
1918-1919, when only military strength and diplomatic leverage with the
Entente carried any weight. On both counts, the Galicians, and, for that
matter, all Ukrainians, were sorely wanting.
These are some of the reasons for the complete failure of cooperation between
Galicia's West Ukrainian
National Republic
and the Ukrainian
National Republic.
By the end of 1919, both republics were in disarray. Petliura fled to Poland to prepare, with Polish help, for one
last confrontation with the Bolsheviks; Petrushevych fled to Vienna to carry on what proved to be a vain
diplomatic struggle in western and eastern European capitals on behalf of his
Polish-occupied homeland.
Bukouina
and Transcarpathia
Although
since its establishment in late 1918 the West
Ukrainian National
Republic had claimed sovereignty not
only over eastern Galicia
but also over Bukovina and Transcarpathia,
these two territories followed decidedly other paths in the immediate postwar
era. Bukovina's Ukrainian political leadership had worked together closely
with the Galicians in Vienna
during the war years and then participated with them in the Ukrainian
National Council in L’viv (Lwow) (Lwow), which proclaimed independence (1
November) for all Ukrainian lands within the disintegrating Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Parallel with developments in Galicia,
the Ukrainian Committee was set up in Bukovina's
administrative center of Chernivtsi on 25 October 1918, under the
leadership of a Ukrainian deputy to the Austrian imperial parliament, Omelian
Popovvch. The new committee met with a few Romanians led by another
parliamentary deputy, Aurel Onciul, who hoped to keep Bukovina
within a future Austrian federal state. On 4 November, these leaders and
their supporters formed a joint Romanian-Ukrainian provisional government,
which two days later forced the Austrian officials to surrender their
governing authority. They also agreed to divide the province, so that the
northern half might become part of the West Ukrainian
National Republic.
These
developments bore little fruit, however, because the majority of Bukovina's Romanians had other plans. Just two days
after the Ukrainian Committee was formed, on 27 October, Romanian deputies
from the Austrian parliament and Bukovinian diet joined with local political
activists to establish in Chernivtsi their own national council. Led by Iancu
Flondor, the Romanian National Council opposed any division of Bukovina,
expecting that the entire province would soon be 'reunited' with Romania. When
the Romanian-Ukrainian provisional government replaced the Austrians on 6
November, Flondor responded by calling on Romania to send troops. Five days
later, a Romanian force entered Chernivtsi, the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen withdrew
without resistance to Galicia,
and all of Bukovina was annexed to Romania.
In
Transcarpathia, the situation was much more complex. Following the example of
other groups within the disintegrating Habsburg Empire, the Transcarpathian
Rusyns/Ukrainians set up several national councils in late 1918 to discuss
the fate of their homeland. The Hungarians, too, were not idle. On 31 October
politicians led by Count Mihaly Kdrolyl formed a revolutionary government in Budapest, which two weeks later (12 November) was
transformed into the independent republic
of Hungary. The new
republic laid claim to all territories under the former jurisdiction of the Hungarian Kingdom, including Transcarpathia.
Hungary's national
minorities were displeased with this turn of events and made plans to
dissociate themselves from their former rulers. Among the several national
councils that met in Transcarpathia in November and December 1918, three
political orientations evolved. One council (Uzhhorod) favored remaining with
Hungary; the other two
councils looked elsewhere, to joining either the new state of Czechoslovakia (Presov) or an independent Ukraine
(Sighet Marmatiei). In an attempt to head off moves in either of the latter
two directions, the new Hungarian republic passed a law on 21 December 1918
creating an autonomous province called the Ruthenian Land
(Rus'ka Kraina). As an autonomous part of Hungary,
the Ruthenian Land
was endowed in February 1919 with its own governmental minister (Oreszt
Szabo) and local governor (Agoston Stefan), and in March it held elections to
a Ruthenian diet based in the town of Mukachevo.
While
the Hungarian republic was trying to assert its control over Transcarpathia,
two local leaders traveled to Galicia,
where on 3 January 1919 they asked for help from the West Ukrainian
National Republic.
Then, on 21 January more than 1,200 Rusyns/Ukrainians met in the small town
of Khust to proclaim their desire to join a
united Ukraine
(Soborna Ukraina). One part of Transcarpathia, the far-eastern Hutsul region,
even declared an independent Hutsul Republic in early January and accepted aid from the
West Ukrainian National
Republic. The Hutsul Republic managed to survive for the
next six months until its government was driven out by Romanian troops.
Neither the Hungarian nor the Ukrainian
orientation, however, was to prevail in Transcarpathia. An unexpected source
was to make a crucial difference in the political future of the region. This
source was the United
States, in particular immigrants from
Transcarpathia. Known at the time as Uhro-Rusyns (i.e., Rusyns from Hungary),
in July 1918 the group chose a young Pittsburgh lawyer, Gregory Zhatkovych,
to represent them in finding a solution for the fate of their homeland.
