Getman Pavel. Hetman for an hour: why Pavel Skoropadsky did not become a hero of modern Ukraine

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Pavel Skoropadsky - hetman who made Ukraine strong and self-sufficient

Pavel Skoropadsky was born on May 3 (15), 1873 in Wiesbaden, Germany, and died at the age of 72 on April 26, 1945 in the Bavarian town of Metten. Prince by birthright, who devoted a significant part of his life to the struggle for the Ukrainian state.

Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky is the last hetman of Ukraine, a talented military leader and an ardent patriot of Ukraine, who managed, in the extremely difficult conditions of the revolution and civil war, to carry out fundamental state reforms in Ukraine, replacing the “romantics” of the Central Rada at the head of the country, and engaged in state building of the young Ukrainian state.

The former Tsarist Lieutenant General Skoropadsky managed to make Ukraine a strong, self-sufficient state, which its neighbors, both in the West and in the East, had to reckon with. A descendant of the hetman's family, an admirer of Cossack glory, he was able to revive national traditions, creating a fashion for everything Ukrainian.

The exploits of Pavel Skoropadsky in the name of Ukraine.

From the very beginning of the national democratic revolution (1917-1920), Pavel Petrovich supported the Ukrainian national liberation movement, moving it into the practical direction of building and defending an independent Ukrainian state.

1. Skoropadsky became the founder and commander of the First Ukrainian Military Corps, relying on whose bayonets the Central Rada could proclaim the independence of Ukraine in the IV Universal. Skoropadsky's corps consisted of more than 20 (!) divisions numbering 14 thousand, and then 60,000 soldiers, perfectly armed not only with rifles, but also with machine guns, guns (2 artillery regiments), cavalry, armored cars, their own military engineer units and etc., at the head of each of the units with career officers - supporters of the Ukrainian state.

How Skoropadsky managed to create a combat-ready national corps by July (!) 1917, giving the Central Rada a head start not only in time (i.e. 4 months before the October Bolshevik coup in St. Petersburg), but also a real military trump card for protecting the independence of Ukraine from Moscow in conditions when Lenin’s government sent the Central Revolution one ultimatum after another?

The answer is simple... Skoropadsky formed it on the basis of the 34th Army Corps of the Tsarist Army, which he commanded on the Southwestern Front, enlisting the support of General Kornilov’s commander. The latter agreed, in conditions of widespread confusion and vacillation among soldiers and junior command staff, to an “experiment” in which Ukrainians would defend their land from the invaders at the front.

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this large military formation in the conditions of widespread chaos and anarchy of 1917-1918, when in Ukraine for the first time since Cossack times, not just its own army was revived, but a combat-ready and ideologically motivated large military formation, which represented a sharp contrast with the undisciplined military units the Russian army and some Ukrainian regiments, which directly swore allegiance to the Central Rada in Kyiv, participated in all rallies, elected commanders and decided by voting who to fight and when.

2. Suppressed the first two Bolshevik revolts in Ukraine, when, on the orders of Lenin and Trotsky from St. Petersburg

Thus, the fighters under the leadership of P. Skoropadsky not only saved the Ukrainian government, but also managed to scare the aggressive Bolsheviks, who were forced to move the “capital of Ukraine” to Kharkov, because to the west, both CR and Skoropadsky left the Bolsheviks practically no chance. However, the socialists from the Central Rada saw the unprecedented growth in the popularity of the Ukrainian general as a manifestation of Bonapartism, and on the eve of 1918 they forced him to resign.

3. Led Ukraine during a very difficult period in its history (April 29 - December 14, 1918). Under the conditions of the Austro-German military presence in Ukraine, the UPR government and the Central Rada demonstrated a complete inability to effectively govern. Endless discussions and intra-party disputes of the Central Rada led to the relentless loss of authority of the Ukrainian government, when Ukraine and its capital lived “completely different lives.”

In such conditions, there was a danger that the Germans would liquidate Ukraine as a subject and turn it into a banal colony. Skoropadsky then headed the organization “Ukrainian Community”, which was in opposition to the Central Rada, and on April 29, 1918, a coup d’etat, which was supported by the Germans and allowed to preserve Ukrainian statehood.

In general, it was a wise move by Skoropadsky, in conditions when Germany and Austria-Hungary were losing the 1st World War, to get a respite from the military invasion of Bolshevik Russia in order to create an independent Ukrainian state and a combat-ready army.

4. During the reign of Hetman Skoropadsky, a number of fundamental reforms were carried out in many areas, designed to consolidate the independence of the young Ukrainian state:

5. Having learned that the Central Rada at the negotiations in Brest abandoned Crimea, Skoropadsky said:"Ukraine cannot exist without Crimea - it will be some kind of body without legs."

And becoming the hetman of Ukraine, he achieved the return of the peninsula to Ukraine on the basis of autonomy.

Miscalculations of Pavel Skoropadsky, which were fatal for him and the Ukrainian state.

However, it is difficult not to notice numerous mistakes in the hetman’s policy, for example:

1. Return of landowners to their estates and repressions against peasants. As a result, a powerful insurgency began in the villages. The Bolsheviks immediately took advantage of this for their anti-government agitation.

2. Concentration of almost dictatorial powers in one’s hands. A ban on the activities of parties and the virtual liquidation of Ukrainian parliamentarism.

3. The agrarian question in practice remained unresolved. The peasants, who made up the vast majority of the Ukrainian population, received nothing.

4. Increasing the working day to 12 hours in conditions when the Bolsheviks in Russia promised only 8. Accordingly, social discontent grew. The ban on strikes caused resistance from workers.

