Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2020
This article discusses the possible ways of conceptualizing the revolutionary and nation-building struggles in the Ukrainian lands between 1917 and 1921. The author argues that these processes, which stemmed from the collapse of two European empires, display features not easily accommodated within the traditional interpretive model of the “Russian Revolution.” In comparison, the Ukrainian concept of “national-liberation struggle” is too reductionist and teleological. The term “Ukrainian Revolution,” which was widely used by the participants of these events, is better suited for an inclusive analysis of this period that emphasizes the significance of the national factor without ignoring the others. Rather than “nationalizing” the story of the Revolution, such an approach highlights the transnational dimensions of the Ukrainian question.
Although he did not read this text, the mentorship and publications of the late Mark von Hagen shaped my thinking about this topic.
1 Dontsov, Dmitro, Rik 1918, Kyiv (Toronto, 1954), 30Google Scholar.
2 Gatagova, L. S., Kosheleva, L. P., and Rogovaia, L. A., eds., TsK RKP(b)-VKP(b) i natsional′nyi vopros, vol. 1 (Moscow, 2005), 79Google Scholar.
3 Ivantsova, O. K., ed., Getman P. P. Skoropadskii: Ukraina na perelome: 1918 god (Moscow, 2014), 105–6Google Scholar.
4 On this, see Böhler, Jochen, Civil War in Central Europe: The Reconstruction of Poland, 1918–1921 (Oxford, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Reshetar, John S. Jr., The Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–1920: A Study in Nationalism (Princeton, 1952), ixGoogle Scholar.
6 See Velychenko, Stephen, Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red: The Ukrainian Marxist Critique of Russian Communist Rule in Ukraine, 1918–1925 (Toronto, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Rubl′ov, O. S. and Reient, O. P., Ukraïns′ki natsional′no-vyzvol′ni zmahannia 1917–1921 rr. (Kyiv, 1999)Google Scholar; Verstiuk, V. F., ed., Narysy istorii Ukraïns′koï revoliutsiï 1917–1921 rokiv, 2 vols. (Kyiv, 2011–12)Google Scholar.
8 Lenin, V. I., “Vybory v Uchreditel′noe sobranie i diktatura proletariata,” Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., 55 vols. (Moscow, 1974), 40: 19Google Scholar.
9 See the best modern treatment of the Ukrainian-Jewish relations during the Revolution: Abramson, Henry, A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917–1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1999)Google Scholar.
10 Antonov-Ovseenko, V. A., Zapiski o Grazhdanskoi voine, 4 vols. (Moscow, 1932), 3: 288–89Google Scholar.
11 For the point that the pogroms were a mass social movement that began in 1914 and involved all the armies operating in the region, see Himka, John-Paul, “The National and the Social in the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–20: The Historiographical Agenda,” Archiv für Socialgeschichte 34 (1994): 104Google Scholar.
12 The most detailed treatment of this two-day episode is in Mashkevich, Stefan, Dva dnia iz istorii Kieva: 30–31 avgusta 1919 g. (Kyiv, 2010)Google Scholar.
13 Eley, Geoff, “Remapping the Nation: War, Revolutionary Upheaval and State Formation in Eastern Europe, 1914–1923,” in Potichnyi, Peter J. and Aster, Howard, eds., Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective (Edmonton, 1988), 207Google Scholar.
14 Verstiuk, V. F., Ukraïns′ka tsentral′na rada: Navchal’nyi posibnyk (Kyiv, 1997), 152Google Scholar.
15 The Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries at first replicated the Russian slogan of socializing the land, but later discovered that the Ukrainian tradition of individual farming made it easier for them to rally the peasants against socialization. See Guthier, Steven L., “The Popular Base of Ukrainian Nationalism in 1917,” Slavic Review 38, no. 1 (March 1979): 32–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Guthier, “Popular Base,” 40.
17 Baker, Mark R., Peasants, Power, and Place: Revolution in the Villages of Kharkiv Province, 1914–1921 (Cambridge, Mass., 2016)Google Scholar.
18 Verstiuk, V. F., “Vil′ne kozatstvo iak vyiav revoliutsiinoï tvorchosti mas,” in Smolii, V. A., ed., Istoriia ukraïns′koho kozatstva: Narysy u dvokh tomakh (Kyiv, 2007), 2: 419–20Google Scholar.
19 Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski, 3: 305.
20 Guthier, “Popular Base,” 40.
21 Graziosi, Andrea, The Great Soviet Peasant War: Bolsheviks and Peasants, 1917–1933 (Cambridge, Mass., 1996)Google Scholar.
22 Schnell, Felix, Räume des Schreckens: Gewalt und Gruppenmilitanz in der Ukraine 1905–1933 (Hamburg, 2012)Google Scholar.
23 Pavlyshyn, Oleh, Ievhen Petrushevych (1863–1940): Iliustrovanyi biohrafichnyi narys (L΄viv, 2013), 163–69Google Scholar.
24 Gilley, Christopher, The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian Emigration: A Contribution to the History of Sovietophilism in the 1920s (Stuttgart, 2009)Google Scholar; Rubl′ov, O. S. and Cherchenko, Iu. A., Stalinshchyna i dolia zakhidnoukraïns′koï intelihentsiï: 20–50-ti roky XX st. (Kyiv, 1994)Google Scholar.