4 Paragraph:

5. Further establishment of contacts with the countries of the world was

initiated during that period. In par ticular, in December 1917 the Ukrainian

Govern ment ______________________________ by receiving representatives

of France (“General Commissioner of France to the Government of

Ukraine”) and Great Britain (“Representative of Great Britain”).

5 Paragraph:

6. In late December 1917, Ukrainian delegation _____________________

__________ in Brest, where the first peace treaty of World War was signed

on 27 January 1918.

6 Paragraph:

4. Read the text again and mark the following statements as true (T),

false (F) or not stated (NS). The first one has been done for you.

T F NS

1. The creation of the Ukrainian Peo ple’s Republic led to

the establishment of diplomatic service in Ukraine.

2. The first Universal started the formation of the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs.

3. The Secretariat for Foreign Affairs was completely

independent from the General Secretariat.

4. The Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada functioned as the

Ukrainian Parlaiment.

5. The General Secretariat functioned as the Ukrainian

Cabinet of Ministers.

6. The Head of the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian

People’s Republic and the Secretary General for Foreign

Affairs had the right to adopt laws on their own.

7. The Ukrainian People’s Republic did not have a formal

gov ernment.

8. The Ukrainian People’s Republic did not have its own

Armed Forces.

9. The du ties of the Secretariat for Foreign Affairs were

limited to conducting international negotiations on peace

treaties.

10. Until the proclamation of the Fourth Universal of

the Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada Ukraine had not been a

completely independent state.

11. Active diplomatic and consular work had not begun

until the proclamation of the Third Universal of the

Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada.

12. Forign diplomatic representatives had not come to

Ukraine until the spring of 1918.

13. The first peace treaty of World War I was signed with

the participation of Ukrainian diplomats.

5. Find in the text the words meaning:

1. Міністерство закордонних справ України; 2. створення і становлен-

ня; 3. Повноцінна державна структура; 4. проголошення Універсалу;

5. Українська Центральна Рада; 6. Українська Народна Республіка;

7. органи законодавчої і виконавчої гілок влади; 8. процес формуван-

ня; 9. знайти своє оформлення; 10. Генеральний Секретаріат; 11. Ге-

неральне секретарство з міжнаціональних справ; 12. прообраз; 13. зовнішньополітичне відомство; 14. Голова Генерального Секретаріату;

15. Генеральний секретар з міжнаціональних справ; 16. законопроект;

17. Генеральне секретарство міжнародних справ; 18. схвалювати зако-

нопроект; 19. засідання уряду; 20. схвалений документ; 21. визначати

обов’язки; 22. здійснення міжнародних зносин держави; 23. охорона

інтересів українських громадян поза межами країни; 24. загальне вла-

штування національних непорозумінь в межах країни; 25. важливий

імпульс; 26. подальший розвиток; 27. самостійна, незалежна, вільна,

суверенна держава; 28. активна робота; 29. мережа; 30. дипломатич-

но-консульська установа; 31. регулюватися державними законами;

32. нормативні документи; 33. формування відповідної правової бази;

34. дипломатична діяльність; 35. співробітники українського МЗС;

36. підготувати проект закону; 37. закордонні установи; 38. підготовка

дипломатичних кадрів; 39. за час діяльності; 40. налагодження кон-

тактів з державами; 41. зв’язки з країнами Антанти; 42. Представник;

43. Генеральний комісар Франції при уряді України; 44. Представник

Великої Британії; 45. українська делегація; 46. брати участь; 47. мирні

переговори; 48. підписати угоду; 49. мирний договір; 50. світова війна.

6. Fill in the blanks in the sentences below with the English equivalents

of the words and word-combinations from exercise 5.

1. The Ministry of _____________ Affairs of Ukraine is an important instrument

of foreign policy. 2. The ______________ of the Ministry was a serious

step in the history of the Ukrainian state. 3. The ________________ of

diplomatic services was not an easy task. 4. Today the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs of Ukraine is a ___________ state structure. 5. The ____________

__ of the First Universal of Tsentralna Rada happened in June 1917. 6. The

First Universal of Tsentralna Rada resulted in the ____________ of the

Ukrainian Peo ple’s Republic. 7. The Second Universal resulted in the formation

of ____________ and ____________ authorities. 8. Specifically the

Second Universal established an executive body – the General _________

__. 9. The Secretariat for Foreign _____________ was part of the General

Secretariat. 10. The Secre tariat for Foreign Affairs was the _____________

of the first Ukrainian foreign policy __________. 11. Volodymyr Vynnychenko

was the __________ of the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian

People’s Republic. 12. Oleksandr Shulhyn was the first Secretary ________

___ for Foreign Affairs. 13. The ministers signed a ____________ law, and the Parlaiment _____________ it. 14. In accordance with the __________

law, the Ministry started its work. 15. The du ties of the Secretariat for International

Affairs included ______________ state foreign affairs. 16. The

protection of _______________ of Ukrainian citizens beyond the borders

of the state was also the responsibility of the Secretariat for International

Affairs. 17. In addition, the Secretariat for International Affairs had a provisional

duty of ______________ of national disagreements within the

country. 18. The Forth Universal of the Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada was a

serious _____________ for further development of Ukrain ian foreign ____

________ service. 19. The Fourth Universal was _____________ public in

early 1918. 20. The Fourth Universal proclaimed ____________, self-determining,

free, ___________ state of Ukraine. 21. A ___________ of diplomatic

and _____________ missions started developing in 1918. 22. Diplomatic

and consular missions worked in accordance with state _________

___ and ______________ of the Secretariat for Foreign Affairs. 23. It was

necessary to lay the legal _____________ for diplomatic activity. 24. Laws

on the Foreign Missions were drafted by the _____________ of the Ukrainian

Foreign Ministry in 1918. 25. It was also decided to train _________

____ staff. 26. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry ___________ further ___

________ of contacts with the countries of the world. 27. The Ukrainian

Govern ment established _________ with the Entente countries. 28. The

____________ of France was called General ____________ of France to

the Government of Ukraine, while the _________________ of Great Britain

was just ______________ of Great Britain. 29. The young Ukrainian diplomacy

managed to take part in international peace ___________ at the enad

of 1917. 30. The Ukrainian delegation was among those who signed the first

___________ treaty of World War I.

7. Render the following proper names and realia into English.

1. Універсал Української Центральної Ради; 2. Українська Народна Рес-

публіка; 3. Генеральний Секретаріат; 4. Голова Генерального Секрета-

ріату Української Народної Республіки; 5. Генеральний секретар з між-

національних справ; 6. Генеральне секретарство міжнародних справ;

7. Уряд Української Народної Республіки; 8. Міністерство закордонних

справ; 9. Антанта; 10. Генеральний комісар Франції при уряді Украї-

ни; 11. Представник Великої Британії; 12. Володимир Винниченко;

13. Олександр Шульгин.

8. Work in pairs. Reproduce the text on the beginnings of Ukrainian

diplomacy during the Ukrainian People’s Republic period to your

partner. Use the headlines below as the backbone for your story.

0. The First Universal of the Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada and the

establishment of the Ukrainian diplomatic service

1. The Second Universal of the Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada and the

establishment of the Secre tariat for International Affairs and, later, the

Secre tariat for Foreign Affairs

2. The du ties of the Secretariat for Foreign Affairs

3. The Fourth Universal of the Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada and the

proclamation of independence.

4. The beginning of active work on the development of the Ukrainian

diplomatic service

5. Further establishment of international contacts

6. The first international negotiations

9. Read the text (adapted from the article by Volodymyr PANCHENKO

in The Day of February 3, 2004) and answer the following questions:

What diplomatic, political and military methods were used by the Soviet

Russia to install puppet regimes in the neighbouring countries? Why

did the Ukrainian People’s Republic turn out to be unable to defend

itself? What were the most serious diplomatic, political and military

mistakes made by the Ukrainian Tsentralna Rada? What diplomatic,

political and military measures should have been taken to avoid the collapse

of the Ukrainian People’s Republic?

Volodymyr and Yuriy, Two Hypostases of Tragedy

People my age never heard (and could not have heard) about it when studying

at school. They never read young Pavlo Tychyna’s poem Pamyati Trydtsiaty

(In Memory of Thirty [Martyrs]) with these lines:

They were buried at the Grave of Askold,

Thirty Ukrainian martyrs,

Young and courageous men.

The best sons of Ukraine

Were buried at the Grave of Askold.

We will have to step into this world,

Following a blood-covered path.

Contemporary school students learn that 86 years ago some 600 young defenders

of the Ukrainian National Republic engaged 4,000 Bolshevik troops

at the railroad station of Kruty, in a brave but futile attempt to stop their

advance on Kyiv (reads an entry in the Entsyklopediya Ukrainoznavstva [Encyclopedia

of Ukrainian Studies]), Half of them from the company made up

of the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Youth School, Studentsky Striletsky Kurin [Student

Sharpshooters Company], and Haidamaky Detachment were killed.