5. Occupation of bureaucratic positions mainly by Russian specialists, who treated the Ukrainian cause rather insincerely.

6. Targeting only wealthy segments of the population. Neglect of the interests of the poor and middle class. In the post-revolutionary reality, such a policy led to discontent.

7. Complete dependence on the German-Austrian military administration. Transferring many government functions to it, for example, permission to carry out military trials over Ukrainian citizens. As a result, having lost German support, the hetman's government was unable to retain power and fell very quickly.

8. Adoption by P. Skoropadsky of the Act of Federation with the future non-Bolshevik Russia in the last days of his reign. Thus, the main achievements on the path of state building are crossed out.

Pages of the biography of the hetman of the Ukrainian state.

From early childhood, Pavel Skoropadsky lived for a long time in the town of Trostyanets, Kharkov province, where he was surrounded by many objects of ancient Cossack life. It was from a young age, according to the hetman, that a love for Ukrainian history and culture began to form in him.

According to established tradition, in the family Skoropadsky, the young heir, was supposed to receive a military education. In 1893, the young nobleman graduated from the Corps of Pages in St. Petersburg and entered the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, where his father Pyotr Ivanovich had previously served. There, the young officer subsequently made a brilliant career, rising to the position of deputy regiment commander.

In 1904-1905 Skoropadsky participates in the Russo-Japanese War. For his bravery, the Ukrainian nobleman was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir and the Golden Arms of St. George. Subsequently, Pavel Petrovich was appointed aide-de-camp to Emperor Nicholas II himself, and in 1906 he received the epaulets of a colonel. In 1911, Skoropadsky already commanded the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment with the rank of major general.

From the very beginning of the First World War, General Skoropadsky was at the front, taking part in the offensive operation of Russian troops in East Prussia. He then commanded the 1st Guards Cavalry Brigade and was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. In 1917, Skoropadsky was appointed commander of the XXXIV Army Corps and, by order of the Provisional Government, was renamed the I Ukrainian Corps.

He took an active part in the Ukrainian revolution. From late April to mid-December 1918 he headed the Ukrainian state.

After the withdrawal of Austro-German troops from Ukraine and the capture of the Kyiv Directory by the rebels, Skoropadsky was forced to abdicate power and hastily emigrate to Germany.

Abroad, the former hetman was actively involved in the political life of the Ukrainian diaspora. Skoropadsky strongly supported the idea of ​​​​establishing monarchist power in Ukraine, even creating a political party. He organized the Ukrainian Scientific Institute and the Ukrainian Society in Berlin, and helped Ukrainian students financially. During World War II, P. Skoropadsky collaborated with the Nazis, and on April 16, 1945 he was mortally wounded during an American air raid on the Bavarian town of Plattling. The former Ukrainian hetman died ten days later - April 26, 1945 in the town of Metten. He was buried in the city of Oberstdorf in the Skoropadsky family crypt.

The historical memory of Pavel Skoropadsky is so far captured only in the name of one of the streets in Kyiv and in the memorial plaque on Instytutska Street in the Ukrainian capital.

Pavel Skoropadsky on social networks.

How often do Yandex users from Ukraine look for information about Pavel Skoropadsky?

To analyze the popularity of the request “Pavlo Skoropadsky” we use the Yandex search engine service wordstat.yandex.ru, from which we can conclude that as of December 14, 2015, the number of requests for the month was 3,021, which is clearly visible in the screenshot:

Since the end of 2014, the largest number of requests was registered in November 2014 and amounted to 3,111 requests.

SKOROPADSKY, PAVEL PETROVICH(1873–1945), Russian and Ukrainian military and statesman, hetman of Ukraine. Born on May 3 (15), 1873 in Wiesbaden (Germany) into a noble family. Father P.I. Skoropadsky is a major landowner of the Chernigov and Poltava provinces, a colonel in the Russian army, a direct descendant of the Ukrainian hetman I.I. Skoropadsky (1708–1722). Mother M.A. Miklashevskaya is from an old Cossack family. After graduating from the St. Petersburg Corps of Pages, he received the rank of cornet and was appointed squadron commander of the Cavalry Guard Regiment (1893). In 1895 he became a regimental adjutant. In 1897 he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1898 he married A.P. Durnovo, the daughter of the Moscow Governor-General. He took part in the Russo-Japanese War: he commanded a hundred of the 2nd Chita Cossack Regiment, then served as an aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in the Far East, General N.P. Linevich. Awarded the Arms of St. George and the Order of St. Vladimir. In December 1905, he was promoted to colonel and appointed aide-de-camp to Emperor Nicholas II. In 1910–1911 he commanded the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment. In 1911 he was appointed commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. In 1912 he was promoted to major general. During the First World War, he commanded the 1st Brigade of the 1st Guards Cavalry Division, then appointed commander of the 3rd, and later the 5th Guards Cavalry Division. In 1916 he became a lieutenant general. In January 1917 he received command of the 34th Army Corps.

After the February Revolution, which caused the rise of the autonomist movement in Ukraine, he found himself in a difficult position - subordinate to the Provisional Government and the Supreme Command, he was forced to reckon with the Central Rada (the body of all-Ukrainian power created by local national parties on March 4 (17), 1917), since its corps was in the territory under its control. When the Provisional Government recognized the legitimacy of the Central Rada (July 2 (15), 1917), it began to Ukrainize its corps, which was called the “1st Ukrainian”. On October 6, the congress of the Free Cossacks in Chigirin proclaimed him ataman.

