Freedom and dignity have always been fundamental values for Ukrainians. They motivated the struggle for independence.
The modern history of Ukraine has three stages of revival of an independent state on all Ukrainian ethnic lands:
The First Liberation Struggle (1917-1921) - the creation of a state in the aftermath of the First World War;
The Second Liberation Struggle (1938-1950) - the creation of an independent state in the context of World War II;
Third liberation struggle (since 2014) - protection and defense of the state in the context of Russian aggression.
On the occasion of Ukraine's Independence Day, we offer a closer look at the latest stages of the Ukrainian people's heroic struggle for a united and independent state.
After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, a number of attempts to build an autonomous and later an independent state took place on the then Ukrainian territories. The first step toward restoring Ukraine's independence was the establishment of the Ukrainian Central Rada in Kyiv on March 17, 1917, headed by Mykhailo Hrushevsky.
The Ukrainian National Congress, which took place on April 17-21, 1917, was essentially a Ukrainian constituent assembly that transformed the Ukrainian Central Rada into a revolutionary parliament. After the congress, the Ukrainian Central Rada elected an executive body, a committee, later called the Minor Rada. The state-building activities of the Ukrainian Central Rada are reflected in the four universals it proclaimed. The first Universal, adopted on June 23, 1917, and proclaimed at the Second Military Congress in Kyiv, proclaimed Ukraine's autonomy, defined its attitude to the Russian Provisional Government, and stated that only the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly (Soym) had the right to pass laws in Ukraine. The General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Central Rada, an executive body headed by Volodymyr Vynnychenko, was soon established. In 1917, military affairs were managed by Symon Petliura on the initiative of the newly formed government.
On November 20, 1917, the UCR proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic, which included Kyiv, Chernihiv, Volyn, Podillia, Poltava, Kharkiv, Katerynoslav, Kherson, and Tavriya (without Crimea) provinces, in its Third Universal.
On January 22, 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed Ukraine's independence and independence by the Fourth Universal.
At the end of January 1918, the UCR adopted an agrarian law on land nationalization in Kyiv. Subsequently, in Zhytomyr, the Minor Rada adopted a number of laws, including the monetary system, the state emblem, citizenship, and a new administrative division and calendar style.
On February 9, 1918, the Brest Peace Treaty was signed between the UPR and Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. By this treaty, the Quadruple Alliance recognized the UPR as an independent state, defined the western borders of Ukraine, established diplomatic relations with it, and regulated the exchange of prisoners of war, as well as economic relations and mutual exchange of goods.
On April 29, 1918, the UCR session ratified the UPR Constitution and elected Mykhailo Hrushevsky as president, but on the same day, conservative circles supported by the Germans at the congress of the Union of Landowners of Ukraine staged a coup d'état and proclaimed General Pavlo Skoropadsky hetman of Ukraine.
Ukrainian political parties that were in opposition to the hetman formed the Ukrainian National Union (UNU) in early August 1918. On November 13, 1918, the UNS created the Directorate of the Ukrainian People's Republic (hereinafter - the Directorate) to lead the anti-Hetman uprising.
In order to counter Bolshevik propaganda, the Directory, together with representatives of political parties, in December 1918 adopted the so-called labor principle as the basis for building the government, according to which power in the provinces and districts was to be vested in labor councils of workers, peasants, and labor intellectuals without the participation of landlords and capitalists. The central government was elected by the Labor Congress.
On January 23-28, 1919, during a session of the Labor Congress in Kyiv, the Act of Unification of the UPR and ZUNR was approved. The Congress also temporarily transferred legislative and supreme power in Ukraine to the Directory, supplemented by a representative of the ZUNR, and adopted the principle of universal suffrage for the creation of the future Ukrainian parliament.
In the course of the first liberation struggle, the Ukrainian state managed to create its own army, which fought for several years, introduce its own money, and open several universities and a hundred schools. A national archive, library, and academy of sciences were established.