Will of the Ukrainian People

The Will of the People

From the preceding one concludes that Ukraine possesses all the necessary elements for the formation of a State. But it is here that one puts the question: Do the Ukrainians desire to create a State? Have they a true national spirit?

In order to answer these questions, it is well to cast a comprehensive glance over their history and, in particular, over all the recent manifestations of popular sentiment.

Ukraine - Before the Nineteenth Century

UKRAINE WAS THROUGHOUT the centuries the scene of conflict between various nations. It was through her lands that the tribes of Asia entered Europe.

Her natural mission was to guard civilized Europe against the continual invasion of these tribes, Tartars, and others.

On the other hand, the peoples of the North and the East coveted the Ukrainian lands, the fertility of which was a mixed blessing for the inhabitants.

In this way, the history of Ukraine was fitful and confused, and the country met insurmountable difficulties in the construction of a State. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian people during the centuries of their history succeeded three times, before the present reconstitution, in forming a State. In the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries there existed the famous Grand Duchy of Kiev, which entertained a diplomatic and economic relationship with Byzantium and with the whole of Europe.

After the fall of Kiev, due to pressure from the nomadic tribes, there was formed in Western Ukraine the State of Galich, of which the celebrated head, Daniel (thirteenth century), received the royal crown from the Pope.

Later on, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which comprised the greater part of Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainians had the largest share in the administration and in the government.

It was after the personal union of this State with Poland (1386), and after the latter had subjugated Ukraine (sixteenth century), that the Ukrainian people revolted. The army of the free Ukrainian Cossacks waged numerous wars against the Poles.

In the middle of the seventeenth century the most illustrious Hetman of the 'Ukraine, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, completely defeated the Poles and founded the Independent Republic of the Cossacks.

After several years of persistent struggle with the Poles and the Tartars, Bogdan Khmelnitsky conceived the idea of contracting a close alliance with Moscovia to save the country, and in 1654 he concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav. Having need of military aid from the Muscovites, he recognized the supremacy of the Tsar of Moscow, and in return, he received guarantees of independence. The Hetman had to be freely elected by the people. He had his army of Cossacks, and, with some reservations concerning Poland and Turkey, he had the right to entertaining diplomatic relations. He also had the same independence in the administration of the country.

But the Tsar of Moscow had no real intention of respecting the Treaty. In the very first year, he commenced to violate it with the intention of subjecting Ukraine. However, more than a century of heroic struggle passed before the Russian Empire triumphed over the tenacity of the Ukrainian people for their country and independence.

One of the best-known and most popular events of this strife is the revolt, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, of Mazeppa, who allied with Charles XII with a view to fighting against Peter the Great.

The victory of the latter was a blow to the Ukrainian liberty, which Catherine II abolished completely.

In 1775 the Russian troops completely surrounded Zaparojie, the celebrated seat of the Cossacks, who were dispersed.

At the same time Galicia, after the partition of Poland, and a little later Bukovina, became part of the Austrian Empire, and up to the second half of the nineteenth century they remained in complete bondage.

The Ukrainian peasants became the serfs of the Russian and Polish gentry and of newly made Ukrainian nobles. Orders were given by the Empress to denationalize and to Russify the Ukrainians.

But the national consciousness never left the people. And this consciousness has been kept alive by the elite even through the most gloomy time of the Tsarist oppression. In 1767 Catherine II had the idea of convening deputies elected from all parts of the Empire, in order that they might present the aspirations of their countries and give their advice in legislative questions. Ukraine, although deprived then of almost all her liberties, also had to send her deputies. And in spite of all the repression made by her Governor, Count Roumiantzev, the Ukrainian patriots were elected and a memorandum was drawn up in which the national demands were formulated.

This memorandum recalled the fact that Ukraine was bound to Russia by her own wish and that she had the right to constitute a separate State in the Empire and to preserve her national freedom.

But the assembly of deputies instituted by Catherine II resulted in nothing; it was soon suppressed by the Empress. And from that time until 1905 Russia possessed no means through which the will of the people could be expressed.

The populace of the whole Empire became plunged into a miserable ignorance. The Ukraine, which had, at the time of her union with Russia, numerous schools, saw these Russified and constantly diminished so that illiteracy increased without cessation.