The October revolution was met with hostility. He submitted to the Central Rada and was appointed commander of the armed forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed on November 7 (20). From December 3 (16), he conducted successful military operations against the Bolshevik-influenced units of the Southwestern Front and detachments of the Ukrainian Soviet government, which settled in Kharkov; was able to prevent the establishment of Soviet power in most of Ukraine. On December 29 (January 11), in protest against the Rada’s decision to dissolve the 1st Ukrainian Corps, he resigned.

The capture of Kyiv by the Bolsheviks on January 26 (February 8), 1918 forced him to go underground. After the entry of German troops into Kyiv and the restoration of the power of the Central Rada, he headed the officer-Cossack organization “Ukrainian People's Community”. On April 29, 1918, at the congress of “grain growers” ​​(large landowners), he was proclaimed “hetman of all Ukraine”; By order of the commander of the German troops, Field Marshal G. Eichhorn, the Central Rada was dissolved. The Ukrainian People's Republic ceased to exist, giving way to the Ukrainian state led by the hetman.

Having received power, P.P. Skoropadsky directed his efforts to create an independent Ukrainian state with all the necessary attributes: a law on Ukrainian citizenship was adopted, the state emblem was approved, its own monetary system was introduced, several national divisions were formed, the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church was proclaimed, and the Ukrainian Academy was organized Sciences, two state universities have been opened. His domestic policy was based on the revival of the historical Ukrainian tradition (hetmanship as a political form, the constitution of the Cossacks as an estate) and on the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders (land ownership, freedom of trade and private enterprise). Ukrainization, however, did not mean pursuing a nationalist (anti-Russian) course. The regime supported the organizations of Russian officers, although it prevented them from creating large military formations. His support was from right-wing conservative circles. The Hetman cleansed the state apparatus of representatives of democratic parties, subjected left-wing nationalists (Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats) to repression, and carried out punitive expeditions against peasants who seized landowners' lands. In foreign policy, he focused on Germany and its allies, confirmed all the agreements previously concluded by Ukraine; nevertheless, he achieved recognition from the Entente and a number of neutral countries. He entered into an agreement with the nationalist authorities of Crimea and entered into a military alliance with the Cossack governments of the Don and Kuban.

After the defeat of Germany and the beginning of the evacuation of German troops from Ukraine, he tried to rely on the Entente and the White movement. He abandoned the slogan of an independent Ukraine and declared his readiness to fight for the restoration of a united Russia together with the Volunteer and Don armies. He began to form Russian officer squads. However, the uprising raised against him in mid-November by the leaders of the Ukrainian National Union (V.K. Vinnychenko, S.V. Petlyura), and the successful offensive (with the neutrality of the Germans) of Petliura’s troops against Kyiv led to the disintegration of the hetman’s troops and the collapse of the Ukrainian state. On December 14, 1918, Skoropadsky renounced power and, under the guise of a wounded German major, left Kyiv, leaving the city and its few defenders (five thousand white officers) to the mercy of fate.

In 1918–1945 he lived in Germany. It was the center of attraction of the monarchical wing of the Ukrainian emigration. During World War II he actively collaborated with the Germans. In April 1945, he fled from besieged Berlin to the south, but on the way he was bombed by Allied aircraft and was mortally wounded. He died on April 26 in a hospital in Metten (Bavaria).

Ivan Krivushin

Pavel Skoropadsky.

“The life of the cavalry guard is short, and that is why it is so sweet.” Alas, Bulat Okudzhava, who wrote these lines, apparently did not even suspect that since the formation of the “cavalry guard” in 1726, of the many wars in which Russian troops participated until 1914, it was only involved in the campaigns against Napoleon in 1805 and in 1812–1814, and even in the suppression of the Polish uprising in 1831 and the Hungarian uprising in 1848.

FABULOUS FOUR

But the life of the cavalry guards was indeed sweet - parades, guard duty in the imperial palaces, participation in all events of the reigning dynasty, horse races, actresses and, most importantly, regimental revelry. And what prospects! After all, a considerable number of governors-general and ministers of Russia in the 19th and first decades of the 20th century began their careers in the Cavalry Regiment.

Needless to say, in the family of the wealthy Ukrainian landowner Pyotr Skoropadsky there was no particular debate about where to place his son Pavel after graduating from the Corps of Pages. Of course, to the cavalry guards. Once in their ranks, he quickly became friends with fellow officers Prince Alexander Dolgorukov and two barons - Carl Gustav Mannerheim and Peter Wrangel.

I note that Pavel’s native language was German. He lived abroad for a long time and learned to speak Russian properly by the age of 7, but he didn’t know “Ridnu language” at all. However, the native language of Carl Gustav Mannerheim, a native of the Grand Duchy of Finland, was Swedish. He did not speak Finnish. And at that time the baron did not call the Finns anything other than “Chukhons.”

The service of most cavalry officers was interspersed with long vacations, during which Cornet Skoropadsky traveled for many months in Germany, England, Holland, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Turkey. In 1898, he advantageously married Alexandra Durnovo, the daughter of the head of the police department, and from October 1905, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Pyotr Nikolaevich Durnovo. Skoropadsky's mother-in-law was Countess Kochubey, the owner of a huge fortune. I note that Pyotr Durnovo was the informal head of the pro-German party in the circles of the dignitary bureaucracy.

With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, the entire “magnificent four” of cavalry guards - Skoropadsky, Mannerheim, Wrangel and Dolgorukov - immediately rushed to Manchuria “to catch happiness and ranks”. Since the guards regiments did not take part in the campaign, all four asked to join the Cossack units. For some reason no one went to Port Arthur. On the contrary, there was an outflow of the aristocracy from the fortress. So, already on March 31, 1904, Grand Dukes Kirill and Boris Vladimirovich left there.

