Archduke William of Austria, Prince Joachim of Prussia, “Hetman of Ukraine” Dmytro Doroshenko and the purpose of the Zvenyhorod Uprising (1918)
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Abstract
The purpose of the article is to determine the goals of the Zvenyhorod Uprising — a major anti-government
armed uprising in Central Ukraine in the summer-autumn of 1918.
The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time the question of the purpose of the Zvenyhorod Uprising is considered
within the framework of a separate special study.
Conclusions. In April 1918, in Zvenigorodskyi district and in the adjacent parts of Uman, Tarashchanskyi and Kaniv
districts, government officials of the UPR formed a secret armed group. It was a part of a secret armed network that was supposed
to fight attempts to overthrow the UPR government and cancel the socialist reforms it had initiated (in particular, the
agrarian reform aimed at land socialization). At the end of April 1918, the overthrow of the UPR government occurred. Hetman
Pavlo Skoropadsky became the head of the state but the militant units in the Zvenyhorod district did not march because it had
not received an order. During May 1918, Ukrainian political parties that had been in power before the proclamation of the
Hetmanate discussed various political plans (for example, a plan to put a foreign prince — Wilhelm of Austria or Joachim of
Prussia — at the head of the Ukrainian state), but they failed to formulate a clear program of action. Meanwhile, Zvenigorod
district was subjected to repression by armed detachments, whose goal was to force the peasants to return the landowners′
property, parcelled out during the UPR period. These detachments, formed on the initiative of large landowners and Hetman
officials, widely resorted to violence, some committed real atrocities. The uprising in Zvenigorod district emerged in June 1918
as a spontaneous protest against these oppressions and it had no program or political goal. The rebels who were members of a
secret armed organisation established in April 1918, took up arms to punish the offenders.
Article Details
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