Western Ukrainian People's Republic

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Western Ukrainian People's Republic
1918–1919
Flag of Ukraine Ukraine coat of arms
flag coat of arms
Austria-Hungaria transparency.png navigation Flag of Poland.svg

Flag of the Czech Republic.svg
Flag of Romania.svg

Official language Ukrainian
Capital Lviv (Lviv)
Form of government People's Republic
currency Karbowanez
Existence period 1918-1919
West Ukraine 1918.jpg
Theoretically claimed areas (mostly Ukrainian populated areas of Austria-Hungary )

The West Ukrainian People's Republic ( Ukrainian Західноукраїнська Народна Республіка , Sakhidno-Ukrajinska Narodna Respublika , SUNR) was a state in the area of eastern Transcarpathia, Bukhovina and the northern part of Hungary for a short time from the end of 1918 to May 1919 after the collapse of Austria-Hungary . The capital was Lviv for the first few weeks and Stanislau for the next five months . The area as a whole had a Ukrainian majority, but there was a significant Polish and Jewish minority. Polish-speaking populations were in the majority in Lviv and several other larger cities.

Supporting parties

The West Ukrainian People's Republic was formed under the impression of the October Revolution of the Russian Bolsheviks in 1917, but was under the influence of the Zentralna Rada (Ukrainian for "Central Council"), a bourgeois coalition of Social Revolutionaries , Mensheviks , Social Federalists and others, and was in Opposition to the Bolsheviks.

development

After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy , the West Ukrainian People's Republic, formed from parts of the former crown lands, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria ( Galicia ), Duchy of Bukowina ( Bukowina ) and northern Hungary , was proclaimed in Lviv on November 1, 1918. The proclamation, originally planned for November 3, 1918, was brought forward after Ukrainian activists learned that the Polish Liquidation Commission , established on October 28, intended to move from Krakow to Lviv. But when Polish troops gained the upper hand in Lemberg on November 22, 1918 , the seat of government and parliament was moved via Tarnopol to Stanislau. On January 3, 1919, the first parliamentary session took place in Stanislau.

On January 22, 1919, the parliament decided to unite with the Ukrainian People's Republic ( Ukrajinska Narodna Respublika ) founded on November 20, 1917 . However, this was done with the proviso that the area of ​​the West Ukrainian People's Republic would be given a largely autonomous status, since it differs greatly from the Central and East Ukrainian areas due to its historical development.

In May 1919 Poland was able to gain the upper hand in Stanislau when the Polish population group seized power. In July 1919 Poland also occupied the last parts of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. On November 21, 1919, the High Council of the Paris Peace Conference awarded Eastern Galicia to Poland for 25 years.

On December 7, 1919, Ukrainian Bolsheviks first founded the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kharkov, eastern Ukraine .

In order to be able to fight together with Poland against the Bolsheviks, the Menshevik government of the Ukrainian People's Republic under Symon Petlyura renounced all Ukrainian claims on Eastern Galicia on April 21, 1920. After this agreement, the Galician Ukrainians felt betrayed, switched to the Bolsheviks and the Red Army and joined the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , which shifted the balance of power in the civil war in Ukraine.

On April 25, 1920 the Polish army crossed the Galician eastern border in the Polish-Soviet War and occupied Kiev on May 7, 1920 for six weeks . Eastern Galicia was temporarily occupied by the Red Army. In June 1920, part of the Red Army under Alexander Jegorow besieged Lemberg. In the 1921 Treaty of Riga , the territory of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic fell to Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Manfred Scharinger: National question and Marxist theory . Part 2: The Soviet Experience . In: Working group Marxism (ed.): Marxism . 24, Vienna October 2004, p. 112 ff.
  2. Manfred Scharinger: National question and Marxist theory . Part 2: The Soviet Experience . In: Working group Marxism (ed.): Marxism . 24, Vienna October 2004, p. 176 f.

literature

  • Torsten Wehrhahn: The West Ukrainian People's Republic. On Polish-Ukrainian relations and the problem of the Ukrainian statehood in the years 1918 to 1923 . Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-89998-045-5 . Reading sample. (PDF file, 157 kB) accessed on March 2, 2008.
  • Vasyl Kuchabsky: Western Ukraine in conflict with Poland and Bolshevism, 1918-1923 . Toronto, 2009, ISBN 9781894865128 .

Web links

Commons : West Ukrainian People's Republic  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files