In Manchuria, our heroes did not distinguish themselves with any particular success, nor did the entire Russian army. But the gentlemen of the cavalry guards received many awards and promotions. So, Skoropadsky in December 1905 was promoted to colonel and awarded the title of adjutant of his imperial majesty.

TIMES OF TROUBLES

By January 1917, both Pavel Petrovich and his friends were already wearing general's shoulder straps. But January, as you know, is followed by February. And soon the four powers reigned in the glorious city of Kyiv. The Executive Committee of the Provisional Government, the Kiev Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Central Rada and the command of the Kyiv Military District simultaneously tried to govern the city and the province. It should be noted that if the latter was appointed by the Emperor Nicholas II, then the other three bodies appointed themselves.

Thus, the Central Rada was created in April 1917 at the Ukrainian National Congress, in which delegates from two dozen parties and public organizations took part. Those gathered stated that they were authorized to speak on behalf of all of Ukraine and solve all its problems. In fact, these parties and organizations consisted of several dozen, or at best several hundred, active members. Of course, no one invited either the left (Bolsheviks) or the right (monarchists and statists) to the congress. Representatives of the multi-million Russian population living on Ukrainian territory were also absent there.

The Central Rada advocated the separation of Ukraine from the rest of Russia, the forced introduction of the Galician dialect of the Ukrainian language, the creation of a special Ukrainian church, etc. It is clear that such tasks were by no means the main ones for the villagers, who wanted the immediate division of landowners' estates. The “socialist” Rada gave a brilliant answer to these demands: we must wait until the law on land is adopted by the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, and only then the Central Rada will think about how to apply it in Ukraine. Thus, the inviolability of the landowners' property was ensured, and the anger of the Ukrainian peasants was directed towards the evil Muscovites, who in no way want to fairly allocate land plots to working grain growers.

Meanwhile, in the Russian army, from the end of March 1917, a Ukrainization campaign began. This movement was led by... Infantry General Lavr Georgievich Kornilov, appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief by the Provisional Government. Almost on the first day, the new commander-in-chief issued an order for the immediate Ukrainization of the 34th Army Corps. In this corps, as well as in a number of other formations, only natives of the Little Russian provinces were retained, and instead of those dismissed, Ukrainians transferred from other parts of the Russian army were enrolled. Why Kornilov needed “Ukrainized” divisions and regiments, now one can only guess. Probably, the general wanted to use them in some of his games: either to lead him to Petrograd to seize power, or Lavr Georgievich himself was trying on the post of hetman of all Ukraine.

Lieutenant General Pavel Skoropadsky was appointed commander of the Ukrainianized 34th Corps, since one of his ancestors, although not in a direct line, two centuries ago, under Peter the Great, was the hetman of Little Russia.

On November 20, 1917, the Central Rada issued a universal document in which it proclaimed the creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Alas, the power of the Rada was limited to Kyiv and its environs. At the end of January 1918, Bolshevik troops approached the capital of Ukraine. Without further ado, the Central Rada, headed by Professor Mikhail Grushevsky, went on the run. Kyiv was taken by the Reds, and the Ukrainian Soviet government, created in Kharkov back in December 1917, moved there on February 12.

The self-proclaimed Rada was saved by the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary on February 9, 1918. On behalf of the Rada, the signature was signed by the dropped out student Alexander Sevruk. According to this agreement, the Central Rada undertook to supply Germany and Austria-Hungary by July 31, 1918 with 60 million pounds of bread, 3 million pounds of live weight of cattle, 400 million eggs, hundreds of thousands of pounds of lard, butter, sugar and other products.

And on March 1, the first battalion of Saxon infantry appeared at the Kiev station. The long-time dream of Austrian and German politicians has come true. True, some wits from the banks of the Dnieper interpreted what happened completely differently:

From Kiev to Berlin

Ukraine said goodbye.

ELECTION OF A “NATIVE LEADER”

The main headquarters of the German command, headed by Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn, settled in Kyiv. Following the German soldiers, the leaders of the Central Rada also appeared as the “mother of Russian cities”.

However, the ministers and generals of Kaiser Wilhelm II quickly realized that the operatic government of the Rada was not able to help them in governing Ukraine. Therefore, the Germans decided to replace the Central Rada with a more effective “native leader”. There was also a reason.

The leadership of the Rada organized the kidnapping for ransom of the Kyiv millionaire, banker Abram Dobry. On the night of April 24-25, he was captured by two Ukrainian army officers and three plainclothes youths. Later it turned out that the “operation” was led by a certain Osipov, an official of special assignments of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, personal secretary of the head of the political department Gaevsky. The millionaire was stuffed into a car, brought to the station and dragged to a carriage standing on sidings under the protection of the UPR troops - the so-called “Sich Riflemen”. Then this carriage was attached to a regular passenger train heading to Kharkov. Osipov, without hiding who he was, offered Dobry to “solve the problem” for only 100 thousand: “There is one person who can liquidate this whole story for money. But after payment you will have to immediately leave Ukraine.”

However, the figures from the Rada turned out to be amateurs in the complex science of racketeering. They left the banker's wife free. She immediately contacted the German commandant’s office. The Germans reacted instantly. Perhaps Dobry’s cooperation with the Kaiser’s intelligence during the war also played a role here, because Abram sold Ukrainian sugar to Germany through Persia.

And so on April 28, a platoon of German soldiers entered the hall of the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute, where the Central Rada was meeting. The lieutenant commanding them, without any preamble, barked: “Hands up!” Everyone present immediately and obediently followed the order. It turned out something like the final scene from Gogol’s “The Inspector General” - everyone was silent... Several members of the Rada were arrested, the rest were searched and kicked out into the street.

