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Content (2019, Issue 1)
Yakymovych B. The Causes of the Defeat of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic: Invasion, Inactivity or Treason?Section: Historian's Reflections Abstract: The objective of the research: find out whether the Western-Ukrainian People’s Republic (ZUNR) was ever able to retain control over the Ukrainian ethnic territory obtained from the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy in the ZUNR’s fight against the land claims of the reviving Polish state over the same territory. Methodology of the research is based on the principle of historicism, comparative synchronic analysis of the events, which took place at different locations of the Polish Republic and ZUNR, synthesis of real opportunities and individual errors, and comparative method. Scientific novelty consists in the sourced substantiation of a realistic opportunity for a normal existence of the Ukrainian statehood, were it not for the wasted time and certain errors of the state-building and defending against the Polish intruders. Conclusions: While regarding the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 and the establishing of the Western-Ukrainian People’s Republic as the second most important phenomenon in the history of the Ukrainian people after the establishment of the Cossack State under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi in the 18th century, the author of the present study pays a special attention to the mistakes of the political and army leadership of the Galicians, which caused the demise of the state in the Halychyna-Bukovyna-Zakarpattia region. The author identifies three time periods, during which it was possible to send the Polish occupiers away from the territory of the Eastern Halychyna. (1. Retain control over Przemysl and subsequently not retreat from the the capital, Lviv, in November 1918; 2. Take advantage of the problems of the reviving Polish state in Poznan and Silesia regions in December 1918; and 3. Definitely succeed in the Vovchukhy Operation in February 1919.) The work of the ZUNR diplomatic corps was not entirely effective either, political will for the realization of the full-scale military draft and arming the conscripts with the substantial quantity of fine weaponry was lacking, while some gross mistakes on the side of the defense division and the Commanding Staff of the Galician Army chaired by Gen. Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko took place. It was the wasted time, disorientation in the Polish domestic contradictions, disarrangement of the rear (particularly in the Drohobych region governed by an influential Galician politician and demagogue Semen Vityk), failure to enforce the Act of Unification of the ZUNR and the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR), as well as the developments in the Naddniprianshchyna region caused the demise of the ZUNR. The latter found itself face to face with the might of the revived Polish state already in the second quarter of 1919. Just at that time the Entente, along with a neutral position of the United States, supplied the Poles with considerable forces and means, so the Ukrainians, being surrounded by Poland, Romania, and the Russian White and Red invaders, lost their bid for independence and found themselves divided among the neighboring powers for a long time. Keywords: Western-Ukrainian People’s Republic (ZUNR), Lviv, Peremyshl (Przemysl), Dmytro Vitovskyi, Hnat Stepaniv, Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko. Author(s) citation:
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