West Ukrainian People's Republic

The West Ukrainian People's Republic (Ukrainian: Західно-Українська Народна Республика, Zakhidno-Ukrayins’ka Narodna Respublyka) was a short-lived republic that existed in late 1918 and early 1919 in eastern Galicia, that claimed parts of Bukovina and Carpathian Ruthenia and included the cities of Lviv (Polish: Lwów), Przemyśl (Ukrainian: Peremyshl), Kolomyia (Polish: Kołomyja), and Stanislaviv (Polish: Stanisławów). It is often referred to by its Ukrainian-language acronym, ZUNR. The West Ukrainian People's Republic was politically dominated by the Ukrainian National Democrats, a democratic political party that was guided by varying amounts of Greek Catholic, liberal, and socialist ideology^[1] although several other political parties^[2] were also represented.

The coat of arms of the West Ukrainian People's Republic showed a yellow lion against a blue background looking to the left. The colors of the flag were blue and yellow.

History

Background

According to the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, the territory claimed by the West Ukrainian People's Republic had about 5.4 million people. Of these, 3,291,000 (approximately 60%) were Ukrainians, 1,351,000 (approximately 25%) were Poles, 660,000 (approximately 12%) were Jews, and the rest included Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Romani, Armenians and others. The cities and towns of this largely rural region were mostly populated by Poles and Jews, while the Ukrainians dominated the countryside. This would prove problematic for the Ukrainians, because the largest city, Lviv (Polish: Lwów, German: Lemberg), had a majority Polish population and was considered to be one of the most important Polish cities. Conflict between the West Ukrainian People's Republic and Poland was thus inevitable.

Independence and struggle for existence

The West Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed on November 1, 1918, several days before Poland declared its own independence.^[3] The Ukrainian National Rada (a council consisting of all Ukrainian representatives from both houses of the Austrian parliament and from the provincial diets in Galicia and Bukovina) had planned to declare the West Ukrainian People's Republic on November 3, 1918 but moved the date forward to November 1 due to reports that the Polish Liquidation Committee was to transfer from Kraków to Lviv.^[4] Shortly after the republic proclaimed independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire a popular uprising took place in Lviv, where most residents were Polish and did not want to be part of a non-Polish state. A few weeks later Lviv's rebellious Poles received support from Poland. On November 9 Polish forces attempted to seize the Drohobych oil fields by surprise but, outnumbered by the Ukrainians, they were driven back.^[5] Thus a stalemate resulted, in which the Poles retained control over Lviv and a narrow strip of land around a railway linking Lviv to Poland, while the rest of eastern Galicia was under the control of the West Ukrainian National Republic.

An agreement to unite western Ukraine with the rest of Ukraine was made as early as December 1, 1918. The government of the West Ukrainian People's Republic officially united with the Ukrainian People's Republic on January 22, 1919. This was mostly a symbolic act, however. Because western Ukraine experienced different legal, social and political norms than did the rest of Ukraine it was to enjoy autonomy within the united Ukraine.^[6] Furthermore, western Ukrainians retained their own Ukrainian Galician Army and government structure.^[7] And despite the formal union, the Western Ukrainian Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic fought separate wars. The former was preoccupied with a conflict with Poland while the latter struggled with Soviet and Russian forces.^[6]

Relations between the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR) and the Kiev-based Ukrainian People's Republic were somewhat strained. The leadership of the former tended to be more conservative in orientation.^[8] Well-versed in the culture of the Austrian parliamentary system and an orderly approach to government, they looked upon the socialist revolutionary attitude of their Kiev-based peers with some dismay and with the concern that the social unrest in the East should not spread to Galicia.^[9] Likewise, the West Ukrainian troops were more disciplined while those of Kiev's Ukrainian People's Army were more chaotic and prone to committing pogroms,^[10] something actively opposed by the western Ukrainians.^[11] The poor discipline and insubordination by military leaders of Kiev's Ukrainian People's Army shocked representatives from Galicia to Kiev.^[9]

During the Polish-Ukrainian War the army of the West Ukrainian People's Republic was able to hold off Poland for approximately nine months.^[6] By July 1919 Polish forces took over most of the territory claimed by the West Ukrainian People's Republic.

Exile and diplomacy

Part of the defeated army found refuge in Czechoslovakia and became known there under the name Ukrajinská brigáda (in Czech), while most of the army, consisting of about 50,000 soldiers, crossed into the territory of the Ukrainian People's Republic and continued the struggle for Ukrainian independence there.

