The Hetmanate

By spring 1918, significant sectors of Ukraine’s populace had had enough of revolution and chaos. As might be expected, these attitudes were most prevalent among the land’s propertied classes, the well-to-do peasants, the petty entrepreneurs and businessmen, the factory owners and large landholders, and the upper levels of bureaucracy who constituted about 20% of Ukraine’s population.¹ As well, the Germans and Austrians in Ukraine were exceedingly anxious to restore order so as to expedite the removal of foodstuffs.

Skoropadsky, a scion of an old Cossack starshyna family and one of Ukraine’s largest landowners, had been a well-placed member of the tsarist establishment, having served as Nicholas II’s aide-de-camp and as a highly regarded general during the war. However, during the revolution he had Ukrainized his army corps, and – after the Central Rada had rejected his services – he was elected titular commander of the “Free Cossack” peasant militia. With the rise to power of this Russified “Little Russian” aristocrat who had suddenly recalled his Ukrainian roots, a new phase of the revolution in Ukraine set in, characterized by attempts to restore law and order and to undo some of the Central Rada’s “socialist experiments.”

On 29 April, at a congress called in Kiev by the League of Landowners, which was attended by about 6500 delegates from all over Ukraine, Skoropadsky was enthusiastically proclaimed hetman and called upon “to save the country from chaos and lawlessness.” That same day he and his supporters announced the establishment of the “Ukrainian State” (as opposed to the Central Rada’s “Ukrainian National Republic”).

While revoking such innovations of the Central Rada as the nationalization of large estates and personal-cultural autonomy, the hetman introduced a distinct category of citizens – the Cossacks – who were actually well-to-do peasants. He hoped they would act as the main social pillar of his regime. Most striking were the vast prerogatives reserved for the hetman: he possessed sole authority to issue all the laws, appoint the cabinet, control foreign affairs and the military, and act as the highest judge in the land. Yet these claims to almost unlimited authority did not hide the fact that it was the Germans (but not the Austrians) who had ultimate power in Ukraine.

As might be expected, the reaction of Ukrainian activists (most of whom were socialists and had belonged to the Central Rada) to the Hetmanate was sharply negative. Therefore, when some well-known Ukrainians were invited to join the Hetman government, almost all of them refused. This left the hetman with no choice but to turn to individuals not associated with the Ukrainian movement to form his cabinet, thereby exposing himself to accusations that his government included no “real” Ukrainians. But although the new cabinet – which was led by the prime minister Fedir Lyzohub (a wealthy landowner) and included only one well-known Ukrainian activist, the foreign minister Dmytro Doroshenko – was short on nationalists, it did include a number of skilled administrators.

In a matter of months, an effective bureaucratic apparatus was reestablished in Ukraine. In the provinces, Central Rada appointees were replaced by experienced administrators called starosty, who were drawn mostly from among local landowners and zemstvo officials. Posts in the central government went to professionals, mostly Russians or Russified Ukrainians.

While the Central Rada had had formal diplomatic relations only with Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, the Hetmanate exchanged embassies with about a dozen countries. Its main foreign policy concerns were the negotiation of a peace treaty with Soviet Russia, concluded on 12 June 1918, and the fruitless discussion with Austro-Hungary about the possibility of annexing such largely Ukrainian lands as Eastern Galicia and the Kholm region.

The government’s achievements in education and in the creation of an infrastructure for scholarly activity were especially impressive. On the elementary school level, several million Ukrainian-language textbooks were prepared and Ukrainian was introduced into most of the schools. About 150 new Ukrainian-language gymnazia, many located in rural areas, were founded. In October, two new Ukrainian universities were created in Kiev and Kamianets-Podilskyi. A national archive and a library of over one million volumes were also founded. The high point of this activity was the establishment of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences on 24 November 1918. Thus, in a matter of months, in the area of culture the Hetmanate had achievements to its credit that the Ukrainian intelligentsia had dreamed of for generations.