Among those that sacrificed their lives in the Battle of Kruty was Volodymyr

Shulhyn, 23 year-old student at Kyiv University’s physics and mathematics

department. Among the Bolshevik troops bringing from the north the red

star of socialism to Ukraine at the tips of their bayonets was 21-year-old

Yuriy Kotsiubynskyi, son of the great Ukrainian writer. Of almost the same

age, they had never met and found themselves at Kruty on the different sides

of the barricade. This confrontation symbolized the tragedy of a split and

ravaged Ukraine when its inner sharp political differences (as often happens

in history) were used by a third party.

Shulhyn came from a noted family. His father Yakiv Shulhyn was a member

of the Old Hromada, author of several precious historical papers. The

tsarist government would eventually exile him to Siberia. Volodymyr’s elder

brother Oleksandr would become foreign minister in Vynnychenko’s

cabinet. Volodymyr was destined to end his life at Kruty. He could have become

a scientist. While at the gymnasium [high school], he had developed a

fancy for archaeology and with his friend Levko Chykalenko would spend

every summer at diggings. Zolotyi Homin [The Golden Voice] of 1917 in

Kyiv, the tidal wave of national awakening swept him under and carried him

on its crest. The more so that the Ukrainian People’s Republic was born under

democratic slogans and against the background of social rejuvenation. And

so when Bolshevik forces began to advance on Kyiv Volodymyr Shulhyn

could be seen drilling in the ranks of the Support Student Company. UPR

was getting prepared to defend itself.

However, it was unable to do so. It did not even form a strong army (either

because there was no time or because it lacked the desire). In the end, several

hundred poorly trained and equipped students were massacred in the

Battle of Kruty. The Bolsheviks opened artillery fire on Kyiv January 31,

1918. Shells were flying from Darnytsia and exploding in Pechersk and near

St. Sophia Square. M.M. Mohylianskyi, one of the participants, counted

some 7,000 artillery shells fired in 17 hours, since 07:00 a.m. till 01:00 a.m.,

meaning 5–6 shots a minute. This lasted nine days.

On the next day of storming Kyiv, Yuriy Kotsiubynsky, people’s secretary

of the Soviet Ukrainian government, was appointed commander-in- chief of

the republic’s army, on Lenin’s recommendation. What kind of troops did

that yesterday’s ensign of the tsarist army have under his command? How

did he get to Kruty?

In the summer of 1916 (precisely when the student Volodymyr Shulhyn was

digging Paleolithic strata in the province of Chernihiv), Yuryi Kotsiubynskyi,

fresh from the high school of Chernihiv, was drafted into the tsarist

army. He spent several months training in the Odesa school for ensigns. In

February 1917, he refused to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government,

but was promoted ensign nevertheless, whereupon he was sent to

serve in Petrograd. Yuriy found himself in Ukraine after the October Bolshevik

coup (in which he had also taken part as a member of the Russian

Socialist Democratic Workers’ Party [RSDRP] since 1913; on the night of

storming the Winter Palace, he and a detachment of Baltic seamen stood

guard of the bridge where the cruiser Aurora was to cast anchor). He was

generally instructed to organize Red Army units. His latest post in Petrograd

was that of deputy chief commissar of military training institutions of the

Russian Soviet Republic.

On the last days of 1917, Yuriy was summoned by Yakov Sverdlov, Chairman

of the Central Executive Committee, Secretary of the RSDRP Central

Committee who entrusted him with a special mission that called for an immediate

trip to Ukraine. Shortly before their meeting a Soviet government

of Ukraine had suddenly materialized in Kharkiv, signifying the beginning

of a regime enforcement scenario that would be repeatedly played out by the

Soviet Union in Finland, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan.

As it was, Lenin, Sverdlov, et al., had decided it was time to establish Bolshevik

rule in Ukraine. To do so, the first act of the scenario provided for

stimulating inner instability in that territory, setting up and backing an opposition,

actually implementing the age-old divide-and-rule principle. Local

Bolsheviks were Soviet Russia’s key ally in Ukraine, in late 1917. There

were also changing moods of the mob to take into account, the more so

that Bolshevik propagandists knew how deal with the masses, relying on

Lenin’s powerfully arresting motto ‘Rob the robbers’! All told, efforts were

to be made to incite chaos and anarchy. RSDRP did not have a sufficiently

strong footing in Ukraine at the end of 1917. Yevheniya Bosh, one of the

Bolshevik leaders in Kyiv, recalled later that after the February revolution

their city party organization numbered only 200 members, mostly relying on

“revolutionary tailors” (sic). At the time, political power in Ukraine was in

the hands of the Central Rada, and the latter was actually a coalition body of

state administration. The Bolsheviks regarded it as bourgeois and counterrevolutionary

