In order to modernize his state,
Peter I, the first
Emperor of Russia, hired a number of Ukrainian intellectuals, who conceived the idea of political continuity from
Kyiv to
Moscow and developed the concept of "
Little Russia" (Ukraine) as opposed to "Greater Russia" (
Muscovy) as parts of a common state project. As a result, the
Russian Empire could be considered to be a brainchild of Ukrainians, who underlined their symbolical status as co-founders and co-owners of the empire. However, with time "Little Russia" was downgraded to the status of a mere province, and its elites had to suffice themselves with the role of regional administrators. This process culminated in the abolition of the autonomy of the
Cossack Hetmanate in 1764 and was accompanied with both Russification of the local elite, as well as mass resettlement of
ethnic Russians into Ukrainian lands.
Peter I and his successors , whose activities were restricted under the rule of Peter I The increasing limitation of Ukrainian autonomy following the
Battle of Poltava in 1709 constributed to the process of Russification. In 1734 Empress
Anna Ioannovna issued a secret instruction to the
Governing Council of the Hetman Office led by
Prince Shakhovskoy, ordering him to introduce a policy of assimilation between Ukrainians and Russians through promotion of mixed marriages.
Catherine the Great Status of the Cossack Hetmanate Among those who helped
Catherine II ascend to the Russian throne through a coup was
Kirill Razumovsky, the president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and
Hetman of the autonomous Cossack state, the Hetmanate. The Hetman's plans for Cossack Ukraine were extensive and included strengthening its autonomy and institutions; many in the Hetmanate were hopeful for Catherine's rule, but would soon realise her policy towards them. In the fall of 1762, a few months after Catherine's coronation, a scribe in
Hlukhiv, the capital of the Hetmanate, named Semen Divovych, produced the poem "A Conversation between Great Russia and Little Russia" "Great Russia: Do you know with whom you are speaking, or have you forgotten? I am Russia, after all: do you ignore me?" Little Russia: I know that you are Russia; that is my name as well. Why do you intimidate me? I myself am trying to put on a brave face. I did not submit to you but to your sovereign, Under whose auspices you were born of your ancestors. Do not think that you are my master: Your sovereign and mine is our common ruler" Some historians perceive these passages to show that the Hetmanate and those within it believed they were connected to the Russian Empire not by a common nation or fatherland but only
by the name and the person of the ruler.
Abolition of the Hetmanate , near the
Administration of the President of Ukraine. A woman with a "stitched mouth" is holding the text of the instruction. In February 1764, a few months before the liquidation of the office of Hetman, Catherine wrote to the
Prosecutor General of the
Senate Prince
Alexander Vyazemsky: These territories were later redrawn as the
Kiev,
Chernigov, and
Novgorod-Seversky Governorates in the Empire. Following the incorporation of the Hetmanate into the Empire, the Cossack officers gradually integrated into the Russian structure, though often with difficulty as many maintained attachment to their traditional homeland. All institutions of the Hetmanate were abolished within a decade. According to historian
Serhii Plokhy, "the abolition of the Hetmanate and the gradual elimination of its institution and military structure ended the notion of partnership and equality between Great and Little Russia imagined by generations of Ukrainian intellectuals." By 1796, there were almost no Uniate parishes in
Right-Bank Ukraine. However, this effort was less successful in Central Belarus and
Volhynia, where 1.4 million Uniates remained by the end of Catherine's rule, a mere 600,000-person drop since the Third Partition. Paul continued the practice or expanding feudal possessions, and in 1796 allowed the
enserfment of peasants in
Southern Ukraine. Nevertheless, some changes did take place under the new monarch's rule: following his accession to the throne, he abolished Catherine's administrative reforms, replacing
viceroyalties with
governorates and restoring elements of the local court system, and stopped persecution of the Uniate Church. At the same time, Paul's attempts to introduce a
police regime with strict
censorship made him hugely unpopular among both the common folk, nobles and the army, leading to his overthrow and assassination. At the same time, Alexander's administration preserved some elements of local autonomy in Ukrainian lands, retaining the position of
military governor in Little Russia and restoring the
Magdeburg Law to
Kyiv. The emperor's government allowed transit trade between Ukrainian lands wand
Western Europe, declared
Odessa a
free port and founded new universities in
Kharkiv,
Nizhyn and
Odessa. Alexander's rule saw the rise of Ukrainian national consciousness, demonstrated among others by the creation of a number of secret societies and emergence of patriotic works such as
History of Ruthenians.
