The Brest-Litovsk Moment: Self-Determination Discourse in Eastern Europe before Wilsonianism

Abstract

The article argues that the historical origins of the concept of self-determination had less to do with Woodrow Wilson than with the specific circumstances during the last phase of the Great War. It argues that self-determination became the “centre of the discourse of legitimacy in international relations” as a result of a dynamic process involving multiple actors. Lenin and the Bolsheviks first started to employ the concept. Self-determination discourse gained further momentum during the Brest-Litovsk peace conference, where the Austro–German and Russian delegations debated its application at some length. This prompted Allied statesmen to crystallise their ideas and make self-determination their principal war aim. The increasing appeal of self-determination first manifested itself in the entangled spaces of Eastern Europe, where the national aspirations of Poles and Ukrainians, bolstered by the new discourse, converged with the rhetoric emanating from Brest-Litovsk to create a “Wilsonian moment” before Wilson.