Latest Chapter to Independence Began a Century Ago

Ukraine’s 1,000-year-old history is dotted with full-blown efforts by the people to purge its land of foreign invaders and establish an independent, sovereign and indivisible country for themselves, a country where they would be rulers of their common destiny and would take advantage of their natural resources.

The burning aspirations to independence were not isolated to one region, or one religious affiliation, or one set of people. This dynamic and visible desire was demonstrated by all categories and classes of Ukrainians. Winning independence and solidifying it was a national effort by Ukrainians of all times.

A century ago, Ukrainians from eastern and western Ukraine embarked on their journey to independence that carried them through bloody wars, barbaric recriminations, inhuman famine, and liberation dissent until the goal was attained on August 24, 1991.

Prof. Nicholas Czubatyj, historian, professor at the Greek-Catholic Theological Academy in Lviv, vice-director of the Historical Department of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, and editor-in-chief of The Ukrainian Quarterly, fittingly summarized this passion: “The Ukrainian’s love of freedom is truly mystical and it makes his (and her—ID) life almost intolerable under the autocratic and despotic Russian rule. The Ukrainian democratic character has also been in constant conflict with the aristocratic mentality of the Poles.”

Three important, memorable dates from the latter years of World War I, when Ukraine was fighting for its existence against Red and White Russians and other invaders as the West passively watched, have been inscribed in the hearts and souls of the people: January 22, 1918, when Ukraine declared its independence from the Russian empire and established the Ukrainian National Republic by way of the Fourth Universal, November 1, 1918, when western Ukrainians declared their independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and created the Western Ukrainian National Republic, and January 22, 1919, when eastern and western Ukraine united into a single indivisible, independent and sovereign Ukrainian National Republic.

The path to independence was not easy. While most of the leaders of the nation kept their eyes on the goal of total independence, others, instigated by Tsarist and Communist Russians, fomented dissent with the aim of subverting this campaign and keeping Ukraine a nameless subjugated region of Russia.

Czubatyj pointed out that in course of the development and refinement of the Ukrainian independence thought a century ago, the Founding Fathers of independent Ukraine realized that none of the political trends emanating from Moscow – Tsarist, communist or liberal democratic – would ever benefit Ukraine. Russia’s penchant for deception, aggression and subjugation of Ukraine would never evaporate. The Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-21 is proof of Moscow’s never-ending mission of permanently keeping Ukraine in its prison of nations.

The events of the past century and especially current history demonstrate that Russia does not change its imperial stripes except only for the descriptor: tsarist, communist and federal – basically Moscow is all the same. The long and the short of Russia, all its leaders, royal, communist or federal, is imperial, fulfilled daily through aggression, belligerence, intimidation and subversion.

Ukrainians by and large understood this in the months leading to the Fourth Universal. Czubatyj wrote: “The Ukrainian Legion bore on its flags the slogan, ‘War against Russia for the freedom of the Ukrainian nation.’”

The leaders of the independence movement worked steadfastly in convincing the people that not only freedom and independence are important but also complete and total separation from Russia. They also showed that not only Tsarist Russia was the enemy of the Ukrainian nation but also Russian democrats, communists and socialists. As a result, the Founding Father correctly determined that total independence and sovereignty for Ukraine is its only salvation – consequently the Fourth Universal of January 22, 1918, and the Act of Union of January 22, 1919.

“Thus it was no wonder that after a few months of the Russian revolution, when ‘the holiday of the revolution ended and the weekdays arrived,’ as expressed by Professor Hrushevsky, president of the Ukrainian Revolutionary Parliament, all the Ukrainian political groups quickly abandoned their former federalistic program for Ukraine and began to advocate the platform of full independence. The fall of Austria at the end of the war enabled the Austrian Ukraine to unite with Eastern Ukraine and to realize not only the ideal of independence, but also the ideal of a United Ukrainian Democratic Republic,” Czubatyj wrote.

The Founding Fathers of independent Ukraine wrote: “The Ukrainian people did not cast off the Tsarist yoke only to take upon themselves the yoke of the Commissars.”

And the nation was forced to fight on with words and bayonets until 1918-19, when independence and indivisibility were finally seized.

“The Ukrainian people have determined their future fate. They have manifested to the world in the blood that they have shed that their supreme desire is to be a free and united nation in Eastern Europe, regardless of the future selected for them by foreign powers, the rulers of the world. The living Ukrainians will never deny or give up the decisions and the high ideals of their fathers and forefathers,” Czubatyj wrote. “The period from January 22, 1919, to the present proves that existence of this supreme ideal of the Ukrainian people. During this period millions of Ukrainians have sacrificed their lives on scaffolds, have been shot and exiled to the icy wastes of the Arctic. The strength and inspiration received from this act of union enable the revolutionaries of Western and Eastern Ukraine to wage, since the last war an unceasing struggle against the foreign domination of their native land.”

In the ensuing 100 years, the Ukrainian nation – people of all walks of life – were called upon numerous times to fight for and defend its independence. They fought in the cities, steppes and mountains, they declared the independence of Carpatho-Ukraine in 1938 and then of Ukraine on June 30, 1941, in the concentration camps, through the era of intellectual liberation and the Revolution of Dignity on Maidan, and, as Czubatyj wrote, thanks to the “hundreds of those who perished on the scaffold, the thousands who were shot against a wall, and the millions who were starved and exiled from their native land,” the Ukrainian nation ultimately irreversibly persevered on August 24, 1991.

These events have inspired and emboldened each successive generation of Ukrainians.

Despite today’s Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-21 and Moscow’s ongoing efforts to conquer and subjugate the nation and land, the people of Ukraine and its combat-experienced armed forces will ensure that Moscow will never be allowed to lower the Ukrainian national flag in Kyiv.