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Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was
the peace treaty between the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) and the
Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
Turkey, and Bulgaria, signed on 9 February 1918 in Brest, Belarus.
When the Russian Bolshevik government began to negotiate an armistice on the
eastern front, the government of the Ukrainian Central Rada also began
negotiations, because the Austro-German and Romanian fronts ran through
Ukrainian territory.
The Central Rada expressed its desire for
peace with the four Central Powers in the resolutions of 22, 24, and 26
December 1917, and on 28 December an armistice suspending hostilities at the
front was signed. The Bolshevik delegation led by Leon Trotsky began peace
negotiations at Brest-Litovsk on 3 December 1917. On 1 January 1918 the
Ukrainian delegation, headed by Vsevolod Holubovych and including Mykhailo
Poloz, Oleksander Sevriuk, Mykola H. Levytsky, and Mykola Liubynsky, arrived
at Brest-Litovsk. On 12 January 1918 Count Ottokar Czernin, representing the
Central Powers, recognized the independent delegation of the UNR. Counts
Czernin and Csáky, representing Austria-Hungary,
refused to include the question of Galicia, Bukovyna, and
Transcarpathia in the general peace treaty, claiming these territories were
an internal issue of the Habsburg monarchy. But they conceded that the Kholm
region and Podlachia should be part of the Ukrainian National
Republic. After 20
January 1918 the Ukrainian delegation returned to Kyiv.
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The full independence of the Ukrainian
National Republic
was proclaimed in the Fourth of the Universals of the Central
Rada which was dated 22 January. The Ukrainian delegation, now
headed by Oleksander Sevriuk and including Mykola Liubynsky and Mykola H.
Levytsky, returned to Brest-Litovsk. On 1 February 1918 the plenary session
was attended by Yukhym Medvediev and Vasyl Shakhrai, representing the ‘Soviet
Ukrainian government’ in Kharkiv. On behalf of the Central Powers, Ottokar
Czernin recognized the independence and sovereignty of the UNR. On 9 February
1918, over Bolshevik protests, the treaty between the UNR and the Central
Powers was signed. Those signing the treaty included Sevriuk, Liubynsky, and
Levytsky for the UNR; Gen Max Hoffmann, the representative of the German high
command, and R. von Kühlman for Germany; Count Czernin for Austria-Hungary;
V. Radoslavov, A. Toshev, I. Stoianovich, T. Anastasov, and Col P. Ganchev
for Bulgaria; and Talaat Pasha, I. Hakki Pasha, A. Nessimi Bey, and A. Izzet
Pasha for Turkey.
The Central Powers recognized the following as the UNR's boundaries: in the
west the 1914 Austro-Hungarian–Russian boundary; in the north the line
running from Tarnohorod through Biłgoraj, Szczebrzeszyn, Krasnostav,
Puhachivka, Radzyń Podlaski, Międzyrzecz Podlaski, Melnyk,
Kamianets Lytovskyi, Pruzhany, and Vyhonivske
Lake. The exact
boundaries were to be determined by a mixed commission on the basis of ethnic
composition and the will of the inhabitants (art 2). Articles in the treaty
provided for the regulated evacuation of the occupied regions (art 3), the
establishment of diplomatic relations (art 4), the return of prisoners of war
(art 6), and the exchange of interned civilians and the renewal of public and
private legal relations (art 8). Both sides renounced mutual war reparations
(art 5). Article 7 provided for the immediate resumption of economic
relations and trade and set down the principles of accounting and tariffs.
Austria-Hungary and the Ukrainian National
Republic also signed a secret agreement
regarding Galicia
and Bukovyna. Austria
agreed to unify by 31 July 1918 in one crownland those areas of eastern Galicia and
Bukovyna where the Ukrainian population predominated. But on 4 July 1918 Austria annulled this secret agreement under
the pretext that Ukraine
had not delivered to it the amount of grain promised under the treaty. This
action was really the result of Polish pressure.
The Central Powers signed a separate peace treaty with Bolshevik Russia at
Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918. Russia
agreed to recognize the concluded treaty with the UNR, to sign a peace treaty
with Ukraine immediately,
and to define the border between Russia
and Ukraine
(art 6).
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk provided Ukraine
with German military aid in clearing Bolshevik forces from Ukraine in
February–April 1918. However, the Allied Powers received news of the treaty
with indignation and suspended relations with the UNR. The Treaty of Rapallo
of 1922 between Germany
and Soviet Russia canceled the German commitments made at Brest-Litovsk. The
disintegration of Austria-Hungary
automatically annulled Austria's
commitments. Turkey
renounced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by signing a treaty with the Ukrainian
SSR in 1922. Only Bulgaria,
so far as is known, never formally annulled the treaty.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Der Friedensvertrag mit der Ukraine
(Berlin 1918)
Kreppel, J. Der Friede im Osten (Vienna 1918)
Magnes, J. Russia and Germany
at Brest-Litovsk: A Documentary History of the Peace Negotiations (New York 1919)
Mirnye peregovory v Brest-Litovske (Moscow
1920)
Kedryn, I. (ed). Beresteis’kyi myr: Spomyny
ta materiialy (Lviv 1928)
Wheeler-Bennett, J. Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace (London 1938; repr
1966)
Borschak, E. La paix ukrainienne de Brest-Litovsk (Paris 1929)
Chubar'ian, A. Brestskii mir (Moscow 1964)
Fedyshyn, O. Germany's Drive to the East and the Ukrainian Revolution
1917–1918 (New Brunswick, NJ 1971)
Magocsi, P. Texts of the Ukrainian ‘Peace’ with Maps (Cleveland 1981)
Nikol’nikov, G. Brestskii mir i Ukraina (Kyiv 1981)
Horak, S. The First Treaty of World War I: Ukraine's
Treaty with the Central Powers of February 9, 1918 (New York 1988)
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