Ukrainian self-determination in geopolitical plans for the victorious countries in world war I ; Самовизначення українців у геополітичних мотиваціях країн-переможниць у Першій світовій війні

Abstract

The author pays attention to principally different positions of the countries-winners in the First World War regarding the possibility of Ukrainians living on Russian and Austrian ethnic territories to realize their right to express their identity. The author starts his analysis with the closing period of war when there was an urgent need for defining of international political status of the Russian Empire which was experiencing revolutionary transformations. Austrian-Hungarian Empire also faces the need for political transformation and reestablishment of the whole Central Europe. The author argues that it is simply impossible to ignore the problem of self-identification of Ukrainian nation in the system of international relations during the closing period of the First World War and after-war period. With the help of peaceful Brest-Litovsk Treaties between the countries of the Fourth International Unity and the Ukrainian National Republic and Soviet Russia there were created the legal foundations of Ukrainian self-identification on the territories of the Western Ukraine. During the closing war period Ukraine actively took part as a subject in the system of international economic relations. That is why, not only the basis of political statehood was created, but also economical prerequisites which could not have been ignored. There has also been made an analysis of the political circles of the countries-winners in the First World War which could have had impact on the national self-identification of Ukrainians. The author pays attention to the peculiarities and all the conditions related to the position of all the major countries concerning self-identification of those Ukrainians who lived on their own ethnic territories which at that time were parts of the Russian Empire as well as Ukrainians who lived on the territories which belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The author has also made the analysis of the individual approach of the countrieswinners of the First World War to the self-identification of Ukrainians who lived on the territories of the former Russian and Austrian-Hungarian Empires and all the factors which had an impact on the formation of different positions of the countries-winners. A particular attention has been paid to the problem of interrelations of self-identification of Ukrainians and other nations living in the Central Europe. Predominantly the analysis of the Ukrainian question in the context of after-war restructuring of Polish and Romanian nations has been made. The author comes to a conclusion that the position of countries-winners has been formed under the determined impact of France which used the implicit arguments in favor of this position, namely necessity to rebuild the most vivid countries in the Central Europe, the absence of social disposition of Ukrainian nation required for rebuilding of statehood, necessity to avoid active involvement of Ukrainians into the ethnical-political processes on the territories of the former Russian Empire. ; У статті досліджується процес формування політичними колами країн-пере- можниць у Першій світовій війні позиції щодо державницького самовизначення українців. Автор звертає увагу на особливості та зумовленість позиції кожної з Голов- них Держав у питанні самовизначення українців, які проживали на етнічних територіях у складі як Російської імперії, так і Австро-Угорської імперії.