Teaching Module

Die Ukraine im Ersten Weltkrieg – eine Nation kommt auf die Landkarte

Edited by:
,
Karikatur mit dem Titel: „Der Weltfrieden in der Ukraine", 1919
Photo credit:
Cartoon with the title: “World peace in Ukraine”, 1919. Yuri Hasenko / CC0 1.0
News from the Copernico portal
Our newsletter keeps you informed about new content in the portal and the news from the Copernico editorial team.
Subscribe to the newsletter now
Karikatur mit dem Titel: „Der Weltfrieden in der Ukraine", 1919
Photo credit:
Cartoon with the title: “World peace in Ukraine”, 1919. Yuri Hasenko / CC0 1.0

Introduction

Ukraine was one of the central battlefields of the First World War; because the Ukrainian lands were divided between empires, Austro-Hungarian Ukrainians went to war against their compatriots in the Russian Empire. The devastation of Ukrainian landscapes and villages, the collapse of prevailing social orders, deportations, and the mass mobilization of soldiers were only some of the war’s violent consequences. At the same time, the First World War – and precisely the challenges and experiences it brought – accelerated Ukrainian nation-building and gave rise to a series of state-building attempts.
The module presents a diverse selection of sources that span two poles: the first concerns Ukraine as a battlefield, a pawn, and the “breadbasket” of the surrounding empires; the second addresses the Ukrainian search for self-determination. Despite partially shared ideologies, aims, and experiences within the national movement across the various Ukrainian lands, Ukrainians belonged to separate administrative entities that initially stood on opposing sides of the front. For this reason, the source collection includes material on both the western Ukrainian territories of the 
Austria-Hungary
deu. Österreich-Ungarn, deu. Donaumonarchie, deu. Doppelmonarchie, deu. Habsburgerreich, deu. Habsburgisches Reich, deu. Habsburgermonarchie, hun. Osztrák-Magyar Birodalom, eng. Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, eng. Austrian-Hungarian Empire

Austria-Hungary (Hungarian: Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia), also known as Imperial and Royal Hungary Monarchy, was a historical state in Central and Southeastern Europe that existed from 1867 to 1918.

Österreich-Ungarn in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
 and the regions of central, southern, and eastern Ukraine under 
Малоформатный атлас Российской империи (1796). Карта Российской империи (карта 1).
Малоформатный атлас Российской империи (1796). Карта Российской империи (карта 1).
Russian Empire
rus. Российская империя, rus. Rossijskaja imperija, deu. Russisches Zarenreich, rus. Всероссийская империя, rus. Wserossijskaja imperija, deu. Kaiserreich Russland, deu. Russisches Kaiserreich, deu. Russisches Reich, deu. Russländisches Reich, deu. Russländisches Kaiserreich

The Russian Empire (or Empire of Russia) was a state that existed from 1721 to 1917 in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and North America. The country was the largest contiguous empire in modern history in the mid-19th century. It was dissolved after the February Revolution in 1917. The state was regarded as autocratically ruled and was inhabited by about 181 million people.

Russländisches Kaiserreich in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
 rule. Owing to the considerable regional variation in these histories, only a representative sample can be included. For pragmatic reasons of organization, the founding of the 
West Ukrainian People's Republic

The West Ukrainian People's Republic was a short-lived state more or less in the southwestern part of present-day Ukraine. It claimed territories of the disintegrating Habsburg Monarchy with a high proportion of Ukrainian or Rusyn population, such as Galicia, Bukovina, and Transcarpathia. The West Ukrainian People's Republic was founded on November 1, 1918, in Lviv, but by November 22, the government was forced to leave the capital due to the advancing Polish troops. Stanislau served as the seat of government for the longest period. Bukovina was soon occupied by Romanian troops, and Transcarpathia by Czechoslovak troops. On January 22, 1922, the West Ukrainian People's Republic joined the Ukrainian People's Republic.

 and the subsequent Polish-Ukrainian War are addressed in the module “Ukrainians in Interwar Poland.” By contrast, this module incorporates several sources on the history of the 
Ukrainian People's Republic
rus. Украинская Народная Республика, ukr. Українська Народна Республіка, deu. Volksrepublik Ukraine, deu. Ukrainische Volksrepublik, rus. Ukrainskaâ Narodnaâ Respublika, ukr. Ukraїnsʹka Narodna Respublіka

The Ukrainian People's Republic was founded in 1918 and stood in opposition to the Bolshevik USSR. After the conquest by the USSR in 1920, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was established.

