Activities of The First Ukrainian Representation in Istanbul: State Mission of Diplomats

Abstract

The article offers an insight into the foundations and main directions of work of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Istanbul through the prism of the personalities of its leaders. The author paid particular attention to the problems that Ukrainians had to face at the first stage of the formation of Ukrainian-Turkish diplomatic relations. The article was prepared on the basis of archival information contained in documents, which are mainly stored in the Central State Archives of the High Authorities and Administration of Ukraine. The results of studies of Ukrainian and Turkish scientists are taken into account. Based on the documents revealed and historiography, it was stated that the activity of the first Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Turkey lasted more than three years. During April 1918 – June 1922, there were five heads of the diplomatic mission, namely Mykola Levytskyi, Mykhailo Sukovkin, Oleksandr Lototskyi, Jan Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz, Lev Lisniak, each of whom exerted best of their strengths, intelligence and devotion to the national idea to implement the state mission. Mykhailo Sukovkin inflicted harm on the image of Ukraine maintaining contacts within the White Guard and demonstrating a non-Ukrainian position. The author states that the main areas of activity of the diplomatic mission were to establish political and economic relations, disseminate truthful information about Ukraine, achieve recognition of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, popularize and institutionalise the idea of the Black Sea Union, organise aid to Ukrainian prisoners of war and refugees in Istanbul, form them into Ukrainian army units. The termination of the activities of the Embassy of the UPR was the result of the signing of interstate treaties between Turkey and the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR in 1922. The mutual diplomatic presence of the UPR and the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and the extension of the stay of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Istanbul in June 1922 give grounds to suggest that after the restoration of Ukraine’s state independence in 1991, the Ukrainian-Turkish diplomatic relations were not established but restored. Keywords: Ukrainian People’s Republic, Ukrainian State, Embassy of the UPR in the Ottoman Empire, Brest Peace Treaty.