(and this considering that its leadership included Hrushevskyi

and Vynnychenko who signed decrees on democratic elections, socialization

of the land, and equal rights for all ethnic groups). Their logic was simple; if

one was not a Bolshevik, one was the enemy. So they demanded convocation

of the first all-Ukraine congress of Soviets. However, when it was called to

order, the RSDRP discovered it did not have the votes. Chagrinned, the Bolsheviks

left and held their own convention in Kharkiv, electing that Soviet

government of Ukraine. All this was done with Petrograd’s knowledge and

consent, of course. Thus the second act of the scenario was enacted, setting

up a puppet government. There were few people with Ukrainian names in it,

so Yuriy Kotsiubynskyi was a godsend to Yakov Sverdlov.

There are several very interesting aspects. Yevheniya Bosh says that when

the Kyiv Bolsheviks arrived in Kharkiv their local comrades in arms refused

to recognize them, busy with the idea of setting up the Republic of Donetsk

and Kryvy Rih that would be independent of both Russia and Ukraine, so

they were anything but happy to see the guests from Kyiv about to proclaim

a Soviet administration. The visitors were treated in a very humiliating

manner. Yevheniya Bosh and her comrades were offered accommodations

in vacant cells at the city jail. In her own words, it was “a dormitory

of the members of the first Soviet government.” Nor were the Kyiv guests

provided premises for the sittings, so they had to use audiences when they

were vacated at night.

The new government met with an even more unpleasant surprise when the

Council of People’s Commissars (CPC) sent an ultimatum to the Central

Rada without consulting the Kyiv RSDRP (B). The document was actually

a declaration of war on the UPR. The Kyiv Bolsheviks were prepared for

this and they did not have a considerable influence on the masses. Worse

so, the ultimatum made even those showing a cool attitude to the Rada its

accomplices.

Revolutionary troops under Antonov-Ovseyenko’s command were advancing

on Kyiv, so the local Soviet government could only bring up the rear

with the appropriate degree of enthusiasm.

The CPC’s attitude toward the Central Rada and UPR as such was expressly

hypocritical and treacherous. On the one hand, Soviet Russia could not act

against its own motto reading that all nations had the right to self-determination

(the Bolsheviks had needed it to hasten the end of the Russian empire),

but on the other, they wanted to make a world revolution as soon as possible,

primarily on the ruins of tsarist Russia. Therefore, CPC and its Chairman

Vladimir Lenin decided to recognize the UPR but make sure that the power

was in the hands of the workers and peasants, the way it allegedly was in

Petrograd, meaning that Ukraine would have to do as told by Russia, and

Petrograd would then take care of its self-determination. A case study in

Bolshevik mentality that would work the same way in 1920, when Budionnyi’s

cavalry troops were on their way to Poland with Feliks [Dzerzhinsky]

on the wagon train as the new Polish ruler; in 1939, when Otto Kuusinen

was planned by the Soviets as the new leader of conquered Finland; in 1956,

when Hungary was forced to fall in love with Janos Kadar. Or consider what

happened to Gustav Husak, Edward Gierek, Muhammed Nadzhibulla.

Lest I be accused of bias, below are testimonies by two of Yevheniya Bosh’s

comrades. Serhiy Mazlakh: “The Central Executive Committee of Ukraine

sat in Kharkiv, but its influence was never felt.” Volodymyr Zatonsky: “The

Russian Republic had to assist the Sovietization of Ukraine (in 1918) with

military force.” Military force, armed intervention — these are components

of the third act in the lasting scenario.

Yuriy Kotsiubynskyi was to act as a Ukrainian Nadzhibulla. However, at

21, the young man (incidentally, Yevheniya Bush’s future son-in-law) must

have felt happy. He believed in his being involved in a great worldwide revolution

destined to finally establish social justice. He believed that the Central

Rada he was to fight was indeed bourgeois and counterrevolutionary,

meaning that it defended hateful capitalism. He believed that the Ukrainian

Soviet Republic would emerge from the ruins of the old world order and

would flourish, meaning that all sacrifices made for its sake were divinely

justifiable; just as all sacrifices on the other side were the inevitable payment

for the coming commune. He had stayed away from Ukraine for a long time

and did not know how it actually lived and what it needed; he could not have

imagined that Volodymyr Shulhyn, almost his age, also wanted a free and

democratic Ukraine, but without a dictatorship, terror, and civil war. Shulhyn

and others like him could not be blamed for the Central Rada and its

General Secretariat being engrossed in endless discussions, inadvertently

creating the prerequisites for the Bolshevization of the masses.

