1994 Reports

The Dilemmas of Ukrainian Independence and Statehood, 1917-1921

Von Hagen, Mark

The brief experience of contemporary post-Soviet Ukraine has generated much speculation about the viability of this new member of the international community. As Ukraine and many other East Central European states celebrate the 75th anniversaries of their first efforts at statehood after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires in 1918, political commentators look for the "lessons" of history, while historians have begun to reexamine that turbulent period. This paper attempts to identify contextual factors that help explain the failure of the Ukrainian statehood project during the Revolution and Civil War, by comparing the situation of Ukraine with other contemporary incipient states, such as the Transcaucasian ones, and those states that succeeded to political independence, including Poland, the Baltics, other East Central European states, the Soviet Russian state, and finally, with the failed White anti-Bolshevik incipient states.