 (Ukrajins’ka Narodnja Respublika), its aspirations for independence, and its experience under German occupation.
The turning points of the First World War have recently been reconceptualized in scholarly debates, especially with regard to Eastern Europe, for the conflict can be understood as spanning from the Balkan Wars to the end of the “ A dismissive term used by Winston Churchill for the state-building and liberation wars of Eastern Central Europe. ” (Böhler), that is, from 1912 to 1923. In the case of Ukrainian history, establishing a clear caesura is particularly challenging for both spatial and temporal reasons. On the one hand, the histories of the divided Ukrainian lands were diverse; they were integrated into the developments of their East and East-Central European surroundings in different ways. At the same time, numerous actors attempted to write their own history independently and to establish states of their own, guided by varying political and territorial visions.1 On the other hand, the term “First World War” is closely intertwined in Ukrainian history with the period of the “Ukrainian Revolution.” This period is intended to encompass Ukrainian efforts toward independence since the outbreak of the First World War, though scholars define its scope in very different ways. In the narrow sense, and with reference to Central and Eastern Ukraine, it can be understood as the period from the establishment of the Central Rada in March 1917 to the defeat of the Ukrainian army in the Polish–Soviet War in November 1920. Alternative perspectives propose beginning the period with the outbreak of the First World War or ending it only with the formal cession of Eastern Galicia in 1923.2 A further relevant concept in Ukrainian historiographical discourse – one that can be defined with more precision – is that of the Liberation Struggle (vyzvol’ni zmahannja), which in the narrower sense refers to the attempts at state-building during wartime up to the military defeat of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, that is, from 1917 to 1921.3
At the beginning of the First World War, many Ukrainians in the Habsburg Empire saw themselves as “(Old) Ruthenians” or, within the Russophile project, as “Russians.”4 In the Russian Empire, by contrast, the Little Russian orientation – a form of regional particularism that nevertheless fit into the construction of a triune Russian people – was of paramount importance.5 In rural areas, however, a wide range of identifications predominated that we would today describe as “nationally indifferent”: people identified as “peasants,” “Christians,” “Greek Catholics,” “Orthodox,” or simply as “locals.”6 They may also have seen themselves as members of an ethnic minority that was officially counted as Ruthenian or Ukrainian – for example, the Lemkos (who often called themselves “Rusnaks”/rusnjaky) or the Hutsuls in the 
Carpathians
srp. Karpati, hun. Kárpátok, ron. Carpați, ukr. Karpaty, ces. Karpaty, pol. Karpaty, slk. Karpaty, deu. Karpathen, deu. Karpatenbogen, deu. Karpaten

The Carpathians are european High mountains that enclose the Hungarian lowlands, the so-called Carpathian Arc. It extends to Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Serbia. The main parts of the Carpathian Arc are in Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. Geographically the Carpathians have the same origin as the Alps.

.7 To understand all of these heterogeneous local groups as Ukrainians from the outset is therefore a significant simplification – one that is necessary for the purposes of this overview and can only be sketched in this module. Nevertheless, more in-depth reading on the topic is strongly recommended.  Likewise, people of these various identifications and regional backgrounds all had their own wartime experiences, which deserve to be appreciated in their full complexity, as in Piotr Szlanta’s work on the war experiences of the Lemkos.8 By contrast, the regional or urban history of the First World War in the territories of present-day Ukraine that were formerly part of the Russian Empire has been far less intensively researched than that of 
Galicia
deu. Galizien, yid. גאַליציע‎, yid. Galitsiye, ron. Halici, ron. Galiția, hun. Halics, hun. Gácsország, hun. Kaliz, hun. Galícia, ces. Halič, slk. Halič, rus. Галиция, rus. Galizija, ukr. Галичина, ukr. Halytschyna, pol. Galicja

Galicia is a historical landscape, which today is almost entirely located on the territory of Poland and Ukraine. The part in southeastern Poland is usually referred to as Western Galicia, and the part in western Ukraine as Eastern Galicia. Before 1772, Galicia belonged for centuries to the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic, and subsequently and until 1918 - as part of the crown land "Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria" - to the Habsburg Empire.

Galizien in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
Galizien at Google Maps
, 
Bukovina
deu. Bukowina, ukr. Буковина, ukr. Bukowyna, ron. Bucovina, deu. Buchenland

Bukovina is a historical landscape in modern Romania and Ukraine. The northern part is situated in the Ukrainian Chernivtsi Oblast, while the southern part is part of the Romanian Suceava County. The region once formed a part of the Principality of Moldavia and the Habsburg Monarchy.

