War for the independence of Ukraine 1914-1922.
In the summer of 1914, Russia sent five armies (3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th) against Austria-Hungary, two (1st and 2nd) against Germany, which also left in the autumn to Austria, leaving the 10th Army on the German front. (6. A defended the Baltic Sea, and 7. A - the Black Sea).
Ukraine fought a great war for independence a hundred years ago. A lost and unknown war, because it is doomed to oblivion - after all, history is written by the winners. However, it was a war of enormous proportions, which was fought with stubbornness and perseverance no less than the efforts of Poland in the struggle for independence and borders.
The beginning of Ukrainian statehood dates back to the 988th century, and a hundred years later, in 1569, Prince Volodymyr the Great was baptized. This state was called Kievan Rus. In XNUMX, Rus' was conquered by the Tatars, but gradually these lands were liberated. Two countries fought for Rus', countries with one official language, one religion, one culture and the same customs as in the former Kievan Rus: the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In XNUMX, the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland was also involved in the affairs of Rus'. A few hundred years after Kievan Rus, three successor states arose: where there was a strong influence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Belarus was founded, where there was a strong influence of Moscow, Russia arose, and where there were influences - not so strong - Ukraine was created from Poland. This name appeared because none of the three countries involved in the Dnieper wanted to give the inhabitants of those lands the right to be called Rusyns.
Proclamation of the Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada, i.e. proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic on November 20, 1917 in Kyiv. In the center you can see the characteristic patriarchal figure of Mikhail Khrushevsky, next to him Simon Petliura.
The solstice took place in 1772. The first partition of the Polish Republic practically excluded Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the political game. The Tatar state in the Crimea lost Turkish protection and was soon annexed to Moscow, and its lands became the territory of Russian colonization. Finally, Lviv and its environs came under the influence of Austria. This stabilized the situation in Ukraine for almost 150 years.
Ukrainianness in the nineteenth century was primarily a linguistic issue, and therefore a geographical one, and only then a political one. It was discussed whether there is another Ukrainian language or if it is a dialect of the Russian language. The area of use of the Ukrainian language thus meant the territory of Ukraine: from the Carpathians in the west to Kursk in the east, from Crimea in the south to Minsk-Lithuanian in the north. The authorities of Moscow and St. Petersburg believed that the inhabitants of Ukraine spoke the "Little Russian" dialect of the Russian language and were part of the "Great and Undivided Russia". In turn, most of the inhabitants of Ukraine considered their language to be separate, and their sympathies were politically very complex. Some Ukrainians wanted to live in "Great and Undivided Russia", some Ukrainians wanted autonomy within the Russian Empire, and some wanted an independent state. The number of supporters of independence increased rapidly at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, which was associated with social and political changes in Russia and Austria-Hungary.
Creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1917.
World War I began in the summer of 1914. The reason was the death of the Austrian and Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He planned a reform of Austria-Hungary that would give the previously oppressed minorities more political rights. He died at the hands of the Serbs, who feared that the improvement of the position of the Serbian minority in Austria would interfere with the creation of a great Serbia. He might as well fall prey to the Russians, who fear that an improvement in the situation of the Ukrainian minority in Austria, especially in Galicia, will prevent the creation of a great Russia.
The main military goal of Russia in 1914 was the unification of all "Russians", including those from Przemysl and Uzhgorod, speaking the Ukrainian language, within the borders of one state: Great and Undivided Russia. The Russian army concentrated most of its forces on the border with Austria and tried to succeed there. His success was partial: he forced the Austro-Hungarian army to give up territory, including Lvov, but failed to destroy it. Moreover, the treatment of the German army as a less important enemy led the Russians to a series of defeats. In May 1915, the Austrians, Hungarians and Germans managed to break through the Gorlice front and force the Russians to retreat. Over the next few years, the eastern front of the Great War stretched from Riga on the Baltic Sea, through Pinsk in the center, to Chernivtsi near the Romanian border. Even the entry of the last kingdom into the war - in 1916 on the side of Russia and the Entente states - did little to change the military situation.
The military situation changed with the change in the political situation. In March 1917, the February Revolution broke out, and in November 1917, the October Revolution (the discrepancies in names are caused by the use of the Julian calendar in Russia, and not - as in Europe - the Gregorian calendar). The February Revolution removed the tsar from power and turned Russia into a republic. The October Revolution destroyed the republic and introduced Bolshevism into Russia.
The Russian Republic, created as a result of the February Revolution, tried to be a civilized, democratic state, observing the legal norms of Western civilization. Power was supposed to pass to the people - who ceased to be a tsarist subject and became a citizen of the republic. Until now, all decisions were made by the king, or rather, his dignitaries, now citizens could decide their fate in the places where they lived. Thus, within the boundaries of the Russian Empire, various kinds of local councils were created, to which certain power was delegated. There was a democratization and humanization of the Russian army: national formations were created, including Ukrainian ones.
On March 17, 1917, nine days after the start of the February Revolution, the Ukrainian Central Rada was established in Kyiv to represent Ukrainians. Its chairman was Mikhail Grushevsky, whose biography perfectly reflects the fate of Ukrainian national thought. He was born in Chelm, in the family of an Orthodox seminary teacher, brought from the depths of the empire to Russify Poland. He studied in Tbilisi and Kyiv, and then went to Lvov, where at the Austrian University, where the teaching was Polish, he lectured in Ukrainian on a subject called "History of Ukraine-Little Russia" (he promoted the use of the name "Ukraine" on the history of Kievan Rus ). After the revolution in Russia in 1905, he became involved in the social and political life of Kyiv. The war found him in Lvov, but "through three borders" he managed to get to Kyiv, only to be sent to Siberia for cooperation with the Austrians. In 1917 he became chairman of the UCR, later removed from power, after 1919 he lived for some time in Czechoslovakia, from where he left for the Soviet Union to spend the last years of his life in prison.
