Comparative legal analysis of certain aspects of state formation in the constitutions of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the Far Eastern Ukrainian Republic (Green Wedge) and other documents

Abstract

The events of the last eleven months brought to the fore the problems related to the establishment of Ukrainian statehood. The reason for this was the full-scale invasion of Russia on the territory of sovereign Ukraine on February 24, 2022.This unprecedented violation of international law became an additional incentive for an indepth study of the processes of Ukrainian state formation not only in Ukraine, but also outside its borders, primarily in the territories of the Russian Federation.The authors’ historical and legal analysis of historical and legal documents and archival funds proved that Ukrainians were marked by a desire for self-reliance and independence in any part of the world. This happened despite the fact that ethnic Ukrainians were forcibly evicted from their native land and actually had real prospects of assimilating among the indigenous peoples to whose land they were deported.In this article, the authors carry out a historical and legal study of individual stages of Ukrainian state formation in the Far East in the period 1917-1922. We are talking about the Far Eastern Ukrainian Republic (Green Wedge), a true independent Ukrainian state that existed de facto in the specified time period. It was a state entity that developed and adopted the Basic Law (Constitution of the National and Cultural Autonomy of Ukrainians in the Far East» (at the Second Session of the Ukrainian Far Eastern Regional Council on May 30, 1919).Applying the method of comparativism, the authors performed a comparative analysis of this Constitution and the Constitution of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. The study of the specified historical and legal documents showed close cooperation and national ties between mainland Ukraine and the Far Eastern Ukrainian Republic (Green Wedge). The article provides specific examples of the same understanding and interpretation by the leaders of the Green Wedge and the Ukrainian People’s Republic of the key provisions of state formation, the introduction and use of similar legal mechanisms to assert sovereignty and national identity.