Bukowina in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
Bukowina at Google Maps
, or the city of 
L'viv
pol. Lwów, ukr. Lwiw, deu. Lemberg, rus. Lwow, rus. Львов, yid. לעמבערג, ukr. Львів

Lwiw (deutsch Lemberg, ukrainisch Львів, polnisch Lwów) ist eine Stadt in der Westukraine in der gleichnamigen Oblast. Mit knapp 730.000 Einwohner:innen (2015) ist Lwiw eine der größten Städte der Ukraine. Die Stadt gehörte lange zu Polen und Österreich-Ungarn.

Aufgrund des Krieges in der Ukraine ist es möglich, dass diese Informationen nicht mehr dem aktuellen Stand entsprechen.

L'viv in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
L'viv at Google Maps
 in particular. Even so, works such as Olena Betlij’s study of 
Kiïv
ukr. Kyjiw, eng. Kiev, eng. Kyiv, deu. Kiew, ukr. Київ, pol. Kijów, ukr. KiÌv, ukr. Kyïv

Kiev is located on the Dnieper River and has been the capital of Ukraine since 1991. According to the oldest Russian chronicle, the Nestor Chronicle, Kiev was first mentioned in 862. It was the main settlement of Kievan Rus' until 1362, when it fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, becoming part of the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic in 1569. In 1667, after the uprising under Cossack leader Bogdan Chmel'nyc'kyj and the ensuing Polish-Russian War, Kiev became part of Russia. In 1917 Kiev became the capital of the Ukrainian People's Republic, in 1918 of the Ukrainian National Republic, and in 1934 of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Kiev was also called the "Mother of all Russian Cities", "Jerusalem of the East", "Capital of the Golden Domes" and "Heart of Ukraine".
Kiev is heavily contested in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Due to the war in Ukraine, it is possible that this information is no longer up to date.

Kiïv in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
Kiïv at Google Maps
, Kerstin S. Jobst’s research on the 
Crimea
lat. Tauris, rus. Крым, rus. Krym, ukr. Крим, ukr. Krym, deu. Krim

Crimea is a peninsula separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov. It is inhabited by nearly 2.3 million people. The capital is Sevastopol. The island is largely inhabited by Russian-speaking populations. Its status has been disputed under international law since 2014.

Krim in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
Krim at Google Maps
9, Andrij Portnov’s work on the city of 
Dnipro
ukr. Dnipropetrovs′k, rus. Днепропетровск, rus. Dnepropetrovsk, ukr. Дніпропетровськ, ukr. Dnipropetrowsk, rus. Днепр, rus. Днипро, rus. Dnepr, rus. Dnipro, ukr. Дніпро, rus. Jekaterinoslaw, ukr. Dnìpro, rus. Krasnodneprovsk, rus. Красноднепровск, ukr. Краснодніпровськ, rus. Сичеслав, ukr. Січеслав, rus. Новороссийск, ukr. Катеринослав, rus. Екатеринослав, rus. Krasnondeprowsk, rus. Noworossijsk, ukr. Krasnodniprowsk, ukr. Sitscheslaw, ukr. Katerinoslaw, rus. Novorossijsk, rus. Sičeslav, rus. Ekaterinoslav, ukr. Dnìpropetrovs′k, ukr. Krasnodniprovsk, ukr. Krasnodniprovsʹk, ukr. Krasnodnìprovsʹk, ukr. Katerinoslav, ukr. Sičeslav, ukr. Sìčeslav

Dnipro (population 2021: 968,502) is an important industrial city and financial center in the same-named oblast in eastern Ukraine, on the Dnieper River. In 1635, the fortress Kodak was built by Poland not far from today's city. The fortress was razed by the Russians in 1711. In 1776, Yekaterinoslav was founded in its place as the capital of the Novorossiya Governorate which was moved to its present location in 1787 due to flooding. Over the course of its history, the city has belonged to the Russian Empire, the Ukrainian People's Republic, the short-lived Republic of Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih, the Ukrainian SSR and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, today's Ukraine. It has had various names throughout its history: Novorossiysk, Yekatarinoslav and Dnipropetrovsʹk. Due to its armaments industry, in the Soviet Union, it was a “closed city” which could not be visited without permission. Since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine, the city has been massively attacked several times.

