Gomel city self-government during the establishment of the Ukrainian state in 1918
The purpose of the publication is to clarify the relationship between the Ukrainian state center and the city authorities of Gomel in the context of the accession of the Gomel region to the Ukrainian state. This issue is also important for studying the general experience of the city administration, as well as for the reconstruction of regional history, as Gomel demonstrated the case of the longest retention of elected city government in Belarus after October. According to the agreement of January 27 (February 9) 1918 between the UPR on the one hand and Germany, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria – on the other the southern districts of Grodno, Minsk and Mogilev provinces of the former North-Western region with ethnic Belarusian population were annexed. Ukraine and included in the process of Ukrainian state building. Gomel, the largest industrial and transport center on the Belarusian-Ukrainian-Russian border, also became part of Ukraine. In the conditions of establishment of structures of the Ukrainian state management and administration in Gomel district the activity of zemstvo-city self-government which party structure and state-political orientations were formed after February, 1917 and remained during short (from December, 1917 to the end of February, 1918) domination in the city of the Bolsheviks. The problem of the relationship between the hetman's government and local authorities in the annexed territories has not yet found its special study. The author of this text had to consider some institutional and personal aspects of the functioning of the Ukrainian authorities in the annexed Belarusian counties, as well as the issue of state identification of the Gomel Directory. The factual and institutional aspect of the topic was reflected in a thorough reference book on various government agencies in Belarus during the military-revolutionary period of 1917–1920. New sources of information for the topic were created by the publication of reports of the highest representatives of the Hetman's power on the ...