In exchange for the Central Rada, Field Marshal Eichhorn decided to give Ukraine a hetman. By the way, this word was quite understandable to the German commander, since it came from the German word “Hauptmann” - chief. Moreover, Pavel Skoropadsky was quite suitable for this position.

The Germans took into account both the “historical” surname of the candidate and his membership in the Masonic lodge “Great East”, in which, by the way, both Mikhail Grushevsky and Simon Petlyura were members before 1917.

The election of the Haupt... that is, I beg your pardon, the Hetman took place on April 29, 1918 in the Krutikov Circus on Nikolaevskaya Street in Kyiv. The director of the performance was the same Eichhorn. The circus brought together “grain growers-owners”. Several “field workers” made speeches demanding to save Ukraine from chaos, and only the guard can do this... No, sorry, hetman. And then Skoropadsky, dressed as a Cossack, appeared in one of the circus boxes. The “grain growers” ​​unanimously “shouted” him as a hetman.

So the Central Rada was dispersed by the German occupiers without firing a single shot. Not a single person in all of Ukraine came to her defense. The era of a new hetmanate or, as the people of Kiev joked, “hetmanshaft” began. Pavel Skoropadsky himself settled in the house of the Kyiv governor-general. An interesting detail: under the hetman’s office on the second floor there was a German guard room. So Pavel Petrovich sat on German bayonets not only figuratively, but also in the literal sense of the word.

VIENNA CANDIDATE

Skoropadsky immediately “changed the sign on the bench.” It was somehow inconvenient for him to be called the hetman of the Ukrainian People's Republic, and therefore the young “independent” state was called the Ukrainian state. Its armed forces in the fall of 1918 usually represented units of the Russian army that had been Ukrainianized in 1917. For which special thanks to the “Russian patriot” Lavr Kornilov!

Although the combat effectiveness of the hetman's army was close to zero. I will only mention their charters, which were compiled half in language and half from German words, since there were no military terms in the “dialect of Little Russian peasants”. Therefore, “Attention, alignment to the right” sounded like “Halt, string to the right.”

At the same time, I note, one of his friends, General Pyotr Wrangel, asked to serve with the hetman. However, no suitable position was found for him.

Meanwhile, the occupying German-Austrian troops took decisive measures to restore order in Ukraine. The lands, livestock and equipment seized by the peasants were immediately returned to the landowners. Punitive detachments carried out mass executions. However, these measures did not calm the population, but only embittered them. It was under the hetman that the activity of various rebel formations increased sharply, compared with the times of the Central Rada.

The gang, and one might say the army of Father Makhno, operated in the vast expanse of modern Ukraine - from Lozovaya to Berdyansk, Mariupol and Taganrog and from Lugansk and Grishin to Yekaterinoslav, Alexandrovsk and Melitopol. The gangs of Zeleny, Struk, Sokolovsky and Tyutyunin, atamansha Marusya and others became very famous.

And on top of everything else, the glorious Hetman Skoropadsky had a competitor - the Ukrainian Caesar Vasil I. Even before the war, Uniate Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky submitted to Emperor Franz Joseph I a project for the development of Ukraine, which said: “The most outstanding military leader could, after a great victory, be called ours (that is, Austrian. – A.Sh.) Kaiser “hetman of Ukraine”.

The Austrian government heeded the metropolitan's advice and found its own candidate for hetman. He became Wilhelm von Habsburg von Lothringen (Lorraine). William belonged to the junior line of the House of Habsburg, and neither his father nor he had a dynastic right to inherit the Austrian throne. At the same time, Wilhelm’s father, Karl-Stephen, was a second cousin of Emperor Franz Joseph.

Wilhelm of Habsburg was urgently renamed Vasil Vyshivany, and he even began to write poetry in the broken Galician dialect. Wilhelm-Vasil loved to wear a shirt embroidered with Little Russian patterns under his Austrian uniform, and from the winter of 1917 he began to pose for newspapers and leaflets exclusively in one shirt or zhupan. On February 4, 1917, for the first time, the “Bulletin of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine” published a photo of Wilhelm Habsburg in an embroidered shirt.

In the spring of 1918, Vasil Vyshivany appeared in Kherson, took several local atamans under his wing and tried to create his own army. In May 1918, Ukrainian socialists from the glorious city of Odessa proposed that Vyshyvany take away the hetman’s mace from Skoropadsky.

Skoropadsky, in turn, sent complaints to Berlin three times with a request to recall Archduke Wilhelm of Habsburg from Ukraine. The German government, naturally, took its Hauptman-Hetman under the protection and resolutely demanded that Vienna remove Vasil to hell. Not wanting a conflict with a powerful ally, the successor of the deceased Franz Joseph, Emperor Charles I, ordered the transfer of Vasil and his “Sich Riflemen” from the Kherson region to Chernivtsi.

PETLURISTHINA

Nevertheless, the fate of Hetmanshaft Skoropadsky was decided not on the fields of Northern Tavria, but in Berlin. On November 9, 1918, a republic was proclaimed in Germany, and the next day Kaiser Wilhelm II fled to Holland. On November 11, the Compiegne Armistice was signed between the Entente countries and Germany, ending the First World War.

Pavel Skoropadsky assessed the situation and on November 14 appointed a new cabinet of ministers, without independent leaders, and proclaimed the Act of Federation, according to which he pledged to unite Ukraine with the future non-Bolshevik Russia. In making this decision, Skoropadsky hoped to receive support from the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, General Anton Denikin, and the Entente standing behind him.

