European Kingdoms

Ukrainian People's Republic
AD 1917 - 1920
Incorporating Ukrainian People's Republic (1917-1918), Ukrainian State (1918), & West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918-1919)

Eastern Europe All Modern States Caucuses Tribes Slavic Tribes The Rus / Old Russia

Starting out as a Slavic settlement which was quickly conquered by the Rus of Novgorod, the grand principality of Kyiv (Kiev is an older and now-invalid translation of the Slavic name), became a major Rus power until 1169, when the city was sacked and the seat officially moved northwards to Vladimir. After that Kyiv suffered from short-lived periods of governance until the Mongol advance changed the situation.

Lithuania incorporated Kyiv into its domains around 1321, downgrading this Eastern European principality in 1470 to the voivodeship of Kyiv as Lithuania itself became increasingly dominated by Poland. The Union of Lublin in 1569 was a formal joining together of Poland, Lithuania, and Ruthenia (including the now Polish-Lithuanian voivodeship of Kyiv), plus Livonia, Polotsk, and Samogitia.

The late eighteenth century termination of the Polish-Lithuanian state also brought to an end a thousand years of territorial organisation which had originally been formed around Kyiv as a Rus principality. From now on the concept of a single state (today known as Ukraine) would come to dominate thinking.

The October Revolution of 1917, which replaced post-imperial Russia's unstable republican government, created a communist state. However, the Bolsheviks swept away the old administrative order in favour of regional 'soviets'. The new government, far from stable itself, also badly handled what remained of Soviet Russia's First World War effort, holding out for a beneficial peace agreement with Germany and being forced instead to accept the harsh terms of the Brest-Litovsk treaty.

As a result of that and far too many reforms in too short a period, Russia began losing control over many of its outlying states and provinces, including of course those which had been handed over to Germany under the terms of the treaty, such as Bessarabia, Byelorussia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russian Poland, and the ancient western Ukrainian territories, plus Crimea, the industrial Donetz basin and, on 8 May 1918, the Don.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by Keith Matthews, from Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus, from Viking-Rus Mercenaries in the Byzantine-Arab Wars of the 950s-960s: the Numismatic Evidence, Roman K Kovalev, from The Russian Primary Chronicle (Laurentian Text), Samuel Hazzard Cross & Olgerd P Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Eds and translators, Mediaeval Academy of America), from Encyclopedia Lituanica, Sužiedėlis Simas (Ed, Boston, 1970-1978), from Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Europa Publications (Eds, Taylor & Francis Group, 1999), from The First World War, John Keegan (Vintage Books, 2000), and from External Links: Worldstatesman, and Rurik of Novgorod and the Varangian DNA, and And it was given the name of Kyiv, Oleg Yastrubov, and The Fragmentation & Decline of Kievan Rus, and Encyclopaedia.com, and The Map Archive, and How DO you pronounce Kyiv, anyway? (University of Kansas News Service on YouTube).)

1917 - 1918

The socialist 'Ukrainian People's Republic' lasts between its formation in March 1917 and April 1918. Then the socialist authority which is wielded by this republican government is suspended. The government is overthrown by a pro-German 'Ukrainian State', commanded by Pavlo Skoropadskyi following his election as hetman by a peasant's congress.

A later dominant leader of the directorate of the 'Ukrainian People's Republic', Symon Petliura stands with Ukrainian troops in Kyiv in May 1920, prior to the Ukrainian-Polish 'Kyiv Offensive' which would ultimately fail

He is a descendant of Ivan Skoropadskyi, a hetman of the Cossack Hetmanate, with Pavlo's own 'election' being very much in the same style as those former elections to leadership. However, his position is not a universally-mandated one, but is imposed.

1918

'Hetman of Ukraine'. Descendant of Ivan Skoropadskyi.

1918

On 1 November 1918 the 'West Ukrainian People's Republic' is declared in eastern areas of the former satellite kingdom of Galicia & Lodomeria. Its ruler is the dictator (his official title from July 1919), Yevhen Petrushevych, who sets about attempting to form a Galician Ukrainian state.

In touch with the provisional Czechoslovakian government, a Czech Legion of 40,000 Czech former prisoners of war in Ukraine organises itself to evacuate to France via Vladivostok, where it is hoped it will join the allied forces on the Western Front.

October 1918 was a month of turmoil and rapid change in the collapsing empire of Austria-Hungary, with this photo of Prague capturing a mass rally in support of Czech independence

Although the force initially maintains neutrality between the Bolsheviks (from Kharkiv in the case of Ukraine) and the White Russians (generally - but not universally - allies of Kyiv) in the civil war, attempts by the Bolsheviks to disarm them leads to the Czech Legion taking command of the entire Trans-Siberian railway and cutting off Siberia and the Urals from Soviet control.

