February 12, 2015

What happened to January 22, 1918?

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The year 988, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, “chaiky,” Ivan Mazepa, Shevchenko, Kobzar, “Pershoho Lystopada” (November 1), Kruty and January 22, 1918. These are the bare minimum dates and names that any Ukrainian kid remembers from Saturday Ukrainian school, or “Ridna Shkola.”

Yes, January 22, 1918 – the first Ukrainian Independence Day, the Fourth Universal, the Ukrainian National Republic. The next year, on the same day, the Unification of Ukrainian Lands took place. But without independence declared in 1918, the unification would not have happened. On Pershoho Lystopada – November 1, 1918, the Western Ukrainian National Republic was proclaimed.

Why am I bringing up this basic fact of Ukrainian history? Because the specter of Russian/Soviet influence still hangs over Ukraine (in so many ways). The country held celebrations and commemorations of unification a few weeks ago. But there is barely any mention at all of that first Independence Day, with Dr. Mykhailo Hrushevsky as president. The same Hrushevsky who “did not exist” for Soviet Ukrainian scholarship and whose works were in the closed forbidden stacks of libraries (for which you needed convoluted permission to access), and whose name was anathema and deleted from the library catalogues.

This is strange. Even stranger is that this year, on this anniversary, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress issued a statement similar to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs press releases, without the information in the second paragraph about 1918.

The Ukrainian ministry’s press release states the following and does mention the 1918 dates in the full statement:

“On January 22, Ukrainians around the world are celebrating the Day of Unification. On that day in 1919 on the St. Sophia Square in Kyiv was officially announced the ‘Act of Unification’ of the Ukrainian National Republic and Western Ukrainian National Republic. Officially in Ukraine the Day of Unification has [been] celebrated since 1999.

“[The] Historical Unification Act was preceded by years of struggle of Ukrainian[s] for the territorial integrity, which was extremely important to fight for national interests. [The] Ukrainian state was fragmented and only in January 1918 was created the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), and in October 1918 (on the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) – the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic (ZUNR). In December 1918, the leaders of the UNR and ZUNR signed an agreement of intent to merge and population in both entities in one state, which in 1919 was named ‘Act of Unification.’ Shortly after the events of 1919, Ukraine has been divided again, but unification of the Ukrainian territories in a single unified country demonstrated the readiness of Ukrainians [to] have their own state…”

On January 22 in Ottawa, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) issued the following statement on the anniversary of the Day of Unity of Ukraine: “The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) greets Ukrainians the world over on this anniversary of the Day of Unity of Ukraine. On January 22, 1919, Ukrainian lands were united into a single independent state…”

In Ukraine, the condensed versions of information about the celebrations of this historic event mention only the Unification of 1919 – and this is what most Ukrainians now know. August 24 is now the official Independence Day. In the great scheme of things, at least there still is an independence day for Ukraine, but the long-fought battles to achieve this should not be forgotten.

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