Ukraine - After the Nineteenth Century

TOWARDS THE END OF the eighteenth century, as we have already said, a new era of literature arose and brought with it the man of genius, Shevchenko. Owing to him and the Ukrainian literature, the national sentiment and the memory of a sad but glorious past were kept alive.

At the commencement of the nineteenth century political groups sprang up which formulated the Ukrainian demands (1820-1825). Some twenty years later the celebrated historian Kostomarov, the poet and political writer Koulich, Shevchenko, and other patriots dreamt of a confederation of all the Slav independent people and founded the secret society of Cyril and Methodius.

Later on, this idea was developed by professor Dragomanov (1841-1895), the greatest theorist and propagandist of the political revival of Ukraine.

And since then and up to the present time national Ukrainian groups have existed in Kiev and in other towns of the country, their object being to develop the Ukrainian literature and science, to further national propaganda among the people, and to develop instruction for the latter.

As to politics, they faithfully kept to the views put forward by the society of Cyril and Methodius, and by Dragomanov. But their activity was thwarted by the continual persecutions of the Russian Tsarist Government.

When this Government had ascertained that the national movement was progressing so well, it promulgated the Ukase of 1876, which prohibited the publication of Ukrainian books and made all patriotic propaganda practically impossible.

The Siberian prisons became well known to patriotic Ukrainians. Shevchenko, the national hero, became a martyr to Tsarism: he was condemned to serve as a private in the army for ten years in Central Asia and was absolutely forbidden to write.

Kostomarov, also condemned for his patriotic ideas, remained for several years far away from his own country. Dragomanov had to pass the greater part of his life in exile. The ardent patriot Volkov, the anthropologist of European reputation, to avoid penal servitude was obliged to escape like a wrong-doer and lived for thirty years in foreign lands. Many Ukrainians had to submit to the same thing. To declare oneself a Ukrainian in most cases meant one had to renounce all positions of importance and compromise one’s career forever.

It required much courage, much zeal and devotion to profess a patriotic faith and to persevere in the great national work.

As to the masses, were they able to show their national spirit?

Once a Russian Reactionary and Centralist said, regarding the Ukrainian claims, that the people asked for none.

Later on, a speaker in the fourth Duma (February 22, 1914) replied to this reactionary:—

“You close the mouth of the people, and then you say they ask for nothing, that they are quiet. ‘They are silent because they are happy,’ as Shevchenko ironically said. No, gentlemen, the Ukrainian people are not happy, and they will not be silent much longer; and, besides, when they are silent it is dangerous to take their silence for a sign of assent.”

And that speaker was not a Ukrainian, nor even a friend of Ukraine. On the contrary, he was one of her most ardent adversaries. It was Miliukoff.

Thus all popular manifestations were impossible. But all the same the people made themselves heard in the end.

Ukraine - The Dumas

THE FIRST RUSSIAN REVOLUTION gave birth to the so-called constitutional régime. The elections for the first and second Dumas were not based on universal suffrage, which was a great disadvantage for the Ukrainian people, who are entirely democratic. Nevertheless, it was sufficient to make the opinion of the people heard. Out of the 120 deputies sent by Ukraine to the first two Dumas more than half were Ukrainians.

Nearly a century and a half after the summoning by Catherine II of the assembly of deputies, of which we have spoken, the Ukrainian deputies repeated what had been said then; they demanded afresh the return of the liberties of Ukraine, which again must become a separate State, enjoying the most extensive political rights (autonomy), while Russia would be constituted in a great federated State.

These same deputies met the deputies of Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia, and White Russia to defend their national rights.

But the first and the second Dumas were, the one after the other, dissolved by the Government of the Tsar.

As to the third and fourth Dumas, the system of election was changed in favor of the wealthy classes. The elections took place under the violent oppression of the police and the Reactionary party. The Russian people, strictly speaking, were not accurately represented. With the exception of some deputies, elected by chance, Ukraine was without representatives in these two Dumas.

Ukraine - Local Self-Government

AT THE TIME OF THE third and fourth Dumas, the Local Self-Government represented but little better the rights and the wishes of the people. These local self-governments were the Zemstvos, founded also on the property franchise. The elections also were carried out under administrative influence, but the Ukrainian Zemstvos found themselves in a too-close relationship with the country to remain absolutely deaf to the needs of the people.

