"LION'S PLOT" (1924) IN THE ACTIVITIES OF THE WESTERN UKRAINIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Abstract

This article deals with activities of the Western Ukrainian Association of the League of Nations (ZUTLN) at the Lyon Congress of the Union of Societies of the League of Nations (STLN) within the context of international relations of the first half of the 1920s. In 1922 ZUTLN became a full member of STLN, but the decision of the Council of Ambassadors of the Entente states (1923) to include the territory of Eastern Galicia in the Second Commonwealth prevented further membership in the union. It is noted that before the ZUTLN delegation departed to France, it had had a general meeting, which summarized the activities of the association during the previous years and approved the strategy and tactics of actions at the next STLN congress in Lyon. For the first time in Ukrainian and foreign historiography, this paper highlights in detail the achievements and blunders of Ukrainians at the Lyon Conference, the circle of ZUTLN supporters among other societies, the course of discussions with the participation of Ukrainian delegates, the requirements of the members, the reaction of the Galician politicians on the final outcomes of the conference and the activities of Ukrainian representatives at the international forum. The author has shown that in the current socio-political discourse, the activities of the Galician delegation, headed by R. Perfetskyi, were evaluated mostly negatively because of the so-called "Galician separatism" and the lack of constructive dialogue with a similar Dnieper society. Afterward, the ZUTLN representatives made unsuccessful attempts to resume their activities at the STLN: their advocacy work was limited to sending complaints, letters to STLN governing bodies and publishing anti-Polish materials by ZUTLN members in leading Ukrainian and foreign periodicals. Keywords: Lyon Conference, ZUTLN, League of Nations, Eastern Galicia, Poland.