But then Simon Petlyura jumps onto the stage of history like a jack-in-the-box, radically changing the military-political situation in Ukraine.

Brief information - Petlyura Simon Vasilyevich, the son of a cab driver, studied at the seminary. After leaving the seminary, he worked as a journalist and accountant in a tea trading company. Then he went to Austria-Hungary, where he graduated from Lviv University. Upon returning to Kyiv, he took the position of Grand Master of the Lodge of St. Andrew (Grand Lodge of Ukraine).

In the Central Rada, Petliura served as “military secretary”. In July 1918, he and his colleague, Minister Vladimir Vinnichenko (once a Social Democratic Menshevik, writer), were arrested on charges of conspiracy to remove Skoropadsky from power. They sat under lock and key for several weeks, and then gave their word of honor to the Minister of Justice Vyazlov not to oppose the hetman, and with that they were released on all four sides.

Petlyura immediately goes to Bila Tserkva. The Sich Riflemen, the Galicians, were stationed there. The Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen was formed in Austria-Hungary in August 1914. Initially it consisted of 2,500 people. Upon arrival at the Russian front, almost all of his troops were captured. In the spring of 1917, the Provisional Government released the Streltsy. Most of them (including Yevgeny Konovalets, the future leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) went to Kyiv, where by December 1917 a kennel of Sich Riflemen was created. Disarmed and disbanded in the first days of the hetmanate, the archers petitioned for permission to re-establish their unit, to which Pavel Skoropadsky gave his consent, appointing the White Church as the place of formation.

On November 14, 1918, a new government of Ukraine, the so-called Directory, appeared in Bila Tserkva. (These operetta characters were very flattered by the comparison with the Great French Revolution). Vladimir Vinnichenko became the head of the Directory, and Simon Petlyura became the supreme commander and candidate for Bonaparte.

The latter also put together his own party, the Ukrainian National Union. The “village” actively supported Petliura, gaining the opportunity to rob landowners, Russian rural doctors and teachers, Jews and retreating German rear units with impunity and on ideological grounds. Ukrainian men had an extremely vague idea of ​​​​Petliura’s true goals. It is curious that the population of many villages considered Simon Vasilyevich a woman. “Show Petliura to our Katsaps, Germans and Jews...” I think there is no need to prove that 99.9% of the peasants of Ukraine did not know and did not know what Petliura’s “Ukrainian National Union” actually was.

With the advent of the Directory, the Hetman's troops fled or went over to Petliura's side.

As for the Germans, on November 17 in Bila Tserkva they concluded a neutrality agreement with the Directory. The German command promised not to interfere with Petliura’s overthrow of the hetman in exchange for the condition not to interfere with the evacuation of German and Austrian troops to their homeland. I note that in all the areas where the Petliurites entered, the Germans, without resistance or attempts at destruction, handed over to them their weapons and military equipment, which was not subject to export to Germany.

Left in isolation, Skoropadsky relies on the Russian White Guards. On November 14, he issued a charter on the Federation of Ukraine with Russia. On November 19, the hetman appoints one of the heroes of the world war and the most staunch supporters of the Russian monarchy, cavalry general Count Fyodor Keller, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Ukrainian state.

Keller immediately tried to mobilize the Russian army officers who were in Kyiv. But, despite the threat to use “shooting in case of failure to appear within 24 hours,” of the approximately 20 thousand officers registered in the city, only about 6 thousand were ready to side with the hetman. They were distributed among two “squads,” headed by General Kirpichev and Colonel Prince Svyatopolk-Mirsky. In addition, Keller was subordinated to the Hetman's Guard - the "Serdyutska" division (about 5 thousand soldiers), as well as various units that had just begun to form for both the Hetman and the Volunteer Army (for example, the Olviopol and Kinburn cavalry regiments). In total, Keller had about 12–15 thousand bayonets and sabers.

However, the general’s subordinates committed a number of anti-Ukrainian acts, including tearing down yellow blockade flags and replacing them with the Russian tricolor. There is information that Keller’s headquarters was preparing to overthrow the hetman and declare Kyiv a territory subordinate to the Denikins.

Skoropadsky hastily removes Keller from the post of commander-in-chief, and appoints his deputy, Lieutenant General Prince Alexander Dolgorukov, to replace the count. The prince was a bit stupid, but he had two important virtues. Firstly, he was an old friend and drinking companion of Skoropadsky, and secondly, he did not like the leadership of the Dobrarmia.

On December 12, the Germans agreed with Petlyura on the evacuation of Kyiv. On the morning of December 14, Prince Dolgorukov and a number of his officers darted to Germany. At noon, the hetman signed the abdication, and two days later he fled from his palace, changing into the uniform of a German officer. His flight is shown very close to reality in Mikhail Bulgakov’s play “Days of the Turbins.” Skoropadsky was secretly taken to Berlin.

EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN FINALE

In Germany in the early 1920s, Skoropadsky created his so-called “hetman organization.” It was headed by a “government”, the chairman of which was the hetman himself. In exile, Pavel Petrovich tried to establish contact with everyone who could give money - with the Grand Duke and self-proclaimed Russian Emperor Kirill Vladimirovich, with the Japanese military attache in Berlin, Colonel Banzai, and with the officers of the Japanese General Staff Akatsuni and Tanaka. At their request, Skoropadsky sent several of his representatives to Harbin to work with the local Ukrainian emigration.

The ex-hetman had high hopes for the Nazis, but, alas, he failed again. His friendly relationship with the head of the stormtroopers, Ernst Rohm, ended with arrest after the “night of the long knives” on June 30, 1934.

