Ukrainian Democratization
A history of Ukrainian democratization.
Contents
Ruthenian Principalities
The nobility of Ruthenian principalities frequently assassinated, deposed, or invited new princes. This typically was done along the lines of which party could be bargained with to maximize their influence.
Cossack Hetmanate
Within the Commonwealth, Cossacks were a powerful nomadic and mercenary force. Following the Khmelnytsky Uprising in 1648, a Cossack hetmanate was established. This was effectively a military council dictatorship; the council of starshyna elected (and deposed) a hetman with supreme power. These elections were semi-hereditary.
The first hetman, Bohdan, pledged suzerainty to Alexis. The hetmanate would be warred over and partitioned between the Commonwealth and Russia for almost a century, until Catherine II abolished it in 1764.
The partitioning stuck along the Dnieper River, establishing Left-bank Ukraine and Right-bank Ukraine.
Russian Civil War
Following the February Revolution, the first incarnation of the Ukrainian People's Republic appeared. It accepted the supremacy of the Russian Provisional Government with expectation of significant autonomy. The Bolsheviks rapidly gained influence in the new republic.
The occupying Germans overthrew the republic and established a more traditional Ukrainian State led by hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi. By December he would be deposed, and the second incarnation of the Ukrainian People's Republic appeared
Meanwhile, with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Left-bank Ukraine saw the emergence of an independent West Ukrainian People's Republic. Nominally, it would join with the other republic to establish the third incarnation of the Ukrainian People's Republic. However, control over the Western Oblast deteriorated rapidly. The ethnically Polish population, which was especially dense in urban areas, rebelled. Poland itself began an invasion.
Ultimately the republic was torn apart by diametric security dilemmas: the western army signed a defense pact with the White Army and abandoned the union, while the eastern government bartered the Western Oblast away to Poland.
Soviet Socialist Republic
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukraine SSR) was declared in Kharkiv in 1919 and, with support from the Red Army, came to dominate the region.