This article revisit Ukrainian political history in 1918, a year of turmoil, when three different states arose one after another in Kiev: the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Ukrainian State, and the Directorate. In previous studies, this year is considered as an integral part of the history of the Ukrainian national movement, which struggled to defend the independence achieved by the fourth Universal (declaration) in January 1918 against foreign intervention. According to this national historical narrative, this effort ended in defeat when Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union. In contrast to those studies, the present article claims that the future political status of Ukraine was not yet decided in 1918; not only an independent state, but an autonomous part of the Russian (con-)federation remained one of the political aims of the Ukrainian activists even after the fourth Universal, and that the development of the idea of the future state system of Ukraine considerably depended on the interests of foreign actors. Lacking sufficient military strength, all the Ukrainian states that formed in 1918 needed outside assistance for their own survival. This paper examines the close interrelationship between the choice of the future political status of Ukraine (independence or federation) and the ongoing foreign policy.

After the October Revolution in Petrograd, both belligerent powers in World War I came into contact with various local governments in the former Russian imperial territory, aiming to take advantage of them for their own war efforts. The Entente desired the restoration of the strong Russian state as an ally, demanding incorporation of Ukrainian territory into the future federative Russia. The Central Powers, on the other hand, planned to construct a chain of buffer states between Germany and Russia for the security of German and Austrian eastern borders. This geopolitical consideration led to support for an independent Ukrainian state, as one such buffer state.

At first, the leaders of the Ukrainian People’s Republic advocated the formation of the democratic federative Russia. Offered more generous support by Germany, however, they declared independence and signed a treaty with the Central Powers in Brest-Litovsk. This pro-German policy was inherited by the Ukrainian State, which replaced the People’s Republic in April 1918. In November, on the final defeat of the Central Powers, however, the Ukrainian State issued a statement that Ukraine should become an autonomous part of the restored federative Russia. The Directorate, the successor of the Ukrainian State, also adopted the pro-federation policy to gain support from the Allies, the winners of the Great War. Thus, the change of perspective on the state system accompanied the change of foreign policy.

While the pro-Entente policy failed because of disagreements with Russian Whites, the flexible Ukrainians finally found a third power―the Bolsheviks. The oppositional socialist group in the Directorate received the status of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as a de-jure sovereign polity within the Soviet Union. In this sense, the establishment of the Soviet Ukraine could not be seen only as a symbol of the defeat of the Ukrainian national movement; rather, it was more or less a product of the federative idea employed by the Ukrainian activists themselves in those revolutionary years.

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This article analyzes the historical significance of National Personal Autonomy (NPA) as introduced in revolutionary Ukraine by examining the process of its practical implementation in the context of Russian and Ukrainian history. Codifying the ideas of Austrian Marxist nationality theories, the Law on NPA of 1918 specified that the three major national minorities in the territory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR)—Jews, Poles, and Great-Russians—had the right to arrange their internal life through non-territorially-formed national representative organs. The main weakness of previous studies on this thema is that they hardly attempted to clarify the degree to which NPA influenced and altered existing inter-nationality relationships in Ukraine. In this article, I show that NPA for minorities in the UPR originated in the nationalization process in the imperial war effort and that its implementation paradoxically reinforced the status of Ukrainians as the ruling nation in the newly-born republic. The mobilization of nationalities during WWI paved the way for the realization of both Ukrainian territorial autonomy and Jewish, Polish, and Great-Russian personal autonomy. Ukrainian politicians used NPA as a means to relegate the languages and cultures of minority nations to a secondary position and to disseminate the official narrative that the UPR was achieving peaceful national coexistence. My analysis demonstrates that NPA can function not only as a concession to minorities but also as a means to consolidate a nation-state, notwithstanding today’s increasing interest in the historical experiences of NPA in the search for an effective solution to minority issues.

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This essay traces on the evolvements of Russian political class over the issue of Ukraine from the demise of the USSR to 2014 crisis, culminating in the annexation of the Crimea peninsula. Russian attitudes towards the rebirth of Ukraine nationalism were ambiguous, especially among elite level.

The August coup against the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev took place in Ukraine, where its nationalistic elements were independent oriented, while the conservatives, including the military industrial complex were negative. After the December 1991 referendum, where opinions were in favor for independence, Leonid Kravchuk, once ideological secretary of the Ukraine communist party could rely on the support of the West oriented voice of western Ukraine, where European and Catholic influence was vocal. From the Russian point of view, this region was alien from the Orthodox tradition and was never been part of the Russian Empire. Thus, Ukraine as the nation state was weak and far from united as political identity was concerned. Economy was also divided between agrarian west and the east, where Soviet type of military industrial complex was dominant. This east-west divide caused political instability in Ukraine, that was revealed when Kravchuk was replaced by Kuchima who first relied on the support of Russian speaking east, though he eventually turned to the west.

Moscow was particularly concerned the fate of the Black Sea fleet and Crimea, where Russians were dominant and never belonged to Ukraine until 1954, when Nikita Khrushchev, Ukrainian oriented Soviet leader changed the status of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. Though Russian President Boris Yel’tsin was in favor for the Ukraine status quo, his nationalistic minded semi-oppositionists like Moscow Mayor Luzhkov were against the Ukraine position overt the fleet and Crimea. It was only pragmatism of Yevgeny Primakov, Foreign Minister, who could pass the bill on the partnership in 1997.

New President Vladimir Putin was more oriented Russian nationalism, and was particularly against the color revolution, when western oriented President Yushchenko won over the East oriented Yanukovich in a 2004 election. East-West divide, coupled with the corruption and ungovernavility, became Kremlins worry on Ukraine. Still they succeeded in winning Yanukovich victory in the following election and could deal over the 25 years continuation of the Black Sea Fleet, in turn for cheaper gas supply in 2010.

Ukraine thus became a grand over which domestic East-West divide was coupled by the influence of the NATO-EU and Moscow contested. The Maidan revolution was thus seen from Kremlins nationalists oriented policy makers to be an attempt to cut the influence of Russia over Ukraine. The Izborskii club or another religious-Orthodox oriented politicians were thus backing sudden policy changes of the President Putin, who took Maidan revolution as another attempt of regime change by the West, and eventually annexed the Crimea Peninsula. Thus, in turn, brought about the civil war situation, particularly in the east Ukraine, that was already uncontrolled by neither Moscow nor Kiev authority.

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