Zhatkovych first favored the idea of an independent Rusyn state (Rusinia),
but after meeting with President Woodrow Wilson and the Czech leader Tomas G.
Masaryk (who was in the United States working on behalf of a future
independent Czechoslovakia), the Rusyn-American leader came to favor the Czechoslovak
solution. He arranged a plebiscite among immigrants in the United States,
who in November voted overwhelmingly (68 percent) to join the Czechoslovak
republic.
Armed with
the Rusyn-American decision, the new government in Prague, by then headed by President
Masaryk, dispatched troops in late December 1918 to occupy Transcarpathia. By
January, the Czechoslovak forces had gotten only as far as Uzhhorod (on the
present-day Ukrainian border with Slovakia),
because the rest of the region was being administered by the pro-Hungarian
government of the autonomous Ruthenian
Land. Then, in March,
when Hungary
became a Soviet state (under Bela Kun), the autonomous region was taken over
by a Bolshevik regime. This Communist threat to the Danubian Basin
prompted war between a Hungarian Soviet army on the one hand and Czechoslovak
and Romanian forces on the other. The Hungarian Communists were eventually
defeated, and by the summer of 1919 Czechoslovak and Romanian forces were
occupying all of Transcarpathia. On 8 May 1919, Uzhhorod became the site of
the convocation of the Central Ruthenian National Council, which accepted the
decision of the Rusyn immigrants in the United
States and declared its voluntary union with Czechoslovakia,
although with the understanding that all Rusyn-inhabited territories south of
the Carpathians would be granted political as well as cultural autonomy.
The Ukrainian revolution: success or failure?
By the summer
of 1919, each of the three Ukrainian territories in the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire had found itself in a new country. Eastern Galicia was held by Poland, northern Bukovina by Romania, and Transcarpathia by Czechoslovakia.
Only in the case of Transcarpathia was the new political situation supported
by the local population. None of these territorial arrangements, however, was
internationally recognized as yet. That recognition had to await the
decisions of the Peace Conference in Paris,
where leaders of the victorious Entente had been sitting since early 1919 in
an effort to redraw the map of Europe.
With the de
facto incorporation of western Ukrainian lands into Poland, Romania,
and Czechoslovakia by
mid-1919, and with the establishment of Bolshevik rule in Dnieper Ukraine in
early 192o, the efforts to create a sovereign Ukrainian state uniting all
Ukrainian-inhabited territory that would be independent of the surrounding
powers effectively came to an end. Faced with this result, most non-Marxist
writers have subsequently considered the Ukrainian revolutionary era a
failure. Their reasoning? Ukrainians were unable to achieve the supposedly
ultimate goal of national movements — independent statehood. Accordingly, the
record of those revolutionary years, 1917-1920, has been searched in detail
for what went wrong.
Many reasons are given for the failure of the revolution: (1) political
inexperience that resulted in destructive in-fighting and a lack of firm
leadership; (2) the total breakdown of cooperation between Galician and
Dnieper Ukrainians; (3) submission to foreign powers, especially Germany; (4)
invasions by the White Russians and the Bolsheviks; (5) the refusal of the
Entente to aid the Ukrainian cause; (6) the failure to resolve the land
question and the reluctance of the peasant masses to support their 'own
Ukrainian' governments, and their tendency to join destructive marauding
bands instead; and (7) the opposition of the many minorities on Ukrainian
territory to the idea of Ukrainian independence. Finally, the most important
reason given for the perceived failure is that Ukrainians as a peopie were
not sufficiently conscious of their national identity in 1917-1920 to want to
struggle and sacrifice themselves for Ukrainian statehood.
Looked at in another way, however, the Ukrainian revolutionary era was a
success. One might well wonder why so many Ukrainians did in fact struggle
and sacrifice their lives for the idea of independence. This was particularly
remarkable in east-central, or Dnieper,
Ukraine,
where the Ukrainian movement was virtually non-existent or, at best, limited
to a handful of individuals. Then suddenly, after 1917, energy and sacrifice
on behalf of the national cause burst forth, in the political, social,
cultural, and military spheres. And even if these efforts did not bring about
the hoped-for independence, the revolutionary experience itself instilled in
Ukrainians a firm sense of national purpose — achieved, moreover, not after
several generations of peacetime cultural work, but in less than half a
decade. From such a perspective, the Ukrainian revolution was a remarkable
success.
On the other hand, this period was never viewed as a failure by apologists
for the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
After all, it was the revolutionary era that gave birth to the Soviet
Ukrainian government, which, after three attempts, finally established its
authority over most lands within Ukrainian ethnolinguistic boundaries. In
Soviet Ukrainian terms, therefore, independence was indeed achieved for most
of Dnieper Ukraine
between 1917 and 1920. All that remained was for subsequent generations to
bring that achievement to all Ukrainian lands. The next five chapters will
explore the impact of Soviet and non-Soviet rule on Ukrainian territories,
where the differing heritages and goals of the revolutionary era would be kept
alive.
|
|