Dnipro in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
Dnipro at Google Maps
 (historically: Katerynoslav)10, and Mark Baker’s study of peasants in the Kharkiv region11 are excellent examples of how wartime events can be embedded in their local context. It should be emphasized that research on the First World War in the Ukrainian lands is not only rich in desiderata, but continues to flourish and generate new insights, as seen, for example, in the recently published volume The Great War and the Anthropocene.12
Just three weeks after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914, the Russian Empire launched its offensive against Eastern Galicia, which lasted from 18 August to 21 September. This led to massive movements of refugees from L’viv/L’wów/Lemberg and the surrounding area to the Alpine countries; the Ukrainian intelligentsia moved to 
Wien
eng. Vienna

Vienna is the federal capital and the political, cultural and economic center of Austria. Around 1.9 million people live in the city alone, which is one-fifth of the country's population, and as many as one-third of all Austrians live in the metropolitan area. Historically, Vienna is particularly important as the capital and by far the most important residential city of the former Habsburg monarchy.

Wien in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
Wien at Google Maps
Historische Orte
Austria
  (
eng. Federal State of Austria, eng. Austria, deu. Österreich, deu. Bundesstaat Österreich
)
Austria
  (
eng. Republic of Austria, eng. Austria, deu. Österreich, deu. Republic of German-Austria, deu. Deutschösterreich, deu. Deutsch-Österreich
)
 to organize their political efforts there. At the same time, Eastern Galicia experienced its first phase of a repressive Russian occupation regime, followed by a second phase after the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. With the occupation of parts of Russian Ukraine by the Central Powers, Ukrainian activists, in turn, began envisioning the expansion of their national mission to central Ukraine and, among other things, submitted plans to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister for the independent administration of schools in Volhynia. In contrast, regional and local historiography of the First World War in much of Russian Ukraine only begins in 1917, following the effects of the February and October Revolutions.13 This is not accidental: provinces far from the front lines were not at the center of events in the same way as L’viv, which was occupied twice by the Russian army.14 Nevertheless, there are still gaps to be filled in research in this area. Furthermore, it should be noted that the First World War also triggered massive refugee movements within the Russian Empire itself, affecting areas far from the front lines, as Ljubov Žvanko discusses.15
The First World War also served as a formative period for Ukrainian nationalism, gradually pushing it toward radicalization. This occurred not only among the intelligentsia but also within the military. Ukrainian activists formed volunteer units, conducted intensive propaganda through word, image, and music, and engaged in “national education” in prisoner-of-war camps.
The Ukrajins’ki Sičovi Stril’ci (USS) were a volunteer legion within the Habsburg Monarchy, formed shortly after the outbreak of the First World War and attached to the Imperial-Royal Landwehr. The recruits came from Galicia and were modelled – like the Polish equivalent – on the eponymous rifle association founded in 1913. Later, the Ruthenian/Hutsul volunteer unit from Bukovina was also attached to them. However, these units did not arise from the kind of jingoistic patriotic fervor familiar in Central Europe; they were often rapidly mobilized young men (and occasionally women) whose primary goal was to defend their home regions and avoid being sent to fight elsewhere. With a troop strength of roughly 2,000–5,000 soldiers, their combat power was relatively insignificant in the context of the entire empire. Nonetheless, the USS were important both for public perception and for building national organization. Despite ongoing Russophile tendencies among the Ruthenians of the Habsburg Monarchy, the units helped promote the image of Ukrainians as loyal imperial subjects, a message emphasized at the 1916 war exhibition.16 Furthermore, the Ukrainian political leadership was able to assign key intellectuals and propagandists to the administration of the USS and to its propaganda department.17 They were intended both for political advising and for generating international attention for the Ukrainian project. In return, they were to be exempted from frontline military service. After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, the USS became an important factor in the Ukrainian struggle for statehood. By the end of 1918, they had developed into a seasoned force with considerable organizational and leadership experience, providing the foundation for the Ukrainian Galician Army (Ukraïns’ka Halyc’ka Armija, UHA), which was swiftly recruited and mobilized following the outbreak of the Polish–Ukrainian War.18
The First World War involved not only the mobilization of soldiers but also the mobilization of intellectual “fighters” in the so-called “war of minds.” The Polish historian Maciej Górny used this term to describe the propaganda work carried out by scholars for various national movements. This also encompasses the propaganda directed at Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Russian army, which was organized by the Sojuz Vyzvolennja Ukrajiny (Union for the Liberation of Ukraine; SVU) in POW camps in Austria-Hungary and Germany.19 Media coverage of the war likewise contributed to national mobilization. Art, postcards, and photographs were widely used to create a distinctly Ukrainian narrative of the war. The Imperial-Royal press corps (“Ukrainian Artists’ Group”) participated in these efforts, alongside the SVU, and other activists.20 At the same time, the Central Powers’ units produced large quantities of visual material, capturing their own vision of the “war lands in the East.”21 This module provides visual sources from both the Ukrainian Artists’ Group and Austrian archives, which can be used to explore these perspectives.
After 1917, one can speak of a “revolution in perception” regarding Ukraine, both nationally and internationally, as the country emerged as a defined entity with recognizable borders on European and global mental maps.22 The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk played a key role in this development: not only was a Ukrainian delegation officially present at the negotiations, but the country’s borders were also delineated – albeit often vaguely, yet with lasting consequences.23 Long before these official border settlements, organizations such as the SVU and other mobilized Ukrainian scholars were already promoting maps of the country in various versions, several of which are included as materials in this module. In the international arena, they had to assert themselves against Polish and Russian territorial visions, which were far better known and established. One Ukrainian strategy was to align closely with the Central Powers – both through propaganda among Ukrainians and by producing knowledge about Ukraine that helped the occupiers plan future resource and food requisitions.
 