Cultural Russification efforts under Uvarov , 1844 A week after the fall of Warsaw and the end of the
November Uprising, on September 14, 1831, the imperial government created a special body known as the Committee on the Western Provinces or "Western Committee," established on the oral and secret order of Nicholas and charged with "examining various proposals concerning the provinces regained from Poland." The overriding goal of the authoritative body was the speedy and complete integration of the new Ukrainian provinces into the empire. The policy of Russification (obrusenie) that Catherine had formulated for the Hetmanate was now to become official policy for the newly annexed territories of Poland with a Ukrainian majority. Administrative, legal and social measures were all utilised to bring the new regions into line with the Russian provinces. The circular was directed mainly against Ukrainian intellectuals and their efforts to introduce their language into churches and schools. The circular directed the attention of censors to the publication of Ukrainian ranging from writings for a narrow group of intellectual to literature for the masses. Valuev wrote, "there has never been, is not, and cannot be any separate Little Russian language", "the so-called Ukrainian language". The Valuev circular intended to prevent the distribution of Ukrainian language publications among the common people and prohibited the publication of educational and religious texts in Ukrainian. According to historian Serhii Plokhy, the Valuev Circular "had profound effects on the development of the Ukrainian culture and identity." When the Valuev Circular was first introduced in 1863, thirty-three Ukrainian language publications had appeared in print; by 1868 their number had been reduced to one. The government had effectively arrested the development of the Ukrainian language and high culture. The Ems Decree, although modified in 1881 in order to allow theatrical performances in Ukrainian language, would remain valid until 1905. The emergence of
Ukrainian professional theatre under
Marko Kropyvnytsky, which followed the partial relaxation of the language ban, soon caused a new wave of repression by authorities. In 1883
Alexander Drenteln, the
Governor-General of Kyiv, banned Ukrainian plays in the region, and in 1884 Alexander III himself issued a decree prohibiting theatrical performances in Ukrainian in all "Little Russian" governorates. In the sphere of publishing, the printing of Ukrainian dictionaries was allowed, but original works of literature could only be printed in
Russian orthography. In 1888 imperial authorities introduced a ban on the use of Ukrainian language in government institutions, and outlawed the baptism of children under
Ukrainian names.
Nicholas II Ukrainians in the Duma representing
Podolia Governorate After
Bloody Sunday of 1905 and the revolutionary upheaval that followed, Nicholas II issued an edict stating that his subjects could now freely choose their religion and more importantly leave the Russian Orthodox Church if they wished without any political repercussions. In response between 100,000 and 150,000 Ukrainians reverted to Uniatism in the Kholm region. Regional officials and Orthodox clergy who had devoted their lives to teaching these people they were both Orthodox and Russian felt betrayed, including the Orthodox bishop of Kholm
Evlogii (Georgievsky), who wrote in a letter to the Holy Synod: "The very credit of our priests has been undermined. For thirty years they repeated to the people that the Kholm
Podliashie country will always be Orthodox and Russian, and now the people see, on the contrary, the complete, wilful takeover of the enemies of the Orthodox Russian cause in that country". The general proctor of the Holy Synod was
Konstantin Pobedonostsev who was one on the architects of the policy of Russification in the western provinces. In the
1906 elections to the First Duma, the Ukrainian provinces of the empire elected sixty two deputies, with forty four of them joining the Ukrainian parliamentary club that aimed to promote the Ukrainian political and cultural agenda in the capital. Russian nationalist
Mikhail Menshikov was infuriated by the example set by the Ukrainians, he wrote "the
Belarusians, took, are following the
khokhly in speaking of a 'circle' of their own in the State Duma. There are Belarusian separatists as well, you see. It's enough to make a cat laugh". Unlike the Ukrainians and Polish, the Belarusians were unable to form a club or circle.
