Today marks the 108th anniversary of the proclamation of Ukrainian independence by the Ukrainian Central Council (Central Rada, or Tsentralna Rada) of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, in the document known as the Fourth Universal.
Between March 1917 and March 1921, the People’s Republic was the most prominent of the Ukrainian political formations that emerged in wartime and, for a while, fulfilled the function of an elected Parliament of a multi-party, social-democratic state. The Central Rada was a broad coalition representing workers, peasants, soldiers, and national minorities, whose dominant forces were the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (USDRP) and the Ukrainian Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (UPSR), but which also included various local peasants’, military, and workers’ councils and minority (Russian, Jewish, and Polish) organizations. It was ultimately squashed by the Bolshevik Red Army, with many of its leaders killed, imprisoned, or exiled (the Wikipedia page lists their fate).
Here are some excerpts from the Fourth Universal. You can read the entire text below (as translated by Oleh Fedyshyn, from Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine: An Anthology of Ukrainian Thought from 1710 to 1995, edited by Ralph Lindheim and George S. N. Luckyj, University of Toronto Press, 1996, all of which can be read online at Diasporiana).
Four years into the full-scale Russian war on Ukraine, the line “Four years of destructive warfare have weakened our land and exhausted our people” resonates in a particularly appropriate way.
To the People of Ukraine:
By your strength, will, and word there has arisen in the Ukrainian land a free People’s Republic. An age-old dream of your forefathers, champions of the freedom and rights of the toiling masses, has been realized. But the freedom of Ukraine has been regained at a difficult time. Four years of destructive warfare have weakened our land and exhausted our people; plants have been closed and factories have ceased to produce; railways have been disrupted and money has lost its value; harvests have declined and the land is threatened with famine. The countryside has been infested with bands of robbers and thieves since the collapse of the front, and these marauding soldiers have caused bloodshed, confusion, and destruction in our land. Owing to these circumstances, the election to the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly as prescribed by the previous Universal could not be held; hence that Assembly, scheduled for today and expected to take over from us the supreme revolutionary authority in Ukraine, to establish laws in the People’s Republic, and to organize a new government, could not be convened. In the meantime, the Petrograd Government of People’s Commissars has declared war on Ukraine in order to place under its control the free Ukrainian Republic. It has ordered into our land its troops – the Red Guards and the Bolsheviks – who are taking away grain from our peasants and dispatching it to Russia without having made payment; even the grain set aside for sowing has been confiscated thus. They are killing innocent people and spreading anarchy, lawlessness, and crime everywhere.
[. . .]
Henceforth the Ukrainian People’s Republic becomes an independent, free, and sovereign state of the Ukrainian people, subject to no one. We wish to live in peace and friendship with all the neighbouring states: Russia, Poland, Austria, Romania, Turkey, and others; but none of them has the right to interfere in the life of the independent Ukrainian Republic. The power in it shall belong only to the Ukrainian people, in whose name we, the Ukrainian Central Rada – the representatives of the toiling masses of the peasants, workers, and soldiers – will govern the country through our executive organ, which henceforth will be called the ‘Council of People’s Ministers.’
[. . .]
As for the so-called Bolsheviks and other invaders who are plundering and destroying our land, we instruct the Government of the Ukrainian People’s Republic to launch a firm and determined struggle against them, and we appeal to all the citizens of our Republic to defend the welfare and freedom of our people, even at the cost of their lives. Our Ukrainian People’s State must be cleared of the invaders sent from Petrograd, who trample on the rights of the Ukrainian Republic.
[. . .]
In regard to the land question, a commission elected at our last session has already drafted a law on the transfer of land to the toiling masses without payment, basing this on the decision taken at our eighth session to abolish private property and to socialize land. This law shall be considered several days from now at a meeting of the entire Central Rada. The Council of People’s Ministers shall take all the necessary measures to ensure the transfer of land to the farmers with the assistance of land committees before the spring sowing gets under way. Forests, streams, and natural resources of the land are the property of the Ukrainian toiling masses; they shall be administered by the Ukrainian People’s Republic.
[. . .]
All democratic freedoms guaranteed in the Third Universal are hereby confirmed by the Ukrainian Central Rada. We further declare that in the independent Ukrainian People’s Republic all nations [всі нації, і.е. all еthnic groups] enjoy the right to national and personal autonomy as provided in the law of 22 January.
Read the entirety below. For a broader background (and course in Ukrainian intellectual history), I strongly recommend the 432-page volume Towards an Intellectual History of Ukraine, starting with the 50-page introduction and overview by editors Lindheim and Luckyj.
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