As selected sources show, the Ukrainian elites viewed the Central Powers as the best guarantors of Ukrainian self-determination. Ukrainian actors therefore sought to stimulate their interest in an independent Ukraine, highlighting the country’s economic and geopolitical potential. Initially, this took the form of a long-familiar demand from the Habsburg Monarchy: the division of Galicia into a Polish west and a Ukrainian east, and the official adoption of the national name “Ukrainian” instead of the antiquated term “Ruthenian.”24 When the Central Powers occupied parts of Russian Ukraine, proposals emerged to attach these territories to a hypothetical Ukrainian crown land. School projects led by Western Ukrainian intellectuals were intended to prepare for this, with initiative coming from the Ukrainian side.
The Ukrainian Central Council (Ukrajins’ka Central’na Rada) was formed in March 1917 as a political representative body and elected the national historian Mychajlo Hruševs’kyj as its chair. With its First Universal in June 1917, the Council declared itself the highest state authority within Ukraine, without, however, fully severing ties with Russia.
The Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) was established in December 1917, initially proclaiming autonomy within the Russian Republic and subsequently declaring full independence. From the outset, however, its existence was precarious due both to the absence of state structures and to numerous military threats. The proclamation of the UNR marked the beginning of a Ukrainian search for agency that was not limited to temporary cooperation with the Central Powers. In pursuit of this goal, the Central Council sought, through progressive legislation on nationalities, to overturn the hierarchical structures of the Tsarist empire, declaring the “Great Russians” – alongside Poles and Jews – now as minorities to be protected.25 Under pressure from the Red Army, the Council looked to the Central Powers for support. Recognition of the young Ukrainian state came first from the Central Powers, through the Ukrainian–Central Powers separate peace (9 February 1918), and shortly afterward from Soviet Russia, via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918). The Central Powers installed the regime of Hetman Pavlo Skoropads’kyj in April 1918, offering a conservative alternative that favored large landowners over the left-leaning UNR. The “Ukrainian State,” or Hetmanate, was dependent on this military support and paid a heavy price in extensive grain deliveries, agreed upon at Brest-Litovsk.26 Following the withdrawal of German forces, the Hetmanate collapsed. Symon Petljura assumed leadership of the new government, the Directorate, in December 1918, and the state was again known as the UNR. Petljura pursued the unification with the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic (Zachidn’o-Ukraïns’ka Narodna Respublika, ZUNR), which then became the Western Region of the UNR (ZOUNR). Petljura’s army fought in the so-called “Russian Civil War” against the Whites, the Red Army, and Polish forces. Ukrainian territories were also of central strategic importance to the combatants of the Russian Civil War. The White general Pjotr Wrangel attempted to establish a separate state in southern Russia and Ukraine, including the Crimea, but his forces were finally defeated by the Bolsheviks and the Red Army in November 1920. Petljura fled the Red Army in early 1920 to Poland, where he allied with Józef Piłsudski and fought alongside Polish forces in the Polish–Soviet War. While Poland, with Ukrainian assistance, successfully defended against the Red Army’s advance and even extended its eastern borders, Petljura’s goal of Ukrainian independence remained unrealized. Following the final military defeat in November 1921, the UNR government went into exile. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, proclaimed by Ukrainian Bolsheviks in January 1919, formally became part of the 
Soviet Union
deu. Union der Sozialistischen Sowjetrepubliken, deu. Sowjetunion, rus. Sovetskiy Soyuz, rus. Советский Союз, . Совет Ушем, . Советонь Соткс, rus. Sovetskij Soûz, . Советий Союз, yid. ראַטן־פֿאַרבאַנד, yid. סאוועטן פארבאנד, yid. sovətn farband, yid. sovʿtn-farband, yid. sovətn-farband, . Советтер Союзу, . Совет Союзы, . Советон Цæдис, . Совет Эвилели