True, Skoropadsky was quickly released by the Gestapo, but Hitler’s trust in the former hetman was lost. The American bomb put an end to Skoropadsky’s career. On April 26, 1945, he died in the Bavarian city of Metten during an air raid.

His “subverter” - Simon Petliura - had long been buried in the grave by that time: he was killed in May 1926 in Paris by a certain Samuil Schwartzbard - supposedly an acquaintance of Nestor Makhno and an agent of the Lubyanka.

The fate of Skoropadsky’s other competitor, Vasil Vyshivany (aka Wilhelm of Habsburg), also turned out to be deplorable. In the 1930s, Vasil-Wilhelm was put on trial in Paris for counterfeiting securities, but fled from French justice to Germany. During the Second World War, a number of emigre leaders decided to proclaim Vasyl “tsar of the conciliar Ukraine.”

The defeat of the Third Reich found Wilhelm Habsburg in Vienna, from here he was taken to Kyiv in August 1947, during the “cleansing” of the city by SMERSH officers. The reason for the arrest was the meeting he organized between the French captain Polissier and the Bandera emissary Miroslav Prokop. The talk there was about assistance from the government of Charles de Gaulle to the OUN-UPA formations. On May 25, 1948, the MGB of the Ukrainian SSR sentenced Habsburg to 25 years in correctional camps. Wilhelm died of tuberculosis on August 18 of the same year in prison No. 1 in Kyiv.

On December 28, 1989, the Kyiv military prosecutor's office rehabilitated Wilhelm Habsburg as "a victim of repression that took place during the 30s-40s and early 50s."

In June 2007, Otto von Habsburg, the son of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Charles I, who ruled in 1916–1918 after the death of Franz Joseph I, came to Ukraine. First of all, the distinguished guest was brought to the museum of “Soviet occupation” and brought to a separate stand of the hero of Square Ukraine of Wilhelm Habsburg, that is, Vasyl Vyshivany. Otto burst into tears. Even before the visit, a number of “Western” politicians proposed that Otto be crowned “Ukrainian Tsar.” Alas, the prince is a little old - born in 1912, but he has children - smart boys Kari and Pavel-Georg, born in 1961 and 1964, respectively, as well as no less smart girls Andrea and Walburga. So the issue with the “Ukrainian Tsar” is still open.

In the meantime, in Lvov they decided to erect a monument to Emperor Franz Joseph I. The same one who in just two years - 1914-1916 - managed to destroy over 60 thousand Rusyns, who are now considered Ukrainians in Kyiv.

, Bavaria, Germany

• Bavaria

• Corps of Pages

Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky(pre-ref. Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky, Ukrainian Pavlo Petrovich Skoropadsky, May 3, Wiesbaden, Germany - April 26, Metten, Bavaria, Germany) - Lieutenant General of the Russian Imperial Army, after the revolution of 1917 - Ukrainian military and political figure; Hetman of All Ukraine from April 29 to December 14, 1918.

Biography

From the Poltava noble family of Skoropadsky, to which the Zaporozhye hetman Ivan Skoropadsky belonged. The son of a retired colonel of the Cavalry Regiment Pyotr Ivanovich Skoropadsky and his wife Maria Andreevna, daughter of porcelain manufacturer A. M. Miklashevsky. Large landowner in Poltava and Chernigov provinces.

At the end of the war, on November 25, 1905, he was transferred to the cavalry guards with the previous rank of staff captain. On December 9, 1905, he was appointed aide-de-camp. On December 19, 1905, he was appointed commander of the life squadron of the Cavalry Guard Regiment, on December 6, 1906, he was promoted to colonel for a vacancy, and on September 4, 1910, he was appointed commander of the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment. On April 15, 1911, he was appointed commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, and on March 25, 1912, he was promoted to major general with confirmation in office and enrollment in the Suite.

First World War

On July 29, 1915, he was appointed commander of the 5th Cavalry Division, and on January 1, 1916, he was promoted to lieutenant general with confirmation in his position. On April 2, 1916, he was appointed chief of the 1st Guards Cavalry Division, and on January 22, 1917, commander of the 34th Army Corps.

In August 1917, at the suggestion of L. G. Kornilov, Skoropadsky began to “Ukrainize” his corps. For reorganization, the corps was transferred to the Medzhybizh region. Russian soldiers and officers were transferred to the 41st AK, and in their place, Ukrainian soldiers and officers were accepted from other parts of the front.

Upon completion, the 34th AK was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Corps, which Skoropadsky himself continued to command.

October - December 1917

Pavel Skoropadsky

In November-December, the corps implemented a plan developed by the chief of staff of the corps, General Ya. V. Safonov, to neutralize the “Bolshevik” military units advancing on Kyiv. Corps units occupied strategically important railway stations - Vinnitsa, Zhmerinka, Kazatin, Berdichev, Bila Tserkva and Fastov - and blocked the Bolsheviks' route to Kyiv from the south. The “red” trains were intercepted, disarmed and sent to Soviet Russia.

General Skoropadsky was appointed commander of all UPR troops of the Right Bank of Ukraine. Nevertheless, the leadership of the Central Rada and the UPR continued to treat Skoropadsky with prejudice, viewing him as a future rival in the struggle for power or not believing that an aristocrat and one of the wealthiest people of the former empire could sincerely defend the interests of the UPR. The aggravation of relations with the Central Rada was also facilitated by the growing popularity of Skoropadsky, who was elected General Ataman on October 6, 1917 at the All-Ukrainian Congress of Free Cossacks in Chigirin. This was a manifestation of special trust and respect, testifying to great authority among the masses. The growing popularity of the talented general, the dignity and independence with which he behaved, and especially his aristocracy and material well-being irritated the top of the UPR, who openly accused him of Bonapartist intentions.