Even before the pretended constitutional regime at the time of the terrible reaction at the end of the nineteenth century, some Zemstvos of Ukraine had had the courage to pronounce themselves in favor of the demands of the people, and notably those concerning the language and the national schools, the prohibition of which was both painful and dangerous for the country.

The Zemstvo of Tchernigov showed a courageous example regarding these national demands. In 1893 and long before that date, and then in 1898, they put forward among their national claims the urgent demand for the introduction of the Ukrainian language in the schools.

At Kherson in 1881, through a congress of schoolmasters, and after that by the Zemstvo itself; in Elisabetgrad in 1895, at Poltava in 1900, and in several other towns, the same demands were formulated.

During the period 1905-1917 these demands became more frequent, and almost all the Zemstvos of Ukraine made the same demands (Tchernigov, Poltava, Loubni, Zolotonosha, etc.).

The National Agitation After 1905: The Congress and the Co-operative Societies

ALTHOUGH THE REVOLUTION of 1905 betrayed the hopes of the Ukrainians it brought with it certain improvements in the administration. It was possible to publish —under a vere censorship, it is true—journals, reviews, and books dealing even with scientific and political questions, which, as we have seen, were formerly forbidden.

Despite the fact, there were many difficulties in the way, and in spite of the risk of confiscation by the police, the books, etc., reached the hands of the people, spreading everywhere the sparks which led to the great national conflagration. In Kiev a scientific society was created, and at the same time, all sorts of Ukrainian circles and societies of Prossvita (national instruction) were opened in all the towns and in many of the villages. The police watched them strictly and closed them, but often they succeeded in reopening. At all events they fulfilled their mission, and the more the police tried to hinder this movement the more it developed. So it was during the war, when persecutions were particularly terrible (suppression of the Press in Kiev, etc.), that the national activity made so much progress.

For a long time all the more or less democratic congresses that assembled in Ukraine pronounced themselves in favor of rational demands. And the Agricultural Committees convened in 1902 and in 1903 were, in spite of all obstacles, in favor of national schools and of the wishes of the country.

It was through the insistence of the Ukrainian delegates that the Agronomical Congress, meeting in Moscow in 1901, carried resolutions to the same purpose. It was the same in the Union of the Small Industries at Poltava in 1902, at the Congress of Technical Workers at Petrograd in 1903, and at several other conferences.

In the years which preceded the Revolution of 1917, the Ukrainian national question occupied, almost to the exclusion of all others, all the congresses and provoked the most impassioned discussions.

At the congress of the schoolmasters of all Russia which was held at Petrograd in 1913 numerous representatives of Ukraine ardently maintained their national demands (the Ukrainian members of this congress were later relieved from their duties).

The Ukrainian cooperative societies also played a very big part during the last ten years. Some millions of men joined in these movements which were directed by the patriots.

In the Congress of Cooperative Societies of the whole of Russia the struggle between the North and the South, between the Ukraine and Russia, occupied all minds. The cooperative movement in Ukraine was largely instrumental in the general awakening of the people in 1917.

1917 and the Central Rada

AT ITS COMMENCEMENT, the revolution in Ukraine presented itself in a most national form. A demonstration of more than 100,000 men, comprising a considerable number of peasants, took place in Kiev on March 19, under the national flag, amid most splendid and moving enthusiasm.

In March and also in April several congresses of cooperative societies and of all political parties gathered together in Kiev. The most important was the National Congress of April 8, in which all patriotic societies, all cooperative societies and professional organizations, and numerous municipalities took part. The delegates of Ukraine met: they were composed, for the greater part, of provincial representatives and more especially of peasant representatives.

This Congress elected about 100 members to the Central Rada, and these latter were the core of the Revolutionary Parliament which governed the whole of Ukraine for a year.

Later on, the Rada was increased through the introduction of the delegates from the Congress of Peasants, the Congress of Soldiers, and the Congress of Workmen.

The Congress of Peasants was convened on May 30 by the Ukrainian as well as the Russian political parties. The system of election was based on social and territorial principles; the national principle was put aside. (With each of the 105 districts of Ukraine having to elect 70 delegates, the Congress of Peasants comprised more than 2,000 delegates.) But when the Congress had its first gathering it showed more national ardor than had been shown even at the National Congress of April 8.

