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Koszalin Institute
of Comparative European Studies (KICES)
ul.
Zielona 13/1
75664 Koszalin
Poland
info@kices.org
www.kices.org |
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Traitors, fools or patriots? The Change of Landmarks in the Ukrainian
emigration
Researcher responsible: Christopher Richard Gilley
Duration: 2003 – 2007
Research question and analytical framework
The concept of Smenovekhovstvo is well known among students of the
Russian emigration in the 1920s. In July 1921 an collection of articles
appeared, written by six Russian émigrés, five of whom had taken part in the
White struggle against the Bolsheviks. Its authors called upon the Russian
émigrés to end their opposition to the Bolsheviks and go back to their
homeland in order to help the Soviets in the reconstruction of the Russian
state. The title of the book was Smena vekh, or ‘Change of
Signposts’. This position became known as Smenovekhovstvo.
At the
same time, many figures central to Ukrainian culture and political life, who
had played pivotal roles in the revolutions of 1917-1921, began to advocate
reconciliation with the Bolsheviks and return to the Ukraine. These included
Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Mykola Porsh, Pavlo Khrystiuk
and Andrii Nikovskyi. In addition, following the March decision on Galicia
in 1923, a number of prominent Galician academics and intellectuals took up
the same stance. Stepan Rudnytskyi, Mykhailo Lozynskyi, Iuliian Bachynskyi
and Antin Krushelnytskyi all belong to this group.
Until
now, this movement has received little serious attention in the literature
on the period. My thesis seeks to readdress the balance through an
exposition and analysis of the arguments used by the Ukrainian
Smenovekhovtsy to justify compromise with their erstwhile foes. The
appearance, development and decline of this movement is described, as is its
relationship to the Soviet regime. Moreover, I depict the process by which
the Soviets’ worked out a policy towards the different groups. Other
chapters portray the reaction within the Ukrainian emigration to Ukrainian
Smenovekhovstvo and compare the Ukrainian movement to that within the
Russian emigration.
I argue
that until 1923 Ukrainian Smenovekhovstvo was primarily a phenomenon
of the emigration from the Greater Ukraine (those lands which had been ruled
by the Tsars before 1917). Men like Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Mykhailo
Hrushevskyi argued that the Bolsheviks were the leaders of the world
revolution and therefore all Ukrainian socialists should support them,
despite the harm they had inflicted on Ukrainian national aspirations. At
this time the spread of the revolution to the rest of Europe still seemed
like a real possibility. Others, for example the soldiers of the UNR army
interned in Poland, had non-political motives for returning, such as home
sickness and the difficulties of émigré life. In 1923 this movement began to
weaken as many who were prepared to reconcile themselves to the Soviet
regime had already gone back. However, following the recognition of Poland’s
occupation of Galicia in March of that year by the Council of Ambassadors, a
surge of pro-Soviet sentiment swept the province. A number of Galician
émigrés, too, took up an orientation towards the Soviet regime, arguing that
the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was a truly Ukrainian state. The introduction
of a policy of Ukrainianisation in the Ukrainian SSR seemed to confirm this
claim. Only at the end of the decade, on account of the official attacks on
the supporters of Ukrainianisation within the KP(b)U, did such a position
become untenable.
Though
Ukrainian Smenovekhovstvo had virtually disappeared by the 1930s, a
study of it gives a fuller picture of the processes which the Ukrainian
emigration underwent during the 1920s. Previous accounts have stressed that
the trend was, in the words of Alexander Motyl’s seminal study, a ‘turn to
the right’, by which a radical form of integral nationalism came to dominant
the political thought of the period. However, my thesis shows that in fact
this came about through a polarisation, according to which the left-wing
Ukrainians stressed the socialist side of their thought. The result was
Ukrainian Smenovekhovstvo, which weakened the Ukrainian émigré left
by splitting the Ukrainian socialist parties and enticing many of their
members back to their homeland. In this sense, the ‘turn to the right’ was
also a product of the ‘decline of the left’.
Publications
Christopher Gilley: The “Change of Signposts” in the Ukrainian emigration: Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi and the Foreign Delegation of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries,
in: Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Vol. 54 (2006), No. 3, pp.345-374.
Christopher Gilley: The 'Turn to the Left': West Ukrainian Sovietophilism in the 1920s,
KICES Working Paper No. 4 (March 2006).
Christopher Gilley: Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s mission to Moscow and Kharkov, in: Slavonic and East European Review, Vol.84 (2006), No.3, pp.508-37.
Christopher Gilley: Sovietophilism in the Ukrainian Emigration in the 1920s, in: Ukrainskyi vymir, 2006, No.5, pp.9-19.
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