Mykhailo Hrushevsky prepared a parliamentary resolution on Ukrainian autonomy, yet he was unable to present the document as the imperial authorities dissolved the First Duma on 8 July 1906, only seventy two days after it was opened. The tsar was angered by the actions of the non-Russian deputies, his manifesto on the dissolution read: "the representatives of the nation, instead of applying themselves to the work of productive legislation, have strayed into spheres beyond their competence and have been making inquiries into the acts of local authorities established by ourselves, and have been making comments on the imperfections of the fundamental laws, which can only be modified by our imperial will". The Ukrainian deputies were again able to attempt to promote Ukrainian autonomy in the brief
Second Duma. However, the
dissolution of the Second Duma was followed by a change in electoral legislation, favouring large landowners and inhibiting and preventing the election of Ukrainophile deputies. Neither in the Third or
Fourth Duma was there a Ukrainian caucus. Hence, in 1908 a Duma majority rejected proposal to introduce the Ukrainian language into the school system and again rejected in 1909 its use in the courts. In February 1914 the government prohibited the celebration in Kyiv of the centenary of Taras Shevchenko's birth.
Union of the Russian People branch of the Union of the Russian People In order to prevent the Polish nobility and small Ukrainian landowners from monopolising the votes to the Duma in the western provinces, Russian nationalists established the
Union of the Russian People in 1905. It was received warmly by Nicholas II in December 1905 and played a key role in mobilising support for the monarchy under the banner of nationalism. According to the Union's statue "the good of the motherland lies in the firm preservation of Orthodoxy, unlimited Russian autocracy, and the national way of life" and "The union makes no distinction between Great Russians,
White Russians and Little Russians". Right Bank Ukraine in particular became the Union's main base of operations, with its largest branch in the Ukrainian region of
Volhynia centred on the Pochaiv Monastery. What accounted for the impressive number of Union members in the western provinces was that, as in
Volhynia, local chapters were led and coordinated by priests who enlisted their parishioners through coercion in the Union. A local police report described it: "The members are local Orthodox parishioners, as well as semiliterate and even illiterate people in the villages, who show no initiative themselves. The heads of the Union's local branches install patriotic feelings in the population by conversing with the peasants and preaching to them in order to strengthen Russia's foundations". The Union was not only able to accrue so many members through the transition of religious loyalty into loyalty for the empire and the coercive adoption of an
all-Russian identity onto the Ukrainian peasantry but was also rooted in the economic demands of the region. In
Volhynia and
Podolia the average landholding was 9 acres whilst in
Southern Ukraine it was 40 acres. The union's propagandists were there to point to the main "culprits" of the peasants troubles: Polish landowners and Jewish middlemen whom they sold their produce to. The locals felt that the Union would promote their economic interests and thus sacrificed their identity.
Ukrainian movement during Nicholas II's reign In 1907, those opposing the recognition of Ukrainian as a distinct language published a number of brochures, written by the philologist
Timofei Florinsky and
Anton Budilovich, though in April 1905 the Imperial Academy of Sciences had already practically accepted the Ukrainian language as separate. Metropolitan Russian nationalist clubs referred to participants in the Ukrainian moment as "
Mazepists", a particularly political slander. In 1909 the empire had lavishly celebrated the bicentennial of Peter I's
victory at Poltava. Ironically, most Ukrainian political leaders of the time as well as some Polish politicians such as
Roman Dmowski sought autonomy with a federated Russian Empire. Despite the Revolution of 1905, many limitations directed against the Ukrainian language and literature remained in force. Although the Ems Decree had de-facto become invalid, it was never formally abolished due to opposition from the imperial government. In 1910 the cabinet of
Pyotr Stolypin outlawed Ukrainian publishing houses and prohibited reading of
lectures in Ukrainian language. Russian nationalists portrayed the Ukrainian movement as a major threat for the Russian nation and state and also pointed to its weakness: that it was limited to students and intellectuals, with little following among the popular masses, especially among the peasantry. In 1905 Ukrainian activists made progress in the countryside, opening
Prosvita cultural societies, conducted a campaign amongst the peasantry and launched a Ukrainian-language newspaper. But with the end of the active phase of the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907), Ukrainian influence in the countryside was severely curbed by the government, whilst Russian nationalism swept the rural areas. Nevertheless, the influence of Russification on the country was limited, as ethnic Russians and Russified members of the upper classes concentrated in cities and industrial areas. Ukrainian language continued to dominate among peasants, who comprised 95% of Ukraine's population under Russian rule, with church services and school education having little influence on culture of the common folk. A bigger role in the promotion of Russification was played by the army service.