In July 1919 the West Ukrainian People's Republic established a government-in-exile in the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi.^[12] Relations between the exiled Western Ukrainian government and the Kiev-based government continued to deteriorate, in part because the Western Ukrainians saw the Poles as the main enemy (with the Russians a potential ally) while Symon Petliura in Kiev considered the Poles a potential ally against his Russian enemies. In response to the Kiev government's diplomatic talks with Poland, the Western Ukrainian government sent a delegation to the Soviet 12th Army, but ultimately rejected Soviet conditions for an alliance. In August 1919, Kost Levytsky, head of the Western Ukrainian state secretariat, proposed an alliance with Anton Denikin's White Russians which would involve guaranteed autonomy within a Russian state. Western Ukrainian diplomats in Paris sought contact with Russian counterparts in that city.^[13] The Russian Whites had mixed views of this proposed alliance. On the one hand, they were wary of the Galicians' Russophobia and concerned about the effect of such an alliance on their relationship with Poland. On the other hand, the Russians respected the discipline and training of the Galician soldiers and understood that an agreement with the Western Ukrainians would deprive Kiev's Ukrainian People's Army, at war with the Russian Whites, of its best soldiers.^[8] In November 1919 the Ukrainian Galician Army, without authorization from their government, signed a ceasefire with the White Russians and placed their army under White Russian authority. In talks with Kiev's Directorate government, Western Ukrainian president Petrushevych argued that the Whites would be defeated anyway but that the alliance with them would strengthen relations with the Western powers, who supported the Whites, and would help the Ukrainian military forces for their later struggle against the victorious Soviets. Such arguments were condemned by Petliura. As a result, Petrushevych recognized that the West Ukrainian government could no longer work with Petliura's Directorate and on November 15 the government of the West Ukrainian People's Republic left for exile in Vienna.^[13]

In April 1920 Poland and Kiev's Ukrainian People's Republic agreed in the Treaty of Warsaw to a border on the river Zbruch, officially recognizing Polish control over the disputed territory of Eastern Galicia, which brought great discontent among the Galician Ukrainians who felt betrayed by the Kiev-based Directorate of Symon Petliura. The exiled Western Ukrainian government did not agree to this treaty and continued pressing for its interests during the negotiations following World War I at the Paris Peace Conference. These efforts ultimately resulted in the League of Nations declaring on February 23, 1921 that Galicia lay outside the territory of Poland, that Poland did not have the mandate to establish administrative control in that country, and that Poland was merely the occupying military power of eastern Galicia, whose fate would be determined by the Council of Ambassadors at the League of Nations. After a long series of further negotiations, on March 14, 1923 it was decided that eastern Galicia would be incorporated into Poland "taking into consideration that Poland has recognized that in regard to the eastern part of Galicia ethnographic conditions fully deserve its autonomous status."^[14] The government of the West Ukrainian People's Republic then disbanded, while the Polish government reneged on its promise of autonomy for eastern Galicia.

Government

Elections on Ukrainian-controlled territory were held from November 22 to November 25 for the 150-member Ukrainian National Council that was to serve as the legislative body. Yevhen Petrushevych, the chairman of the Council and a former member of the Austro-Hungarian parliament, automatically became the Republic's president. Under him was the State Secretariat, whose members included Kost Levytsky (president of the secretariat and the Republic's minister of finance), Dmytro Vitovsky (head of the armed forces), Lonhyn Tsehelsky (secretary of internal affairs), and Oleksander Barvinsky (secretary of education and religious affairs), among others.^[15] The country was essentially ruled through a two-party system and was dominated by the Ukrainian National Democrats and its smaller rival, the Ukrainian Radical Party. The ruling National Democrats gave some of their seats to minor parties in order to ensure that the government represented a broad national coalition.^[3]

The West Ukrainian People's Republic governed an area with a population of approximately 4 million people for much of its nine-month existence. Its capital was Lviv from November 1 until the loss of that city to Polish forces on November 21, Ternopil until late December 1918 and then Stanislaviv (now named Ivano-Frankivsk) until May 26, 1919.^[3] Despite the war, the West Ukrainian People's Republic maintained the stability of the pre-war Austrian administration intact, employing Ukrainian and Polish professionals. The boundaries of counties and communities were kept the same as they had been during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The county, regional, and local courts continued to function as they had while the country had been a part of Austria, as did schools, the postal service, telegraphs and railroads.^[3] Austrian laws remained temporarily in force. Likewise, the government generally retained the Austrian system of tax collection, although war losses had impoverished the population and the amount of taxes collected was minimal. Most of the government's revenue came from the export of oil and salt.

