Rights and perspectives of the Czechs in Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917–1921)

Abstract

The purpose of the research is the need to carry out a comprehensive study of the legal status of the Czech ethnic minority in Ukraine and Czech military during the Ukrainian war of independence and its impact on their public, socio-economic and cultural-educational life. The research methodology includes the following principles: objectivity, historicism, consistency, problematic. There have been applied the methods of analysis and synthesis, problem-chronological, comparative. The scientific novelty consists in the study and comparison of the legal position of Czechs in Ukraine on the eve and during the Ukrainian war of independence of 1917–1921. Thanks to the introduction of archival materials into scientific circulation, it was possible to find out the impact of the frequent change of governments in Ukraine on the situation of the Czech minority. The Conclusion. At the end of the First World War, the Czech element in Ukraine was very significant. With the beginning of the revolution of 1917, the Czechs received equal rights with other ethnic groups of Ukraine. However, they did not create their own political parties. The Czech minority received legal protection and the right to develop its own cultural heritage, despite the Ukrainization initiated by the Ukrainian Central Council (UCC). It is impossible to overestimate the legal and social significance of the law “On National Personal Autonomy”. This law guaranteed the Czechs of Ukraine such prospects that their compatriots in Austria-Hungary did not have. Education and culture benefited from considerable financial support of the hetmanate of P. Skoropadskyi. The restoration of the laws of the UCC by the Directorate of the Ukrainian People’s Republic could contribute to the further favorable position of the Czechs, but the gradual loss of Ukrainian statehood did not allow the ideals of the Ukrainian Revolution regarding the freedom and equality of all peoples and the norms of the law “On National-Personal Autonomy” to be implemented. The position of the Czechs in Ukraine in 1920–1921 found itself in difficult conditions. The lack of legal guarantees, social protection and the policy of war communism implemented by the Soviet government became reasons for the majority of the Czech population of Ukraine to leave its territory.