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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.
Iancu Flondor (left) and Ethnic map of Bukovina, as of 1918
(Click on the map
for higher resolution)
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
Karolyi 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.
Hungarian president
Karolyi (left) and Ethnic map of Hungary, as of
1918 not including Croatia-Slavonia
(Click on the map
for higher resolution)
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.
Greg Zhatkovych (left) and Carpatho-Ruthenia,
as of 1918 (Click on the map for higher resolution)
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.
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