The Soviet Union (SU or USSR) was a state in Eastern Europe, Central and Northern Asia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It emerged from the so-called Soviet Russia, the successor state of the Russian Empire. The Russian Soviet Republic formed the core of the union and at the same time its largest part, with further constituent republics added. Their number varied over time and was related to the occupation of other countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Soviet republics that existed only for a short time (Karelo-Finlandia) or the division or merger of Soviet republics. In addition, there were numerous autonomous republics or other territorial units with an autonomy status that was essentially limited to linguistic autonomy for minorities.

Before its formal dissolution, the USSR consisted of 15 Soviet republics with a population of approximately 290 million people. At around 22.4 million km², it was the largest territorial state in the world at the time. The Soviet Union was a socialist soviet republic with a one-party system and an absence of separation of powers.

Sowjetunion in the Online Encyclopedia of the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (German)
Sowjetunion at Google Maps
 in December 1922.27
Although the period from late 1918 to 1923 can only be touched upon in this module, it includes sources that address the ongoing violence in the territory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. This encompasses both armed confrontations between Ukrainian forces and the Russian-dominated Red Army, as well as military actions and violent acts by regional “warlords” and peasant insurgents.28 These state-building attempts set the stage for the “turn to the right”29 of the previously relatively left-leaning national movement in the interwar period. The rich regional memory culture, which extends beyond the historical turning points discussed, is suggested only through two photographs. With approximately 60 selected sources, the module seeks to reflect this multi-perspectivity while also considering the transnational history of Ukraine, including its German, Russian, Polish, and Jewish entanglements.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to Fabian Baumann, Manfred Kerry, Oleh Petruk, Andrii Portnov, Hannah Steckelberg, Anna Veronika Wendland, Jagoda Wierzejska, Lubow Wolynetz, and Oksana Yurkova for their guidance, advice, and support in accessing sources.
Martin Rohde
Martin Rohde
Go to author biography