World War I Following a decree banning the Ukrainian press, which was issued in 1914 by Nicholas II, all publishing in Ukrainian in the Russian Empire was fully forbidden. On 18 August 1914, Russian forces crossed the border into Austria. The war on the southern sector of the front was supposed to solve the "Russian question" once and for all, uniting all "Russians" under the emperor. The invasion of Austria by Russia offered a unique opportunity to crush Ukrainian movements in the Austro-Hungarian Empire by bringing the territories of their activity into the Russian Empire. In the fall of 1914, the region of Galicia was placed under the administrative rule of the ethnic Russian Count
Georgii Bobrinsky, who saw Russification as his main task. During his inauguration into office he declared: "I shall establish the Russian language law and system here". His ally in this new campaign of Russification was his nephew and member of the Duma Vladimir Bobrinsky, who had headed the Galician Benevolent Society which supported the Russophile movement in Volhynia and lobbied the Russian government to do the same. Bishop
Evlogii of Kholm was placed in charge of the Orthodox mission in Galicia and the three had a rare opportunity to implement their ideas for Russification. The name of the city of
Lemberg was swiftly changed to the Russian Lvov, the names of streets and squares in Galicia and
Bukovina were changed to popularise Russian cultural and political figures such as
Aleksandr Pushkin. The Russian language was introduced into the education system with the aim of replacing Ukrainian, special courses were introduced for local teachers to master the Russian language. Ukrainian newspapers were closed and books published outside the Russian Empire in the Ukrainian language were prohibited and confiscated, which de-facto put an end to Ukrainian publishing in Galicia and Bukovina, as those regions were located "outside of the empire" in their entirety. Even Ukrainian language correspondence was banned. Ukrainophile organisations were closed and their activity arrested. The head of the
Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Metropolitan
Andrei Sheptytsky was arrested and sent to Central Russia, where he spent the next years in exile in an Orthodox monastery. The library of the
Shevchenko Scientific Society was destroyed. Juxtaposed to the fate of the dominant Ukrainophile organisations, Russophile leaders and organisations were supported and funded. The nephew of the governor of Galicia, Vladimir Bobrinsky personally travelled to prisons in the newly occupied regions to release Russophile activists imprisoned by the Austrian authorities who helped him propagandise in support of the "White Tsar". In order to help promote stability behind the front lines and prevent loss of territory, the head of military command
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich ordered that limits be imposed on the Orthodox mission in the region allowing Archbishop Evlogii of Kholm to take over Greek Catholic parishes only if they lacked a Greek Catholic priest (the majority had fled the region or been arrested by the Austrians). This was an unprecedented shift in comparison to the alleged 30,000 converts to Orthodoxy in the first weeks of the occupation.
Pavel Miliukov, the head of the Constitutional Democratic Party, disagreed with his party comrade
Petr Struve who believed that the clampdown on the Ukrainian movement in Galicia was the end of the movement, suggesting that he educate himself by reading the literature published by its members. Miliukov did not believe that the
Ukrainian cooperative movement could be terminated by military occupation. He drafted and presented a resolution to the Central Committee of his party demanding "an end to the anti-state system of Russifying occupied territory, the reestablishment of closed national institutions, and strict observance of the personal and property rights of the population".
Ukrainian nationalists in the Russian Empire were unable to help their compatriots in Galicia and Bukovina, as they too were on the defence doing their best to prove their loyalty to the empire. Long before the war had yet to begin, the Russian nationalists in Kiev and other cities of the Empire warned about the possibility of Ukraine leaving Russia and joining Austria-Hungary. With the start of the war, the authorities acting on the concerns and paranoia of the Russian nationalist camp closed down Ukrainian language publications such as the Kiev-based newspaper
Rada, harassed Ukrainian organisations and activists and branded them "Mazepists". Mykhailo Hrushevsky was arrested upon his arrival to Kiev in November 1914 by the Russian police on charges of pro-Austrian sympathies. The "proof" of his alleged guilty had been supposedly found in his luggage, which included a Ukrainian brochure entitled "How the Tsar Deceives the People". Yet this was a mere formality, the order for his arrests had been issued soon after the Russian seizure of Lviv where photos of Hrushevsky together with Ukrainian activists had been found. Police officials considered Hrushevsky to be the leader of the Galician "Mazepsits" and planned his exile to
Siberia, however, with the intervention of Russian liberal intelligentsia he was exiled to the town of
Simbirsk.