The Congress of Peasants showed forcefully its desire immediately to construct a State either founded on federation or on independence.

The Ukrainian statesmen tried to calm the effervescence of spirits, and it was through the energetic insistence of the Ukrainian Socialists that the Congress agreed to listen to Russian Social Revolutionaries.

The same enthusiasm reigned in the Congress of Soldiers, which included some 2,000 soldiers elected by the groups of Ukrainian soldiers scattered along the front and in all the Russian towns. There were more than two million military electors.

The Central Rada, which in June comprised some 600 Ukrainians, was at this time accorded tremendous popularity throughout the country.

Every day the President of the Rada received numerous deputations and hundreds of telegrams and letters. In all the towns, boroughs, and villages of the country special congresses of every kind gathered together and unanimously demanded the reconstitution of the Ukrainian State in either an independent or federative form. And each of the congresses paid homage to the Central Rada, which was considered by them to be the supreme head of the country.

In June the authority of the Petrograd Government declined, while the strength of the Central Rada increased. It was then that the non-Ukrainians (the Poles, Jews, and Russians living in the country) were permitted to be represented in the Rada by a hundred delegates. The Rada became a true provisional parliament of the country.

Democratic Self-Government

WHEN THE REVOLUTION burst out, the local self-governments of the towns and the country districts, the Town Dumas and the Zemstvos, not being elected on democratic principles, in consequence, did not respond to the tendencies of the hour. They were provisionally strengthened by the revolutionary and liberal forces.

Thus it was that the Zemstvos, which have always played a large part in the country’s affairs, were clearly of a national character, whereas in the municipalities of the towns (the Town Dumas) the Ukrainians remained in a minority, which is explained by the fact that the towns contained a great number of non-Ukrainians.

In the summer the general elections for the local self-government were made on the principle of universal, direct, secret, equal, and proportional suffrage. The result was to strengthen the patriotic representation in the Zemstvos and the Town Dumas. The number of electors who did not take part was very small, and while nine million votes were in favor of the Ukrainian delegates, the non-Ukrainians only obtained two or three million votes, which comprised those of the inhabitants of the Russian and Jewish boroughs and villages.

In the Zemstvos the Ukrainian majority was almost absolute. It was not altogether so in the Town Dumas (municipal councils). In Kiev, where the population is very mixed, the Ukrainians only obtained a quarter of the seats. In the smaller towns, where the Ukrainian population is proportionately higher, the Ukrainians had the relative majority (40 or 45 percent Ukrainians, 30 percent Jews, 15 or 20 percent Russians, and in the western villages a certain percentage of Poles).

The Constituent Assemblies

ONE RECALLS THAT THE Constituent Assembly of former Russia was dissolved by the Bolsheviks who took over the Government in October and has since been unable to reassemble.

But in almost the whole of former Russia, and especially in Ukraine, all deputies were elected on the basis of the universal and proportional system in September and October—that is to say, before the coup d’état of the Bolsheviks at Petrograd. These elections had been a manifest victory for the Ukrainians. Of the 150 deputies that Ukraine had to elect, 115 (being 65 percent) represented the Ukrainian party. The other 35 were of different nationalities, some 20 were Jews, and the others were Russians or Poles.

In the autumn of 1917, the Central Rada decided to convene the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly. The elections were made in December 1917, and in January 1918. Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks had made their first invasion of Ukraine, and in Eastern Ukraine, the elections could not take place. Of the 326 deputies who should have been sent to the Constituent Assembly, about 250 were elected. They comprised:

190 Ukrainians

30 Russians

20 Jews

10 Poles and others

Thus nearly 80 percent were Ukrainians. Of the ten million votes polled eight million were for the Ukrainian party.

In the Government of Kiev, the Ukrainians obtained about 1,300,000 votes, while all the other parties collected only 250,000 votes.

The Ukrainian Constituent Assembly had a no more happy fate than the Russian Assembly, for it was unable even to assemble. These last elections, just as those which took place in Ukraine for the Russian Constituent Assembly and also for the local self-governments, show by their figures the opinions of the people—viz., that they had confidence only in the Ukrainian patriots.