Footnotes
1.
In the territory of the Habsburg Monarchy, not only was the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic formed, claiming all Ukrainian-settled lands of the Monarchy, or at least Galicia and Bukovina, but there were also three attempts to establish micro-states: two Lemko states – one in Eastern and one in Western Galicia – and one Hutsul state in the Hungarian part of the Hutsul region. Bogdan Horbal, Działalność polityczna Łemków na Łemkowszczyźnie 1918-1921, Wrocław 1997; Romana Mondryk, Hlavní projevy etnické identity ukrajinských Huculů / Main manifestations of the ethnic identity of the Ukrainian Huculs, in: Kulturní Studia 1 (2017), 39-61. https://kulturnistudia.cz/2017-1/2017-1-mondryk.pdf. For a general discussion of the often problematic historiography of the Rusyn national movement, see Paul Robert Magocsi, With Their Backs to the Mountains. A History of Carpathian Rus’ and Carpatho-Rusyns, Budapest 2022; idem, The Shaping of a National Identity. Subcarpathian Rus’. 1848-1948, Harvard 1978.
2.
Georgiy Kasianov, Die Ukraine zwischen Revolution, Selbstständigkeit und Fremdherrschaft, in: Wolfram Dornik et al. (eds.), Die Ukraine zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Fremdherrschaft 1917–1922, Graz 2011, 131-179, here 131.
3.
Already immediately after the First World War, Ukrainian intellectuals began to place these vyzvol’ni zmahannja in a tradition with Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyj’s attempted state-building and his struggle against Poland, 1648–1657. In addition, the Ukrainian state-building attempts and resistance struggles during the Second World War, as well as the defense of independent Ukraine against Russian aggression since 2014, are also understood as vyzvol’ni zmahannja. For a modern interpretation of Ukrainian history as a history of violence, see Anna Veronika Wendland, Befreiungskrieg. Nationsbildung und Gewalt in der Ukraine, Frankfurt a.M. 2023.
4.
For the political orientations of the Galician Ruthenians/Ukrainians, see Martin Rohde, Nationale Wissenschaft zwischen zwei Imperien. Die Ševčenko-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1892–1918, Göttingen 2022; idem, Ruthenische Intellektuelle und die Frage nationaler Eigenständigkeit in Galizien im Jahr 1848, in: Claudia Reichl-Ham (ed.), „Für unsere und eure Freiheit“ (= Acta Austro-Polonica, vol. XV), Vienna 2024, 262–282; Ostap Sereda, ‘Whom Shall We Be?’ Public Debates over the National Identity of Galician Ruthenians in the 1860s, in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 49, no. 2 (2001), 200–212; Anna Veronika Wendland, Die Russophilen in Galizien. Ukrainische Konservative zwischen Österreich und Russland, 1848–1915, Vienna 2001.
5.
Fabian Baumann, Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism, Ithaca, NY 2023; Faith Hillis, Children of Rus': Right-Bank Ukraine and the Invention of a Russian Nation, Ithaca, NY 2013. For the Little Russian movement 1917–1919, see Gennadii Korolov, In Search of the Lands of Rus’: The Idea of Ukraine in the Imagination of the Little Russian Movement (1917–1919), in: Nationalities Papers 49 (2021), no. 4, 679–690. doi:10.1017/nps.2020.47
6.
Martin Rohde, “National Soul-catching”, State Categories, and Local Responses. Jewish and Ukrainian Challenges of the Census in Eastern Galicia and Eastern Lesser Poland, 1880–1931, in: Petru Negura, Svetlana Suveica, Andrei Cusco (eds.), Nationalism from Below. Popular Responses to Nation-Building in the Soviet and East European Borderlands, 1900–1940, Bloomsbury 2025; Martin Rohde, Ruthenen, Ukrainer oder doch "österreichische Ukrainer"? Begriffsgeschichtliche Anmerkungen zu einer verbreiteten Fußnote der Galizienforschung, in: Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur (mit Geographie) 65 (2021), no. 1, 32–44. For ‘national indifference’, see Tara Zahra, Imagined Noncommunities. National Indifference as a Category of Analysis, Slavic Review 69 (2010), no. 1, 93–119.
7.
Martin Rohde, Wissenstopografien des Grenzraums: Die ruthenisch-ukrainisch bewohnten Ostkarpaten im Visier von „frontier“-Wissenschaften des langen 19. Jahrhunderts, in: Lina Schröder et al. (eds.), Raum- und Grenzkonzeptionen in der Erforschung europäischer Regionen, Dresden 2023, pp. 231–255. Open access via https://slub.qucosa.de/api/qucosa:85039/attachment/ATT-0/.
8.
Piotr Szlanta, The Lemkos‘ Great War: Wartime Experiences of the Lemko People, 1914–18, Acta Poloniae Historica 2016, no. 113, 7–36, https://rcin.org.pl/Content/61384/PDF/WA303_80558_A295-APH-R-113_Szlanta.pdf.
9.
Kerstin S. Jobst, Geschichte der Krim, Berlin/Boston 2020, 243–258.
10.
Andrii Portnov, Dnipro. An Entangled History of a European City, Boston 2022, 123–168.
11.
Mark R. Baker. Peasants, Power, and Place: Revolution in the Villages of Kharkiv Province, 1914-1921. Cambridge, 2016.
12.