And then the Bolsheviks were in Kyiv. Shulhyn was shot and his body remained

in the frozen earth at Kruty for almost two months. Yuriy Kotsiubynskyi

was the Red commander in chief, although everyone knew that Kyiv

had been taken by the troops of Remniov and Muraviov, formed using men

from various units of the tsarist army siding with the Soviets, also detachments

of seamen and Red Army men. The Soviet government [of Ukraine]

did not have an army of its own; all it had managed was issue a decree on

the formation of Red Cossacks (to be placed under the command of Yuriy’s

friend from Chernihiv Vitaliy Prymakov). All contemporaries, political affiliation

notwithstanding, testify that three weeks after the Bolshevik had

entered Kyiv were a period of formidable “Red terror.” They compare what

happened in Kyiv at the time to Batu Khan’s onslaught.

At a time when people would be shot for speaking Ukrainian (Petliura’s

language) or for wearing embroidered (nationalistic) sorochka shirts, for

having a portrait of Shevchenko in the sitting room, Yuriy Kotsiubynskyi

may have sensed for the first time that something was wrong. Those acting

on his behalf demonstrated complete disregard of his nation, treating

everything Ukrainian with great power superiority. What kind of Ukraine,

even Soviet one, could one expect from them? The young man must have

felt insulted deep inside, considering that he came from a Ukrainian intellectual

family. One of his father’s friends, writer Serhiy Yefremov, addressed

an open letter to Yuriy on the pages of the newspaper Nova Rada (and the

young man must have read it): “For ten days this city with a million residents,

among them innocent and defenseless children, women, and other

civilians has been dying of mortal fear. I used to know your father and was

very fond of him... Yet I say without hesitation that the man is very lucky

to be dead; fortunately, he cannot see or hear his son [Yuriy] Kotsiubynskyi

firing artillery shells at this gem of our beautiful land, killing our young

Ukrainian freedom!”

Yuriy was too young, his soul too pure and not as yet calloused, to read

these words without remorse. However, man can be blindfolded by what

he believes is the supreme idea. With people like him (Mykola Khvyliovyi

described them as “young fanatics of the commune”) such obsession turned

into the naive belief that the idea of socialism and shining future for the Red

Ukraine was worth thousands of human lives. It was a horrible delusion,

marking the beginning of the tragedy of that generation of Ukrainian intellectuals,

ranging from Mykola Skrypnyk to Volodymyr Zatonskyi to Yuriy

Kotsiubynskyi to Mykola Kulish to Mykola Khvyliovyi.

I mean a generation of young Ukrainian revolutionaries, national communists

that dreamed of achieving national liberation through a social

revolution. Their worst mistake was that they realized too late that their

Russian Bolshevik ally was afflicted with the mortal disease of great power

chauvinism and centralism getting increasingly severe and monstrous. In

addition, the machine of class struggle activated in 1917 required an increasing

number of victims. After proving a civil war, the Bolsheviks were

unable (maybe unwilling) to stop it. The civil war went on and the Moloch

of terror was now devouring his creators.

Time had to come when each of them would be terrified to become aware

of his involvement in and with that great evil. Skrypnyk and Khvyliovyi

each shot himself. Others back in the 1930s did not understand what was

happening. Yuriy Kotsiubynskyi was eventually relieved of all his important

governmental posts. He went to Moscow to restore justice and was arrested

February 12, 1935, when the Kotsiubynskyis were celebrated their

son Oleh’s birthday. Preparing for a long trip, Yuryi put on a Ukrainian embroidered

sorochka. Had he forgotten that his comrades had shot people for

doing so in February 1918?

What happened afterward is generally known. Siberia, then the Lukianivka

Penitentiary in Kyiv. Back in 1918, the Shulhyns had lived at 9 Monastyrska

St., a short walk from where Yuryi was now imprisoned. There are eyewitness

accounts about Yury Kotsiubynsky looking confused and forlorn in

prison. Then came that night in spring when he was taken out of his cell for

the last time in his life. Did he recall that first combat on his native Ukrainian

soil, at Kruty, on the road to his Calvary? No one knows

10. Write a 300-word essay on the diplomatic and political lessons of the

Ukrainian People’s Republic period for contemporary Ukraine.