The Ukrainian State of Hetman P. Skoropadskyi became a particular milestone in the Ukrainian State-building. Its emergence did not ensue from prior development and did not create conditions for a further State-building process. For this reason, its assessment in scientific literature is very controversial.

The origins of the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. Skoropadskyi should be determined with due regard for the geopolitical situation existing in those times, firstly, the course and outcomes of the First World War and the complex and ambivalent social and economic policy of the Central Rada that triggered the crisis in Ukraine which broke in early 1918.

After coming to power, Hetman P. Skoropadskyi had a clear program of action. As a statesman, he started his activity with a resolute renouncement of the Central Rada’s social policy and promised to return life to normal. All those commitments, in a concentrated form, were set forth in the “Charter to the Entire Ukrainian People” and “Laws on the Provisional State Structure of Ukraine” announced on April 29, 1918. However, the Hetman did not have enough measures to implement that. In those times, large military forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary were present in Ukraine, and this restrained the development of Bolshevism inside the State and protected the State from its external penetration, thus allowing the Hetman’s government to concentrate on dealing with the pressing problems of the State. However, excessive appetites of Germany and AustriaHungary and their intent to resolve their economic and food problems at the expense of Ukraine curtailed the scope within which the Hetman’s government could act to those limits and hindered it in addressing such important issues of State development as making of the State’s own army, arrangement of the administration system at the local level etc.

Regarding the form of the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. Skoropadskyi, the author concludes that it was a return to the historical traditions of the Cossacks’ Hetmanate, but its essence did not comprise a spontaneous breakthrough of social energy. That was the typical path of the German Command, and the Hetman served as a screen for the unacceptable – given the terms of the Brest Treaty – German occupation of Ukraine. The Ukrainian State had a complex and contradictory form. It was an authoritarian, though a rather liberal, form of government, limited both by law and time – until the convocation of the Ukrainian Constituent Sejm. Republican institutions were interspersed with signs of a monarchical form of government.

The main conclusions are that, despite significant dependence on the Germans, the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. Skoropadskyi had its own goals and social base. Its establishment represented an attempt by conservative political forces at extinguishing the flame of revolution, at bringing down the wave of radical socialist moods, at ushering social life into the legal framework by force of State power and moderate reforms, and at defending the right to private property.

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Edited and translated books

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Journal articles

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Newspaper articles

21. ‘Hramota do vsoho ukrainskoho narodu’ [‘Charter to the Entire Ukrainian People’] Derzhavnyi visnyk (16 travnia 1918) 1 <http://irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/dlib/item/0001096> (accessed: 08.11.2019) (in Ukrainian).

22. ‘Zakony pro tymchasovyi derzhavnyi ustrii Ukrainy’ [‘Laws on the Provisional State Structure of Ukraine’] Derzhavnyi visnyk (16 travnia 1918) 1 <http://irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/ dlib/item/0001096> (accessed: 08.11.2019) (in Ukrainian).