The Western Ukrainian Association of the League of Nations: the Ideological Platform, Activity at the Congresses of the League of Nations Union of Associations (1922 - 1924)

Abstract

The geopolitical changes in the international relations after the First World War, the new trends in European foreign policy, the increasing interest to the Ukrainian issue were the main reasons which intensified an interest of Ukrainian community to the issues of international policy. Founded in 1922 the Western Ukrainian Association of the League of Nations (WUALN) endeavored to facilitate the solution of the Ukrainian issue in the format of the LNUA, manifesting the idea of Ukrainian statehood renewal. Three periods can be defined in the association’s activity: the first includes the period from January-June 1922; it is the time of organization’s foundation and its entrance to the League of Nations Union of Associations (LNUA); the second (the main) period from the 8th of June 1922 to the 23rd of June 1923; it is the time of a full membership the WUALN in the Union; the third period from the 23rd of June to the 1st of July 1924 connected with the suspension of the WUALN’s membership in the LNUA and the association’s struggle for the rights’ renewal in the organization. The WUALN did not recognized the Treaty of Versailles about the division of the Ukrainian lands between the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia; the Riga Peace Treaty’s ratifications of 1921 between Poland, the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian Republic included to the Soviet Union. The Association had the close contacts and cooperated with the WUNR’s government in exile, political parties from the Western Ukraine: Ukrainian National Labor Party (UNLP), Ukrainian Radical Party (URP), Christian Social Party (CSP), Ukrainian Parliament Representation (UPR) and other organizations. The association coordinated actions on the international scene and its tactics with the WUNR’s government in exile and E. Petruschevich personally; still the information about the misuses of the Polish government, the facts of violations from the Polish regime of the national minorities’ rights, non-performance of the international obligations of the Polish state was obtained from the other civil and political organizations of the WUALN. The contradictions between UNR and WUNR governments influenced on the relations with the Ukrainian Association of the League of Nations (UALN) from Naddniprianschyna in 1919-1920-s; notwithstanding in the strategical lines of the “Ukrainian issue’s” solution the both associations demonstrated solidarity and co-coordination that the congress of the LNUA demonstrated vividly in The Hague. However, the contacts with the members of Naddniprianschyna gradually activated after the temporary suspension of WUALN’s activity in the LNUA in 1923. At that period the UALN often defended the WUALN’s interests in the governing bodies of the LNUA, and the WUALN considered the variant of integration to the UALN on the autonomy rights.