Kerstin S. Jobst, Oksana Nagornaia, Kerstin von Lingen (ed.), The Great War and the Anthropocene. Empire and Environment, Soldiers and Civilians on the Eastern Front., Leiden – Boston 2024. Open access via https://brill.com/display/title/70473.
13.
See, for example, Tanja Penter, Odessa 1917. Revolution an der Peripherie, Cologne et al. 2000.
14.
Kerstin S. Jobst, Geschichte der Krim, Berlin/Boston 2020, p. 247; for L’viv in the First World War, see Christoph Mick, Lemberg - Lwów - L'viv, 1914–1947. Violence and Ethnicity in a Contested City, West Lafayette, IN 2015.
15.
Ljubov’ Žvanko, Biženci peršoji svitovoji vijny. Ukrajins’kyj vymir (1914–1918 rr.), Kharkiv 2012.
16.
Ostap Hrytsaj, Ukrainische Legion, Vienna 1917; Offizieller Katalog der Kriegsausstellung Wien, Vienna 1916. https://resolver.obvsg.at/urn:nbn:at:AT-WBR-10570.
17.
Verzeichnis der Enthobenen und zur Dienstleistung bei der Zentralleitung der k.k. ukrainischen Legion zugeteilten Landsturmpflichtigen, National Archives of the Czech Republic, fond 922, box 66, inventory number 855.
18.
Mark von Hagen, War in a European Borderland. Occupations and Occupation Plans in Galicia and Ukraine, 1914–1918, Seattle 2007.
19.
Maciej Górny, Science Embattled. Eastern European Intellectuals and the Great War, Paderborn 2019; Martin Rohde, Nationale Wissenschaft zwischen zwei Imperien. Die Ševčenko-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1892–1918. Göttingen 2022. Open access via https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/book/10.14220/9783737013901.
20.
Oksana Dudko, Rifleman Art. Visualizing the Ukrainian War, in: Lidia Głuchowska, Vojtěch Lahoda (eds.), Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Avant-Garde and Modernism, Prague 2022, 114–145. Likewise, the propaganda activists of the Russian army produced their own documentation during the occupation of Galicia, using it to support their narratives of a backward Galicia. See Alexandra Likhacheva, Galician Landscapes through the Camera Lens: Visualizing Combat Spaces of the First World War, in: Jobst/Nagornaia/von Lingen (eds.), The Great War, 241–262.
21.
Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, Kriegsland im Osten. Eroberung, Kolonisierung und Militärherrschaft im Ersten Weltkrieg, Hamburg 2018 (first published as War Land on the Eastern Front. Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I, Cambridge UP 2000).
22.
Frank Sysyn, Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian Revolution (= Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Offprint Series, no. 4), Cambridge, MA [n.d.; first published 1977], p. 277. For detailed discussion, see Olena Palko, Constantin Ardeleanu, Introduction. Making the Borders of Contemporary Ukraine, in: idem (eds.), Making Ukraine. Negotiating, contesting, and drawing the borders in the twentieth century, McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022, 3–63, here 22–26.
23.
Borislav Chernev, Ukraine’s Borders at the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference, 1917–18, in: Palko/Ardeleanu (eds.), Making Ukraine, 67–85. The borders with Belarus, for example, remained subject to further negotiation and were subsequently adjusted several times. Dorota Michaluk, Emerging States and Border-Making in Times of War. Negotiating the Ukrainian-Belarusian Borders in 1918, in: ibid., 163–188.
24.
Schewtschenko-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Lemberg, Denkschrift über die Notwendigkeit des ausschließlichen Gebrauchs des Nationalnamens »Ukrainer«, 1915, Austrian State Archives, General Administrative Archive, Ministry of the Interior, Präs 17044/1915.
25.
Yuki Murata, Inverting National Hierarchy. Great-Russian Autonomy in Revolutionary Ukraine from a Historical Perspective, in: Časopys doslidžennja vijn ta revoljucij, 2021, no. 1, 85–124, http://resource.history.org.ua/publ/chvr_2021_1_7.
26.
For the German and (often neglected:) Austrian occupation of Ukraine in 1918, see Wolfram Dornik, Die Besatzung der Ukraine 1918. Historischer Kontext – Forschungsstand – wirtschaftliche und soziale Folgen, Graz – Vienna – Klagenfurt 2008; Frank Golczewski, Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914–1939, Paderborn et al. 2010, pp. 240–360; Frank Grelka, Die ukrainische Nationalbewegung unter deutscher Besatzungsherrschaft 1918 und 1941/42, Wiesbaden 2005; Marian Luschnat-Ziegler, Die ukrainische Revolution und die Deutschen 1917–1918, Marburg 2021.
27.
Kasianov, Die Ukraine; Stephan Lehnstaedt, Der vergessene Sieg. Der Polnisch-Sowjetische Krieg 1919–1921 und die Entstehung des modernen Osteuropa, Munich 2019.
28.
Guido Hausmann, Die Kultur der Niederlage. Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Ukraine, in: OSTEUROPA, 64, issues 2–4, 2014, 127–140.
29.
Alexander J. Motyl, The Turn to the Right. The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929, New York 1980.

Citation
Citation recommendation
License
Geographical context
Key words
Historical events
Subject areas
Follow us