The Austro-Hungarian Ukraine after 1848

IF THE WILL OF THE people in the Ukraine of the former Russian Empire was clearly shown, the will of the Ukrainian population of Austria-Hungary was expressed still more clearly.

We have already said that Galicia had been absorbed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1772. Until 1848 the Ukrainian people, placed under the yoke of this empire, lived in servitude and complete ignorance. But the patriotic ideas of Shevchenko, and later on those of Dragomanov and several other writers of Kiev, awoke the sentiment of the people, dulled through the slavery. On the other hand, the more or less constitutional Government of Austria during the second half of the nineteenth century, and the many years’ struggle with the Poles, had strengthened the Ukrainian national spirit in that country.

Before 1918

BEFORE 1918 THE UKRAINIANS of Austria-Hungary had for a long time (1848) demanded the union of Galicia, Bukovina, and Hungarian Ukraine in one autonomous province. But at the beginning of the constitutional regime, the Poles had succeeded in getting consent from the Emperor for the union of Eastern and Western Galicia, and in this autonomous province, the absolute authority belonged to the Polish feudal landlords. The Ukrainians could obtain nothing, neither a school nor any institution, without running up against the difficulties raised by the Polish Administration. All advantages were given to the Poles by the electoral law before 1907.

During the period of the elections, veritable terror reigned, and Ukrainians were sometimes even killed. But the will of the people always overcame the obstacles that confronted it and always succeeded in electing a certain number of active representatives.

In 1907, as is known, universal suffrage was introduced in Austria. But the Poles, who were the chief opponents of this reform, also obtained great advantages in Galicia. In the Polish districts (Western Galicia) and in the towns of Eastern Galicia, where the Poles and the Jews were in a majority, the electoral districts were organized in such a way that each deputy represented a maximum of 50,000 electors, while in districts where the Ukrainians were in a majority (and these were often absolute) one deputy represented more than 100,000 votes. It must be recorded that the system of proportional representation existed everywhere where it was favorable to the Poles, but it was inoperative in the regions where it was unfavorable to the Poles (the towns of Eastern Galicia).

Thus it is that the Ukrainians of Eastern Galicia, of which the Ukrainian population is more than 70 percent, were only able to elect 28 deputies, while the Poles had the right to 30.

The elections for the Galician Diet were carried out under conditions still more unfavorable for the Ukrainian party.

In Northern Bukovina, the situation was practically the same as in Galicia. In Hungarian Ukraine, it was still worse.

Thus the situation was difficult enough in Austria-Hungary, but in Russia under the yoke of the Tsars, it was unbearable. The existence for a long time of a national school in Galicia and in Bukovina, and the fact of the population being accustomed to taking part in the political struggles, have given to the inhabitants of these districts an education and patriotic determination that the inhabitants of Eastern Ukraine, held under the most rigorous suppression until 1917, have been unable to acquire.

Let us remember this: The great national ideas were born and developed in Kiev, but historic and other circumstances and fortuitous events have produced the greatest progress during the last few years in East Galicia.

After 1918

UNTIL THE LAST HOURS of its existence the Austro-Hungarian Empire, desirous of the sympathy of the Poles, always upheld them to the detriment of the Ukrainians, and the last Minister of Foreign Affairs in this Empire was opposed, in the interest of the Poles, to the division of Galicia into two provinces, as demanded by the Ukrainians.

After the fall of the Habsburg monarchy, the Ukrainian people of Austria instituted a National Council which comprised all the Ukrainian members of the Reichsrat, all those of the Diet of Galicia and Bukovina, to which were added the representatives of the Ukrainian parties, and those of the various districts. These representatives were elected in the congresses of the provinces.

On October 19, 1918, the National Council proclaimed the Republic of Western Ukraine. It expelled the Austrian officials as well as the military authorities. It recognized the rights of the Polish and Jewish minorities.

For a long time, the desire of all the Ukrainians has been to be united in a single State. But the realization of this great national desire was made impossible until 1919 owing to the Austrian and Polish opposition. But on January 4, 1919, the National Council of the Western Republic, in expressing the earnest will of the people, was at last able to proclaim the union of the two Republics.