Activities of the Consulate of Greece in Kyiv and the Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission of the Ukrainian People's Republic in Greece in 1917-1920: a Role in the Establishment of Ukrainian-Greek Relations

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to clarify the main activities of the Greek Consulate in Kyiv in 1917 - 1918 and the UPR Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission in Greece in 1919 - 1920 through the prism of activity of Ukrainian and Greek diplomats (Pericles Hripari, Fedir Matushevskyi, Modest Levytskyi) and determining the peculiarities of the establishment of Ukrainian-Greek relations in 1917-1920. The research methodology is based on the principles of scientificity, historicism, and systematicity. General and special scientific methods are used, in particular archival heuristics, historiographical analysis, external and internal criticism of the sources. The scientific novelty of the results of the study is the reconstruction on the basis of the archival information, found by the author in published and unpublished sources, of activities of the Greek Consulate in Kyiv, the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Athens and clarification of the participants in the Ukrainian-Greek relations in 1917 - 1920, functions and tasks of diplomatic and consular representatives. Conclusions. The mutual diplomatic and consular presence of Ukraine and Greece in 1917-1920 was due to different reasons. The Greek Consulate in Kyiv was established as a Greek consulate in the Russian Empire and continued to perform its functions primarily in the field of guardianship of Greek citizens after the proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Greek Consul Pericles Hripari acted as the doyen of the consular corps and managed to ensure active cooperation with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. At the time of the Central Council, it developed within the norms of international law. During the Hetmanate, at the insistence of the German administration, P. Hripari, as a representative and ally of Entente, was expelled from Kyiv. The Ukrainian diplomatic mission as an Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission was sent to Greece after the victory of the Directory and the restoration of the UPR in order to achieve recognition of its independence by as many states and spread information about the struggle of Ukrainians against the Bolsheviks for independent existence. The Mission was headed successively by F. Matushevskyi and M. Levytskyi. Greece's position on recognizing the independence of the UPR depended on the position of the Entente states. Despite the lack of official recognition of the mission, information about Ukraine, its people and its struggle for independence was communicated to Greek society and government agencies through a special memorandum, local newspapers and a thematic bulletin