Although a small minority in the rural areas, prior to World War I almost 39% of eastern Galician lands had been in the hands of large Polish landowners.^[13] The Western Ukrainian People's Republic passed laws that confiscated vast manorial estates from private landlords and distributed this land to landless peasants. Other than in those limited cases, the right to private property was made fundamental and expropriation of lands was forbidden. This differentiated the policies of the West Ukrainian People's Republic from those of the socialistic Kiev-based Ukrainian government.^[3]

The territory of the West Ukrainian People's Republic was divided into 12 military districts whose commanders were responsible for conscripting soldiers. The government was able to mobilize 100,000 soldiers in the spring of 1919, but due to a lack of military supplies only 40,000 were battle-ready.

In general, the government of the West Ukrainian People's Republic was orderly and well-organized. This contrasted with the chaotic state of the Ukrainian governments that arose on the territory of the former Russian Empire.

Policies towards national minorities and inter-ethnic relations

The Ukrainian nationalism that developed before the First World War in Austria, while anti-Polish, was not very xenophobic and not antisemitic.^[16] and the West Ukrainian People's Republic sought to guarantee the rights of its national minorities. In November 1918 a decision was made to include cabinet-level state secretaries of Polish, Jewish and German affairs.^[6] During the entire time of its existence, there were no cases of mass repressions against national minorities in territories held by the West Ukrainian People's Republic. This differentiated the Ukrainian government from that of Poland.^[3] On February 15, 1919, a law was passed that made Ukrainian the state language. According to this law, however, members of national minorities had the right to communicate with the government in their own languages.

Although relations between Poles and the West Ukrainian People's Republic were antagonistic, those between the Republic and its Jewish citizens was generally neutral or positive. Deep-seated rivalries existed between the Jewish and Polish communities, and antisemitism, particularly supported by the Polish National Democratic Party, became a feature of Polish national ideology. As a result, many Jews came to consider Polish independence as the least desirable option following the first world war. Although Jewish political organizations declared their neutrality in the Polish-Ukrainian struggle, many individual Jews offered their support or sympathized with the West Ukrainian government in its conflict with Poland, particularly after they were recognized as a national minority by the Ukrainian government. Jewish officers of the defunct Austro-Hungarian army joined the West Ukrainian military, and Jewish judges, lawyers, doctors and railroad employees joined the West Ukrainian civil service.^[17] Jews were also able to create their own police units ^[18] and fielded their own battalion in the army of the Western Ukrainian National Republic.^[19] The Council of Ministers of the West Ukrainian National Republic bought Yiddish-language textbooks and visual aids for Jewish schools and provided assistance to Jewish victims of the Polish pogrom in Lviv.^[20] Approximately one-third of the seats in the national parliament, an amount roughly equal to the share of the population, were reserved for the national minorities (Poles, Jews, Slovaks and others). The Poles boycotted the elections, while the Jews, despite declaring their neutrality in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, participated and were represented by approximately 10 percent of the delegates. The government fought antisemitic acts by punishing robbery with execution, and respected Jewish declared neutrality during the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. By the orders of Yevhen Petrushevych it was forbidden to mobilize Jews against their will or to otherwise force them to contribute to the Ukrainian military effort.^[11]

Postage stamps

The republic issued about one hundred types of postage stamps during its brief existence, all but two of which are overprints on existing stamps of Austria or Bosnia.

See also

• Ukrainian Galician Army, or UHA - the military of the West Ukrainian National Republic
• Galician Soviet Socialist Republic, revolutionary government installed by Soviet Russia in 1920

References

• John Bulat, Illustrated Postage Stamp History of Western Ukrainian Republic 1918–1919 (Yonkers, NY: Philatelic Publications, 1973)
• Kubijovic, V. (Ed.), Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia, University of Toronto Press: Toronto, Canada, 1963.
• Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5808-6. 
• Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, University of Toronto Press: Toronto 1996, ISBN 0-8020-0830-5

External links

• Short mention of ZUNR history
• Introduction to Ukrainian Philately
• People's war 1917-1932 by Kyiv city organization "Memorial"