Stages of the formation of the Central Rada as the first national Ukrainian parliament (March 1917 – April 1918)

Abstract

The article examines the main stages of the formation of the Central Rada as the first national parliament and the highest authority, which operated in March 1917 - April 1918. It is revealed that the Ukrainian Central Rada was officially established on March 4 (17), 1917 in Kyiv. The temporary composition of the Rada was represented by the following organizations: the Ukrainian Scientific Society, the Ukrainian Technical Agronomic Society, the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society, the National Ukrainian Union, cooperatives, students of all higher schools in Kyiv, the Union of Cities (Towns), Workers, Troops, Social Democratic Groups, etc. It is found that M. Hrushevsky, who was not in Kyiv at that time, was elected Chairman of the Rada. He was spending the last days of his exile in Moscow. F. Kryzhanivsky, a representative of the cooperative movement, later the leader of the Ukrainian Labor Party, and D. Doroshenko, a representative of the TUP, were elected as deputy chairmen of the Ukrainian Central Rada, D. Antonovych (Ukrainian Social Democrat) as comrade-chairman, S. Veselovsky (Ukrainian Social Democrat) as clerk, and V. Koval (co-operator, later Ukrainian Trudovik) as treasurer. The main tasks of the Central Rada were the restoration of Ukrainian statehood, negotiations on this issue with the Provisional Government of Russia, and active diplomacy. In April 1917, the Central Rada convened the first All-Ukrainian Congress. The delegation was from all cultural and economic organizations. The Congress transformed the Ukrainian Central Rada from a city organization into an all-Ukrainian one and elected its new composition headed by Mykhailo Hrushevsky. Also during 1917-1918, the Central Rada issued four Universals, which first proclaimed the autonomy of Ukraine, and the last, the IV Universal (January 22, 1918), and the complete independence of the UNR.