But while the Skoropadsky regime could boast of administrative skills and concrete achievements, it was burdened with crushing political handicaps. For the most part, they were an outgrowth of the company the hetman had chosen to keep. First, he was compromised by his dependence on the Germans, whose obvious goal was to exploit Ukraine economically. Second, the hetman was closely associated with the propertied classes, which sought to undo the changes brought about by the revolution.

Opposition to Skoropadsky began to crystallize from the outset. In mid May, a series of illegal congresses of Ukrainian parties were held and occupational groups such as railroad workers, telegraph operators, peasants, and workers expressed their disapproval of the new government. A coordinating body called the Ukrainian National State Union and led by Vynnychenko arose to act as a center of opposition. Another influential organization, the All-Ukrainian Union of Zemstva, headed by Petliura, also adopted an anti-hetman line. Initially, these groups negotiated with Skoropadsky about ways of implementing a more liberal and nationalist policy, but later they turned to fomenting a rebellion against him.

Ukrainian peasants needed little encouragement to rebel against a government that confiscated their crops, restored lands to rich estate-owners, and sent “punitive expeditions” into their villages. Soon spontaneous, fierce peasant revolts spread through Ukraine. Led by a local, often anarchistically inclined leader called (in the Cossack tradition) an otaman or batko and armed with readily available weapons, hordes of peasants fought pitched battles with German troops. The scale of these conflicts was huge: for example, in the Zvenyhorod and Tarashchanka regions of Kiev province, peasant forces numbering 30,000–40,000 men, equipped with two batteries of artillery and 200 machine guns, inflicted 6000 casualties on the Germans.

By early fall, it was apparent that the Central Powers were about to lose the war. At this point, the hetman was forced to make concessions. Yet another attempt to attract prominent Ukrainian activists into his cabinet failed in late October. Desperately casting about for support, Skoropadsky took a final gamble: on 14 November 1918 he appointed a new cabinet consisting almost entirely of Russian monarchists and announced the Act of Federation, which committed him to link Ukraine with a future non-Bolshevik Russian state. This controversial step was taken in order to gain the support of anti-Bolshevik Russians and the favor of the victorious Entente. That same day, the Ukrainian opposition formed an insurrectionary government, the Directory, led by the two old rivals Vynnychenko and Petliura, and openly declared a rebellion against the hetman.

The Directory’s insurrection grew rapidly. Great numbers of peasant partisans, led by their rambunctious otamany, poured into Bila Tserkva, west of Kiev, which served as the headquarters of the anti-Skoropadsky forces. Soon these enthusiastic but poorly disciplined irregulars numbered about 60,000. More important, some of the hetman’s best units – the Sich Riflemen, commanded by Evhen Konovalets and his chief of staff, Andrii Melnyk, and the Greycoat Division – went over to the Directory, raising the number of its regular troops to 40,000. By 21 November the insurgents encircled Kiev and, after lengthy negotiations to assure safe passage for the German garrison, on 14 December the Germans evacuated the city, taking Skoropadsky with them. That same day, the Directory’s forces triumphantly entered Kiev and announced the reestablishment of the Ukrainian National Republic.

The Hetmanate existed less than eight months during which time real power lay in the hands of the Germans, and its impact was limited.

However, as Viacheslav Lypynsky, the ideologist of modern Ukrainian conservatism, noted, the Hetmanate had a broader significance. It consisted of exposing, and even attracting, some members of the largely Russified socioeconomic elite of Ukraine to the idea of Ukrainian statehood. This, in turn, helped to expand the social base of this idea beyond the thin stratum of Ukrainian intelligentsia to the broader, more reliable, and productive class of the “tillers of the land,” that is, the landowning peasants and estate owners. Thus, according to Lypynsky, had Skoropadsky survived, he would have made Ukrainian statehood acceptable to the land’s most productive inhabitants rather than having it depend on an “ideological sect,” as he called the nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia.²