Today, on Jan. 22, we remember two very important events in Ukraine’s modern history: the 107th anniversary of the declaration of Ukraine’s independence in Kyiv by the country’s parliament of that time – the Central Rada; and, the 106th anniversary of the Act of Union agreed to by the Ukrainian People’s Republic (Ukrainian acronym - UNR) and the West Ukrainian Peoples Republic (ZUNR).
Unfortunately, the first of them is still not recognized officially as befits its significance. Especially, given Russia’s current war to destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity, and Putin’s absurd claims that the Ukrainian state was created as a result of Lenin’s erroneous policies.
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Undoubtedly, Jan. 22, 1918, is the key date associated with the establishment of a modern independent Ukrainian state. It should therefore be the main date on which Ukrainian independence is celebrated. But…
In 1918-20 Ukrainians fought to secure their independence against Russian “White” and “Red” forces and were eventually defeated by the Bolsheviks and their Red Army. Soviet rule was imposed on most of Ukraine for the next 70 years or so, with Poland initially taking control over Western Ukraine.
Although the part that was under Moscow’s rule became nominally an independent Soviet republic which had “voluntarily” joined the “Soviet” – read Russian-dominated – communist federation, the USSR, it remained in essence a Russian colony.
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During the Soviet era Ukraine’s declaration of independence in 1918 and its recognition in February of that year in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the Central Powers- Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey - and the following month even by Soviet Russia, was deliberately blocked out.
But, in the large Ukrainian diaspora, free from Moscow’s regimentation, Jan. 22 was celebrated each year as Ukrainian Independence Day.
When, at the beginning of the 1990s, the Soviet system finally collapsed, the significance of Jan. 22, 1918, was deliberately fudged over by the communist majority in the residual Soviet Ukrainian parliament.
Forced on Aug. 24, 1991, by the tide of events – after a failed putsch attempt by hardliners in Moscow – to proclaim Ukraine’s independence, this still dominant bloc, did not want to acknowledge that Ukraine was reaffirming the independence that had been declared by its democratic and non-communist parliament in 1918.
Instead of emphasizing continuity, renewal and restoration, but fearing possible retribution from a nation finally throwing off its Russian imposed shackles, the communist deputies sought to maintain the fiction that they themselves had created an independent Ukrainian state for the first time.
Consequently, for over 30 years in post-Soviet independent Ukraine, it has been August 24 that has been officially celebrated as the country’s Independence Day.
Out of inertia or deliberate avoidance of a sensitive topic, the significance of what occurred on Jan. 22, 1918, has been repeatedly eclipsed by the focus on what happened exactly one year later.
On 22 January 1919, the representatives of their respective beleaguered independent republics proclaimed the unification of central and western Ukraine while they were still fighting against the Russians in the east and the Poles in the west.
Of course, this too is an important historic, symbolic, date. But the celebration of the “Day of Unity” was fostered under presidents as diverse as Kravchuk, Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Poroshenko in such a way that it continued to overshadow the significance of the declaration of independence in early 1918.
Even in 2018, on the centenary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence, the then “patriotic” president, Petro Poroshenko, failed to accentuate its significance.
This year, President Zelensky has again not emphasized that Ukraine declared its independence in early 1918 and the attempt to unite western and central Ukraine in one sovereign state followed logically a year later. That during that interval the UNR was at war defending its freedom with both the Red and the White imperialist Russian forces.
The reasons for the self-serving historical amnesia by official Kyiv until now can to some extent be understood but not justified. But is perplexing to see that the representatives of the large Ukrainian diaspora, which has sought for more than a century not only to preserve Ukrainian cultural traditions and national identity but also spread the truth about the nation’s quest for freedom, has apparently also stopped emphasizing that Jan. 22 should be regarded as Ukraine’s Independence Day.
In its press release at this time last year, the World Congress of Ukrainians (WCU) adapted itself to Kyiv’s official narrative, that Jan. 22 is Ukraine’s Day of Unity, overlooking what occurred a full year earlier. It has done the same this year.
Both the current Ukrainian presidential administration and parliament, as well as the UWC, have apparently forgotten that on Aug. 22, 1992, the head of the Ukrainian government in exile representing the legacy of 1918 – Mykola Plaviuk – formally ceded his authority and symbolic attributes to the first president of post-Soviet independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, thereby formally recognizing that it was the lawful successor to the UNR.
This “forgetful,” and in essence irresponsible concession to forces that have sought to revise and distort Ukraine’s modern history, is an unacceptable mistake that needs to be rectified.
Russia’s war against Ukraine, buttressed by the absurd imperialist arguments – revived by Putin and his chauvinist ideologues and propagandists – that Ukrainians don’t exist as a distinct nation and have no right to self-determination, statehood, their own language, culture or history, or identification with the rest of Europe, should force us to review the approach to Ukraine’s modern history, first and foremost by its own leadership.
Breaking free from Russia’s imperialistic stranglehold necessitates confronting and purging Ukraine of Russian historical and cultural narratives that have been imposed for centuries and thwarted the development of Ukraine’s self-identification and proper understanding of it abroad.
Without emphasizing the significance of Jan. 22,1918 and Ukraine’s war of independence that lasted in various forms until 1920 perpetuates the false impression that what occurred after the fall of the Tsarist Russian Empire was simply a Russian “Civil War.”
In other words, a purely internal Russian affair ignoring Ukraine’s struggle for freedom and the decolonization effort that it represented.
Yet, in 1917-18, Ukrainians opted for independence and democracy – Western-style. Russia chose between imperialist authoritarian White forces and totalitarian rapacious Bolshevism which took hold as the aggressive, anti-democratic and Russo-centric communist system. For Ukrainians, this self-identification at this historic juncture should be a source of pride and inspiration.
The Kyiv students and cadets who heroically risked death in Kruty on Jan. 19, 1918, to defend the newly proclaimed freedom of Ukraine against the Russian Bolsheviks were well aware of the significance of what had been declared by the Central Rada a week earlier.
In short, without diminishing the significance of 24 August 1991 in the history of Ukraine, Jan. 22 should also be observed as a state and public holiday – as the date on which modern independent Ukraine was born and a year later attempted to consolidate itself in one united democratic European state.
This article is based on earlier versions by the same author that appeared in Kyiv Post in 2023 and 2024.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.
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