Nicholas II had visited Galicia in 1915, with the event being filmed by a Russian crew and becoming a subject of paintings and postcards as a symbolic high point in the long campaign of Muscovite Tsars beginning with
Ivan III to gather the lands of the former
Kievan Rus and construct a big Russian nation. However the hopes of the Russian "unifiers" were crushed more quickly than they had been fulfilled, and barely a month after the tsars triumphal entrance to Lviv, the Austrians reentered. In the summer of 1915, the Russian nationalists in the Duma joined forces with the Constitutional Democrats in the
Union of October 17 that demanded a government responsible to the people.
Revolutionary Era and Ukrainian War of Independence In reaction to the Bolshevik seizure of power on 7 November 1917 (NS), after already declaring autonomy, the
Ukrainian People's Republic declared full independence, claiming the provinces of central Ukraine as well as the traditionally Ukrainian settled territories of Kharkiv, Odesa and the
Donets River Basin, more importantly, however, the Central Rada refused to cooperate with the new government in Petrograd. Whilst
Lenin had seen the Rada as a potential ally in his assault on the
Provisional Government and had gone out of his way to recognise the Ukrainian nation as distinct in June 1917, his position drastically changed after the Bolshevik seizure of power. The Bolsheviks in Kiev tried to repeat the same formula they had used in Petrograd to seize control, trying to gain a majority in the Congress of Soviets, yet they found themselves in the minority in Kiev. The Bolsheviks moved to Kharkiv, an industrial centre closer to the border with Russia and declared the creation of the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Central Rada refused to recognise or acknowledge the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic which it perceived as a "Bolshevik clone". In the "Manifesto to the Ukrainian People with an Ultimatum to the
Central Rada", drafted by Lenin,
Trotsky and
Stalin, the Bolshevik leaders made the paradoxical statement simultaneously recognising the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and denying it in the name of the revolution. Lacking strength in Ukraine, Lenin sent Russian military units to Kiev led by the former security chief of the Provisional Government,
Mikhail Muraviev. In January 1918, Muraviev's troops began their advance on Kyiv and in early February
seized the capital of the Ukrainian People's Republic after firing 15,000 artillery units on the city. Muraviev's gunners targeted the house of Mikhailo Hrushevsky, bombarding it and setting it afire, causing the death of his family. After seizing the city, Muraviev's troops shot people on the streets of Kiev for using the Ukrainian language, which Muraviev's troops considering evidence of nationalist counterrevolution. In February 1918,
Volodymyr Zatonsky was arrested on the streets of Kiev for speaking and corresponding in Ukrainian, but was saved from execution by a paper signed by Lenin found in his pocket. After his entrance into Kiev, Muraviev demanded 5 million rubles to apply his army and ordered his troops "mercilessly to destroy all officers and cadets, haidamakas, monarchists, and enemies of the revolution in Kiev". Close to 5,000 people suspected of allegiance to the old Regime or the Central Rada were executed during this time. In January 1919, the White Army formed in the Don region began its advance on Ukraine led by General
Anton Denikin. Denikin was a strong proponent of an indivisible Russia who hated the Bolsheviks and who considered the Ukrainian movement a threat, whether based in Ukraine or in his own periphery, in the
Kuban, originally settled by
Ukrainian Cossacks who now wished to unite with Ukraine. In the summer of 1918, Denikin sent his troops to the Kuban region to prevent a possible seizure of power by the Bolsheviks or Skoropadsky regime, and in the fall of 1918 Denikin dissolved the pro-Ukrainian
Kuban Cossack Rada that had been initiating plans to unite with Ukraine and executed its pro-Ukrainian leaders. '' When Denikin
captured Kiev in August 1919, staunch Russian nationalist
Vasili Shulgin was given the opportunity to apply his solution to the Ukrainian question onto the rest of Ukraine. Shulgin was the principal drafter of Denikin's appeal "To the Inhabitants of Little Russia" publicised on the eve of Denikin's entrance into Kiev. The appeal proclaimed that Russian was the language of state institutions and the educational system. This official policy formulated by Shulgin and Denikin was a major blow for the Ukrainian cultural movement after its positive treatment by the Central Rada and the
Skoropadsky regime. In Kiev and other cities under its control, Denikin's army busied themselves by closing Ukrainian language newspapers, schools and institutions. All Ukrainian language signs were replaced with Russian language ones and owners of the buildings who resisted the changes were threatened. As Ukrainian complaints about their treatment and the violation of their civil liberties and cultural rights reached the west, who backed Denikin and his anti-Bolshevik campaign, the Western powers tried to restrain the "anti-Ukrainian zeal of Volunteer Army Commanders". ==Soviet period==