Uprising in Kukavka, August 1918: course of events

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The article is devoted to a major anti-government armed uprising in the Podolsk province of the Ukrainian State in August 1918. The aim of the research is to determine the number of the participants in the uprising and to restore its course. The organizers of the uprising were former functionaries of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Their goals included the removal of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky from power, the restoration of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and the expulsion of the troops of the Central Powers from Ukraine. The rebels sought to conduct land socialization, begun by the leadership of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and canceled by the hetman. They also intended to destroy all major landowners and hetman officials who came into their hands. The uprising began on August 14 in the village of Kukavka, Mogilev district. Part of the pre-formed battle groups united into a large detachment. Coming out of Kukavka, the rebels moved towards Mogilev- Podilsky, but then changed their original plan and rejected the assault of the county center. Subsequently, the rebel army raided the territory of Mogilev, Yampol and Bratslav districts, absorbing the rest of the previously prepared battle groups. The actions of the rebels were reduced to a number of clashes with the Austro- Hungarian units and several cruel reprisals against the hetman’s officials and employees of the landowners’ households. The total number of participants in the uprising, obviously, ranged from two to three thousand people. The rebels failed to provoke a mass anti-government movement because the population of the villages did not support them. Having been defeated several times by the Austro-Hungarian troops, the rebel army returned to the Kukavka region. On August 25, it was finally defeated in a battle near the village of Rovno. By the end of the month, the last small groups of rebels had been eliminated. After the suppression of the uprising, its participants were subjected to severe repression.