This allows White Russian forces to assemble under Admiral Kolchak and to pose a severe threat to Moscow's authority (in the end, the Czech Legion is extracted by a joint American-Japanese bridgehead established at Vladivostok in 1920).

1918 - 1919

Dictator in eastern Galicia. Unified with socialist Ukraine.

1918

Skoropadskyi's rule lasts until later in November 1918 and the First World War armistice in Europe, although in that time he has largely rid Ukraine of communist forces. Then a month-long Ukrainian civil war sees a socialist rebellion replacing his now-unbacked government with the re-established 'Ukrainian People's Republic'.

With the various peoples who made up its ethnically-diverse population pulling apart from it in 1918, Vienna was left with a rump state which greatly reduced its power and significance in post-Austro-Hungarian empire Europe

1919 - 1920

The 'West Ukrainian People's Republic' under its dictator, Yevhen Petrushevych, joins the directorate of the people's republic as part of the terms of a resolution following the unification of the two Ukrainian states on 22 January 1919. The republic of Verkhovyna joins Sub-Carpathian Rus which itself soon gains union with Czechoslovakia.

At the same time, the Russo-Polish War is ignited between Poland and Ukraine on one side and the Soviets on the other over the creation of the 'Second Polish Republic' and the somewhat uncertain borders on its eastern flank.

Polish leader Józef Piłsudski considers this the best opportunity to restore Poland to its former greatness, and he leads his troops into both Vilnius (part of the fairly brief Polish-Lithuanian War) and Kyiv, occupying western Ukraine.

The Ukrainian side of the conflict is also known as the Russo-Ukrainian War (or Soviet-Ukrainian War in attempts to remove 'Russia' from any Soviet-related activities), Kyiv falls to the Bolsheviks in February 1919 while Ukraine is also being pushed in from the west by the Poles. The troops of the former 'West Ukrainian People's Republic' join the republic's own forces in June 1919, having already lost Galicia.

Polish Renault FT-17 tanks during Operation Winter, Poland's joint operation with the republic of Latvia and Ukrainian forces during autumn 1919

Red Guard forces are largely pushed out of Ukraine in the summer and autumn by White Guard forces. Then disease breaks out and frequent Red Guard counter-attacks mean that Kyiv cannot be recaptured and held by the directorate.

Instead it is pushed far back during a counter-offensive. Latvia is drawn into the conflict in September 1919 when it takes part with Poland in Operation Winter, which results in a joint victory at Daugavpils (Dyneburg) in Latvia on 15 January 1920.

1920 - 1921

The short-lived 'Galitzian Socialist Soviet Republic' is declared at Ternopol in eastern Galicia, and the Polish-Lithuanian War is briefly fought over control of Vilnius. With Poland the victor, the equally short-lived 'Republic of Central Lithuania' is formed (later to be transformed into a Polish voivodeship).

Ukraine's directorate forces are pushed entirely out of Ukraine during the spring of 1920 and into extended Polish territory. Now largely united with Poland, both forces again advance. A ceasefire is agreed with the Soviets in October 1920 and Vilnius is regained (to be held until 1939).

Kyiv was all-too-briefly liberated from the Soviet forces in late spring 1920, but a Red Army counter-offensive thrust out the socialist forces and retained a large area of Ukraine under Soviet control

The Peace of Riga is signed on 18 March 1921, which formally divides disputed territory between the Soviets and Poles, with the area which forms modern Belarus effectively split in half.

Galicia remains within the new Poland (modern western Ukraine), and the easternmost parts of Lithuania also remain part of Poland. Western Ukraine is divided between Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, while eastern Ukraine is drawn into the Soviet-controlled 'Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic'.

1922 - 1924

The victorious Bolsheviks form the Soviet Union with the unification of the former empire's various new republics into the Russian socialist republic. Lenin is confirmed as the union's leader, but his death in 1924 leaves a troika (triumvirate) collective leadership in place.

Vladimir Lenin was the figurehead of the October Revolution and also its key instigator and controller, but the revolution plunged Russia into three years of bitter civil war

The central committee's general secretary, Joseph Stalin, quickly suppresses his opposition which is headed by Leon Trotsky, sometimes violently. He assumes leadership of the union, still as general secretary (although he assumes the dual role of Soviet premier from 1941).

The other founder members are the 'Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic', the 'Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic' and, in eastern Ukraine, the 'Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic'.