Dornik, Wolfram; Kasianov, Georgiy; Leidinger, Hannes; Lieb, Peter; Miller, Alexei; Musial, Bogdan, and Rasevych, Vasyl The Emergence of Ukraine: Self-Determination, Occupation and War in Ukraine, 1917–1922 (review)

Abstract

SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 556 interesting book, but to an extent feels like the first phase of a larger project. Hopefully Kowalsky will pursue her important research further. School of History and Anthropology K. Turton Queen’s University, Belfast Dornik, Wolfram; Kasianov, Georgiy; Leidinger, Hannes; Lieb, Peter; Miller, Alexei; Musial, Bogdan, and Rasevych, Vasyl. The Emergence of Ukraine: Self-Determination, Occupation and War in Ukraine, 1917–1922. CIUS Press, Edmonton, AL and Toronto, ON, 2015. xxx + 441 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $39.95 (paperback). This volume is a (shortened) translation of the book Die Ukraine zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Fremdherrschaft 1917–1922, that came out in German in 2011. Most of the analysis is conventional, though it is invaluable for its wealth of detail. There is nothing, for example, on the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Republic of 1918, other than a brief mention in a list of would-be statelets, despite its mythologization by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic since 2014; even if this is maybe all it deserves in terms of its actual historical importance. Nevertheless, there are many novel framings. The editors are keen to see ‘developments after the First World War not so much as a break but as a continuity’ (p. xvi). Events in Ukraine did not happen ex nihilo and were part of the general European upheaval that lasted much longer than the official four years of war in the West (hence for some Germans it is the Urkatastrophe). The editors also argue that ‘severe doubt is cast […] on the concept of the “Russian Civil War”’ (p. xvii) — many of its conflicts were between centre and periphery and many of its participants were from outside the empire of 1914. There is an admiral emphasis on ‘transnational history’, following on from Georgiy Kasianov’s excellent edited volume with Phillip Ther (A Laboratory of Transnational History, Budapest and New York, 2009). HighlightsincludeaninterestingessaybyAlexeiMilleron‘Russia’sUkrainian Policy before 1917’. Building on his own earlier work and that of Faith Hillis, he argues that ‘Ukraine, especially Kyiv, […] became a battleground between two nationalisms deeply rooted there’. ‘Ukrainian activists and the Little Russian anti-Ukrainians were both directing their propaganda toward the same group, whose members identified as Malorossy (Little Russians) or Khokhly’ (p. 307). Indeed, for the embryonic Russian nationalist movement, ‘the Little Russian variety of the Russian character was claimed to be even more “solid” than the Great Russian variety, which succumbed all too easily to the temptations of revolutionary ideas and the deceptive imaginings of minority milieus from the periphery of the empire’ (p. 310). REVIEWS 557 Vasyl Rasevych’s chapter on the Galician Ukrainians shows how reluctant they were to liberate themselves from Habsburg tutelage, even in late 1918. Georgiy Kasianov provides an excellent overview of the ups and downs of the various Ukrainian governments after 1917, ending his account of ‘the Ukrainian Revolution’ in ‘November 1920, when Ukrainian troops engaged in the Soviet-Polish war retreated to Galicia’ (p. 76). There are many excellent maps, particularly in the material on military campaigns. Wolfram Dornik is sceptical that the occupation of Ukraine by the Central Powers in 1918 was anything but ‘a fiasco for all those involved’ (p. 399). He also raises the question of ‘whether the Central Powers were well-advised when they overthrew the Rada’ (p. 400) in April 1918. Peter Lieb and Wolfram Dornik are interesting on why the Habsburgs deferred to the Germans during the occupation (p. 62). ‘A Ukraine under the protection of Vienna was seen as a possibility, but the Austrians were realistic enough to know that it was not very likely. Their real fear was that Kyiv would come under the influence of Russia or Germany, and this would put strategic pressure on the Danube Monarchy’ (p. 403). Hannes Leidinger and Wolfram Dornik provide an excellent analysis of the (lack of) interest shown by the Allied Powers towards Ukraine, particularly after the end of the war in the West in November 1918. Bogdan Musial is very good on the vicissitudes of Poland’s policy, and on Piłsudski’s genuine desire for a ‘cessation of attacks on Petliura’ (p. 377) in 1919 and ‘attempt to restore...