History of Ukraine: A Captivating Guide to the Ancient Crossroads of Civilizations, Enduring Traditions, and Resilient Spirit Through the Ages (European Countries) by Captivating History

Author:Captivating History [History, Captivating]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-04-30T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7 – Ukraine’s Struggle between the Two World Wars

In 1918, Ukraine found itself between a rock and a hard place. To its east were the armies of Soviet Russia, which very much wished to absorb Ukraine into their new communist government. To the west, the Central Powers of Germany and Austria were in the ascendancy. In this situation, the Ukrainians chose the latter as the lesser of two evils. It was not an easy decision to make, but the Ukrainian leaders of the Central Rada felt they had no choice.

Making matters even more pressing, their new “allies,” Germany and Austria, were demanding that they be supplied with one million tons of grain to feed their troops. The Ukrainians were in the process of making good on this demand when the Central Powers abruptly lost patience with the whole arrangement and decided that the revolutionary Ukrainian government needed to be dismantled.

The Germans took the initiative to engineer a new government headed by a Ukrainian general named Pavlo Skoropadski. Pavlo was a descendant of Cossack nobility and was presented as one of the elites of Ukraine’s property-owning class. This sort of arrangement was apparently preferable to the Germans than Ukraine’s socialist-leaning government that embraced the working class. Ukraine’s government was not communist, but for these Germans, socialism was a slippery road to communism, and they preferred to do away with it altogether. They installed Pavlo as their own personal puppet. He ruled as an elitist authoritarian who could only be checked by the Germans and Austrians.

This was certainly not the free, vibrant, independent Ukraine that the Ukrainians asked for. As they say, however, freedom is not free; you have to fight for it. And if you allow someone else to fight for it, as the Ukrainians did with the Germans and Austrians, there is a good chance you might not like the result.

Even though the revolution in Ukraine stalled out and its political trajectory had been significantly altered, tremendous gains to Ukrainian society were still made. Pavlo marshaled the might of modern industry and embarked upon developments of Ukrainian infrastructure. Ukraine saw schools, banks, and government buildings pop up on every corner. Yes, call Pavlo a dictator if you will, but he did get things done. He retooled the Ukrainian army, turning it into a professional fighting force. Ukraine was also gifted with its own national library, an Academy of Sciences, and its own national archives.

One of the greatest advances for Ukrainian national identity was that the Ukrainian language was not only allowed but also encouraged. As harsh as their German and Austrian benefactors were, they had no qualms with the Ukrainians speaking their own language. In fact, they likely preferred they speak it rather than Russian so that they could better disassociate themselves with Soviet Russia.

However, despite these improvements, there was much for Ukrainians not to like. The socialists were, of course, seething with animosity that they had been superseded by this authoritarian regime, and they were not going to let it go any time soon.

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