Pavlo Skoropadskyi

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Pavlo Skoropadskyj, colored black and white photo

Pavlo Petrowytsch Skoropadskyj ( Ukrainian Павло Петрович Скоропадський , scientific. Transliteration Pavlo Petrovyč Skoropads'kyj * 15. May 1873 in Wiesbaden ; † 26. April 1945 in Metten ) was Imperial Russian General , landlords and Ukrainian politicians . Towards the end of the First World War , as a hetman supported by the German Empire , he was the head of state of the Ukrainian state .

Life

Pavlo Skoropadskyj came from the Poltava noble family of the Skoropadskyj, which also included the hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks Ivan Skoropadskyj . He was born as the son of a colonel of the Guard Cavalry Peter Ivanovich Skoropadskyj (1834-1885) and Maria Andreevna, the daughter of the porcelain manufacturer AM Miklaschewski.

Early career

He attended a grammar school in Starodub from 1886 and graduated from the cadet school of the page corps in Saint Petersburg in 1893 . After two years he was assigned to the regiment of the page corps as adjutant. At the end of the course he was retired on August 7, 1893 as a cornet of the Guards Cavalry Regiment. On December 1, 1896 he was appointed regimental adjutant and on April 17, 1897 he was admitted to the regimental school as a teacher. In December 1897 he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1901 to staff captain. In 1897, Skoropadsky married Alexsandra Petrovna Durnovo, a daughter of Pyotr Pavlovich Durnovo, then Governor General of Moscow.

He then took part in the Russo-Japanese War . After arriving at the new theater of war in Manchuria , on May 1, 1904, he was appointed adjutant to the colonel of the cavalry, Count Keller. From October 1, 1904 to October 11, 1905, he commanded the 5th Chita Cossack Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Corps. In May 1905 he was appointed adjutant to the commander-in-chief of the land and naval forces operating against Japan, General Nikolai Linewitsch . On December 6, 1905, he was promoted to colonel and at the same time appointed wing adjutant to the Tsar. On September 4, 1910 he was appointed commander of the Finnish 20th Dragoon Regiment. On April 15, 1911 he was appointed chief of the Life Guard Cavalry Regiment and in 1912 he was promoted to major general .

In the world war

During the First World War he fought with his cavalry regiment under General von Rennenkampff in East Prussia and was awarded the Order of St. George 4th Class. On October 3, 1914, he took over the leadership of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Guard Cavalry Division. On July 29, 1915 he was appointed commander of the 5th Cavalry Division and promoted to lieutenant general on January 1, 1916 . On April 2, 1916, he was appointed chief of the 1st Guard Cavalry Division and on January 22, 1917, he was appointed commander of the XXXIV. Army Corps appointed. After the failure of the Kerensky offensive in July 1917 and the breakthrough of the Austro-German troops to Tarnopol , his superior General LG Kornilow was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Southwest Front on July 7th and Commander-in-Chief on July 19th. In August 1917, at Kornilov's suggestion, Skoropadskyj began the "Ukrainization" of his corps, the Russian troops were split up among other troops, the rest was newly formed as the 1st Ukrainian Corps. After the October Revolution , Skoropadskyi offered his services to the newly installed Ukrainian Central Na Rada , because the socialist ideas of the Bolsheviks remained too radical and unacceptable for him.

Ascent to the hetman

After the Peace of Brest-Litovsk on February 9, 1918, the Rada appealed to the Central Powers for help against the Red Troops advancing from Russia and northeastern Ukraine. As a result, German troops marched into Ukraine on February 18 and Austro-Hungarian troops on February 28. Since the Central Powers were dissatisfied with the policies of the Central Na Rada, they helped Skoropadskyj to power as a hetman on April 29, 1918. He and his nationalist supporters stood in opposition to the Ukrainian People's Republic , the state declared independent by the Kiev Central Na Rada on January 25, 1918 . Skoropadskyj built a tough regime, supported by the German and Austro-Hungarian troops.

During the time of his reign there was a strong promotion of the Ukrainian cultural and educational system. Several Ukrainian universities were founded on the basis of Skoropadskyj's decrees , such as the one in Kamjanez-Podilskyj in October 1918. Skoropadskyj also tried to establish diplomatic relations with neutral states and neighbors, but remained largely dependent on Germany until the end.

Skoropadskyj visits the German headquarters in Spa in September 1918

At the end of the war, the Austro-Hungarian troops initially marched out, the German troops partly remained in the country until March 1919 (they were supposed to stop the expansion of Soviet Russia in Eastern Europe on behalf of the Entente ). Skoropadskyj could no longer maintain his rule and was replaced by the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic .

exile

After Skoropadskyj initially hid from his political opponents in Kiev, he emigrated to Germany in 1919, where he settled near Potsdam . Taking advantage of his personal relationships with Paul von Hindenburg and Franz von Papen as well as other members of the aristocratic-conservative camp, Skoropadskyj tried to gain support for the overthrow of communist rule in Ukraine. He and his supporters belonged to the Hromada organization . It was in opposition to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). In 1935 an attempt by the OUN to take over the Ukrainian Scientific Institute founded by Skoropadskyj in Berlin failed . While in 1941 the National Socialists interned the leaders of the OUN and other nationalist groups of emigrants from Ukraine in concentration camps after the attack on the Soviet Union , Skoropadskyj and his staff were spared.

At the beginning of the Battle of Berlin , Skoropadskyj fled south from the Red Army and was seriously injured on April 16, 1945 by an Allied bombing raid on Plattling station . He succumbed to his injuries a little later in the hospital of the Metten monastery and was buried in Oberstdorf .

See also

literature

  • Günter Rosenfeld (Ed.): Pavlo Skoropads'kyj. Memories 1917 to 1918. Steiner, Stuttgart 1999 (Sources and Studies on the History of Eastern Europe, Volume 55), ISBN 3-515-07467-8 .
  • Wolfram Dornik, Stefan Karner (eds.): The occupation of the Ukraine 1918. Historical context - state of research - economic and social consequences. Association for the promotion of research into the consequences of conflicts and wars. Graz / Vienna 2008 (= publications of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on the Consequences of War, Graz - Vienna - Klagenfurt, Volume 11), ISBN 978-3-901661-25-9 .
  • Olena Ott-Skoropadsky: Family Stories and Memories. Litopys Verlag, Lviv 2004, 485 p., Numerous illustrations (memories of Pavlo Skoropadsky's youngest daughter).
  • Pavlo Skoropadskyi. Memories 1917 to 1918, Kiev 2016, ISBN 978-617-7279-57-9 .

Web links

Commons : Pavlo Skoropadsky  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Basil Kerski, Andrzej Stanisław Kowalczyk (ed.): A Ukrainian cosmopolitan with a Berlin address. Conversations with Bohdan Osadczuk (Alexander Korab) . Fiber, Osnabrück 2004, ISBN 3-929759-77-2 , p. 68 f.
  2. ↑ Basil Kerski, Andrzej Stanisław Kowalczyk (ed.): A Ukrainian cosmopolitan with a Berlin address. Conversations with Bohdan Osadczuk (Alexander Korab) . Fiber, Osnabrück 2004, ISBN 3-929759-77-2 , p. 76, with the erroneous location “Weimar station” as the location of the air raid on April 16, 1945 . The American army occupied Weimar on April 12th.
personal data
SURNAME Skoropadskyi, Pavlo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Павло Скоропадський (Ukrainian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ukrainian politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1945
Place of death Metten