35 Ukrainian Lands after World War I

World War I drew to a close in late 1918, as one by one the Central Powers capitulated and accepted armistices to end the hostilities—Bulgaria (September 29), Ottoman Turkey (October 30), Austria-Hungary (November 5), and finally Germany (November 11).

The victorious Allied and Associated Powers—Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Japan—convened in January 1919 at several palaces outside Paris, to draw up instruments of peace that would determine Europe’s postwar borders. The Ukrainian National Republic and the West Ukrainian National Republic each sent delegations to Paris, but they were not accorded recognition and played no official role in the negotiations.

With the disappearance of Austria-Hungary, the Allied Powers claimed authority over former Habsburg territories that included western Ukrainian lands (Galicia, Bukovina, and Transcarpathia). Despite Allied claims, the final stipulations of the peace conference’s various treaties reflected what, in fact, had already been decided on the ground. The second of the Paris Peace Conference accords was the Treaty of St Germain-en-Laye. Signed September 10, 1919, the St Germain treaty dealt with former Austria-Hungary, and according to its provisions Bukovina, including its administrative center of Chernivtsi as well as its largely Ukrainian-inhabited region, was awarded to Romania. The treaty also awarded “Ruthene [Rusyn] territory south of the Carpathians,” which had been part of the Hungarian Kingdom, to the new state of Czechoslovakia. The Treaty of St Germain stipulated further that this specifically Rusyn territory was to be awarded “the fullest degree of self-government compatible with the unity of the Czecho-Slovak State.”

35.1 Oleksandr Shul’hyn, Arnold Margolin, and Vasyl’ Paneiko, among the twenty delegates sent by the Ukrainian National Republic seeking recognition at the Paris Peace Conference.

The first and most famous of the Paris Peace Conference accords, the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919) had recognized an independent state of Poland, but neither it nor the subsequent Treaty of St Germain was able to determine Poland’s eastern boundary. With regard to Galicia, St Germain merely recognized Poland as its military occupant, while its formal sovereign remained the Allied and Associated Powers.

35.2 Delegates from Transcarpathia and the United States at the Central Rusyn National Council in Uzhhorod, May 8, 1919, which proclaimed their homeland, Subcarpathian Rus’, an autonomous region in union with Czechoslovakia.

The Galician Question was to be discussed by the Allies for the next four years. In December 1919 British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon proposed a border for eastern Poland with two variants in the south (Curzon lines A and B). Both variants would have left most of Ukrainian-inhabited eastern Galicia outside of Poland. But neither the Curzon border proposals nor the idea that eastern Galicia be granted autonomy within Poland were acceptable to Polish authorities. In the end, the Allies grew tired of the Galician Question and in March 1923 relinquished their authority over the region. This effectively meant that Poland was legally awarded the entire former Austrian province of Galicia, something that had in fact already taken place in June 1919.

The determination of the rest of Poland’s eastern border, which affected Ukrainian-inhabited lands in Volhynia, Polissia, and part of Podlachia and the Chelłm/Kholm region, was dependent on that country’s negotiations with Soviet Russia and its ally Soviet Ukraine. The Polish-Soviet armistice of October 1920, which ended the Ukrainian revolutionary era, was followed by the Treaty of Riga (signed March 18, 1921), by which Poland agreed to recognize Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine.

35.3 First seat of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kharkiv.

The largest proportion of ethnic Ukrainian-inhabited territory was located within the former Russian Empire. It came under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or, for short, Soviet Ukraine. Initially, Soviet Ukraine’s territory consisted of 170,400 square miles or 443,100 square kilometers, which encompassed most of the nine “Ukrainian” provinces of former tsarist Russia: Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Katerynoslav, and northern Taurida (see Map 26). Not included within Soviet Ukraine were western Volhynia (awarded to Poland), northern Chernihiv (placed within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic), and southern Taurida (transformed into the Crimean Autonomous Republic within the Russian S.F.S.R.). However, the boundaries of Soviet Ukraine were extended eastward into the former Don Cossack Lands to encompass most of the lower Donets’ River valley, including the industrial center of Shakhty and the Azov seaport of Taganrog.

35.4 Meeting of the Kurultai, the Crimean Tatar constitutional assembly at Bakhchesarai, 1917.

The fate of the Crimean Peninsula (the southern part of Taurida province) was different still. During the revolutionary era, the Crimea was not part of the Ukrainian National Republic as delineated by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, although it was claimed by the Hetmanate as nominally part of its Ukrainian state. Developments on the peninsula itself unfolded without regard for the rest of Ukraine. Following the first Russian revolution of February 1917, local Tatar nationalist leaders joined by some returning Tatar exiles formed the Milli Firka (Crimean Tatar National Party), which by the end of that year created its own constituent assembly (Kurultai) and government in the old Crimean capital of Bakhchesarai.

35.5 Cafer Seydahmet (Kirimer, 1889195?) and Noman Çelebi Cihan (18851918), leaders of the Crimean Tatar National party (Milli Farka), Crimea’s constitutional assembly (Kurultai), and its shortlived government.

Despite its alleged status as an independent state, Soviet Ukraine from its establishment in early 1919 was closely linked and largely dependent on Soviet Russia and its military force, the Red Army. That dependence was only to increase. On December 28, 1920, both countries signed a treaty of union, whereby Soviet Ukraine’s military forces and economy were subordinated to decisions made by Soviet Russian Bolshevik (Communist) party leaders. In February 1922 Soviet Ukraine’s foreign diplomatic relations were delegated to Soviet Russia.

According to the Soviet Union’s constitution promulgated in January 1924, governmental authority was nominally divided between the federal level based in Moscow and the constitutional republics. The new constitution limited even further the prerogatives of Soviet Ukraine and the other soviet republics. The central Communist-led government in Moscow gave itself control of each republic’s natural resources, including surface land; it handled each republic’s foreign affairs; it could annul any decisions of the union republics; and it formulated general principles governing each republic’s judiciary, education, and health care systems.

As a result of the various treaties signed after World War I, Ukrainian territory according to present-day boundaries was divided among four countries: Soviet Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Soviet Ukraine, whose very name reflected the numerically dominant ethnic group within the country, nevertheless included within its boundaries only 63 percent of all ethnic Ukrainians inhabiting contiguous ethnolinguistic territory. Beyond Soviet Ukraine, ethnic Ukrainians were also found in Soviet Russia, Soviet Belorussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. The statistical breakdown is shown in Table 35.1 (next page).

TABLE 35.1 Ukrainians living on contiguous ethnolinguistic territory (data from 1926 and 1931)