Von Hagen speaks in Kansas on Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky

by Jennie Dienes

LAWRENCE, Kansas - Prof. Mark von Hagen, president of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies, presented a lecture titled "I Love Russia but Want Ukraine: or How a Russian General Became Hetman Skoropadsky of the Ukrainian State" here on April 27.

The lecture also celebrated the 25th anniversary of such presentations supported by the Maria Palij Memorial Fund that was established by Dr. Michael Palij, a longtime Slavic librarian and professor of Ukrainian history at the University of Kansas. The event was hosted by the university's department of history and the Center for Russian and East European Studies.

Prof. von Hagen's current research into the development of Ukrainian identity during the 1920s and World War II led him to investigate the memoirs of Gen. Pavlo Skoropadsky, originally written in Russian but unavailable to researchers in Ukrainian translation until 1999. And, sometimes, messages can be lost in translation. Also, memoirs tend not to follow a straight line from point "a" to point "b" and so on, but meander.

Yes, Pavlo Skoropadsky was a Russian general, but his roots were deep in Ukrainian Kozak history that went back to Peter the Great's time. Ironically, though he was born in Germany, he became Hetman of Ukraine during 1917 to 1918 under German occupation forces. At an early age his parents returned to Poltava Gubernia, where he spoke only broken Russian and no Ukrainian. A local priest became his teacher to overcome these inadequacies. His education included cadet training in St. Petersburg, and he rose through the ranks of the Russian military during the Russo-Japanese War and other military conflicts of the time. In spite of the fact that he served so well, the imperial troops rejected Skoropadsky because he was a Ukrainian.

His transformation into a Ukrainian occurred over a short period of some six months, and then he set about Ukrainianizing his army corps.

These were turbulent and confusing times: a world war - mixed in with revolution in Russia, intensified by German occupation in Ukraine and spiced with the desire of Ukrainians to be free of Russian and other domination. Peasants, having a chance at owning their own land, were not willing to let it go. Socialists had their own agenda on government and social issues. Even religious beliefs (Orthodox and Greek-Catholic) were divisive issues. Galician Ukrainians were not interested in federalism. Bolsheviks, though in the minority, were trying to establish a foothold in the area.

Thus, tsarist troops, Bolsheviks, peasant brigades, Germans and Ukrainians, divided into so many camps, created a patchwork that did not want to be sewn together. For a short time, Hetman Skoropadsky, under German "protection," was able to pull things together and build up civic, cultural and educational institutions.

During the war, the government in St. Petersburg, and later the German occupation force, opposed his attempts to train a Ukrainian army that could have provided some defense for Ukraine once the Germans left - but this did not happen. The small police force that he was able to create had little power. As the Germans withdrew, he left with them and died in Germany in 1945 as a result of Allied bombing.

As Prof. von Hagen's research into the hetman's memoirs showed, Skoropadsky had too many strikes against him. He was attacked from all sides. The Whites mistrusted him because he was Ukrainian and asserting his Ukrainian-ness. Although he believed that Ukraine's future strength would be based on strong peasant culture, his views on peasant land ownership was not the same as theirs. Many Ukrainians didn't trust him since he had been part of the Russian imperial military. Being under German "protection" brought charges that he ran only a puppet government. He and the Bolsheviks (whether Russian or Ukrainian) had no love or trust for each other.

One might marvel at how much Skoropadsky was able to accomplish in such a short period of time. One may also wonder whether a longer rule with him at the helm would have given Ukraine an earlier chance at becoming and remaining an independent state. This may be wishful speculation at this time, almost 100 years later, yet there may be kernels of wisdom to learn from Skoropadsky's efforts at nation-building and advancing Ukrainian identity.

In Skoropadsky's memoirs, we "see" through his newly acquired Ukrainian-ness what he saw - divergent directions in which citizens of the country were pulled. With such diametrically opposite forces at work on so many fronts one can only imagine "what might have been" had he managed to gain full control of the Kyiv government and move it and the country to full independence. The lessons learned by serious study of his memoirs could give fresh insights for the current independent Ukraine, Prof. von Hagen concluded.

Jennie Dienes is map librarian and cataloguer at the University of Kansas.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 6, 2004, No. 23, Vol. LXXII

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