In mid-April, German representatives held negotiations with a number of potential candidates for the post of head of Ukraine. The final choice was Pavel Skoropadsky. On April 28, the German military dispersed the Central Rada. A group of key government ministers were sent to Lukyanovka prison.

Hetman of the Ukrainian State

Pavel Skoropadsky (in the foreground on the right) and the Germans.

On April 29, 1918, at the All-Ukrainian Congress of Grain Growers (landowners and large peasant owners, about 6,500 delegates), Skoropadsky was proclaimed Hetman of All Ukraine.

The coup d'etat with the establishment of the hetman's power took place almost bloodlessly. On the night of April 30, all the most important government institutions came under the control of the hetmans. In Kyiv, a “Certificate to the entire Ukrainian people” signed by the hetman was distributed, which spoke of the transfer of powers of the head of state to the “hetman of all Ukraine” P. Skoropadsky, the renaming of the UPR into the Ukrainian state, the formation of the executive body of the Ukrainian state - the Council of Ministers, the restoration of the “Right private property as the foundation of culture and civilization,” declaring the freedom to buy and sell land.

“Laws on the temporary state structure of Ukraine” were adopted, according to which the hetman, who received broad powers in all spheres, appointed an “otaman” (chairman of the Council of Ministers), approved the composition of the government and dismissed him, acted as the highest official in foreign policy affairs, the supreme military commander, had the right to declare an amnesty, as well as martial law or a special state.

The Hetman liquidated the Central Rada and its institutions, land committees, abolished the republic and all revolutionary reforms. From now on, the UPR turned into a Ukrainian state with a semi-monarchical authoritarian rule of the hetman - the supreme leader of the state, army and judiciary in the country.

Skoropadsky relied in his activities on the old bureaucracy and officers, large landowners (Ukrainian Democratic Grain Growers Party and the Union of Land Owners) and the bourgeoisie (Protofis - Union of Representatives of Industry, Trade, Finance, Agriculture).

On May 3, a cabinet of ministers was formed headed by Prime Minister F. A. Lizogub, a large landowner, chairman of the Poltava provincial zemstvo. Most ministerial positions were occupied by cadets who supported the hetman's regime.

By May 10, the delegates of the Second All-Ukrainian Peasant Congress were arrested, and the congress itself was dispersed. The remaining delegates called on the peasants to fight against Skoropadsky. The first all-Ukrainian conference of trade unions also passed a resolution against the hetman.

The socialist parties of Ukraine refused to cooperate with the new regime. After the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary D. Doroshenko agreed to take the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, a message appeared in the Novaya Rada newspaper about his expulsion from the party. The hetman prohibited the convening of party congresses of the USDRP and UPSR, but they secretly met and passed anti-hetman resolutions. The zemstvos became the center of legal opposition to the hetman's regime.

May 1918 was marked by the beginning of the peasant war, which soon engulfed the entire territory of Ukraine. On June 3, at the call of the Ukrainian Social Revolutionaries, an uprising broke out in the Zvenigorod and Tarashchansky districts of the Kyiv province. In August - September, German and hetman troops barely managed to suppress the Zvenigorod-Taraschansky uprising, but it spread to new regions - Poltava region, Chernihiv region, Yekaterinoslav region and Northern Taurida.

At the end of May, the center of legal opposition to the hetman’s power was formed - the Ukrainian National-State Union (with the participation of the Ukrainian Democratic-Harvest Party, the Ukrainian Federalist Socialist Party, the Ukrainian Party of Independent Socialists and the Ukrainian Labor Party), which at first was limited to moderate criticism of the regime and government, however, since August, after joining the union of left socialists and renaming it the Ukrainian National Union (UNS), this organization began to turn into more and more radical.

Since the end of June, the German command demanded that the hetman carry out widespread arrests of the opposition and Entente agents. Former members of the Central Rada Mikhail Grushevsky, Vladimir Vinnichenko, Nikolai Porsh, Simon Petliura were detained and arrested. These days, in Kyiv, a group of Russian left Socialist Revolutionaries killed the commander of the German army group in Ukraine, Field Marshal von Eichhorn and his adjutant.

Economics and social sphere

In the economy and social sphere, the Skoropadsky government canceled all socialist transformations: the working day at industrial enterprises was increased to 12 hours, strikes and walkouts were prohibited.

The State and Land Banks were created, and the work of the railways was restored.

The crisis trends that emerged at the end of 1917 - beginning of 1918 continued in industry. The strike movement and confrontation between trade unions and industrialist organizations posed a serious threat.

Agrarian question

The land law of the Central Rada of January 31, 1918 was repealed, Land Commissions were created, including the Higher Land Commission chaired by Skoropadsky (October 1918) to resolve land disputes and develop a land reform project.

Large-scale landownership was restored, peasant ownership of land was confirmed with the allocation and sale of communal lands, which was supposed to contribute to the formation of a wide class of middle landowners. In his memoirs, Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky cites a number of aspects that outlined the physical framework of the agrarian reform, for example:

• 54% of Ukrainian peasants were middle peasants and owned from 3 to 10 acres of land.
• Landless or land-poor peasants (farmland less than 3 dessiatines) accounted for about 40% of the total peasantry.
• Primitive methods of cultivating the land, due to the specifics of land ownership (stripes), and general cultural and educational backwardness.
• Low yield: in 1908-1912, Ukrainian villagers collected 40-74 pounds of wheat per dessiatine, while at the same time in France, England and Germany this figure reached 105-185 pounds of grain.

Conclusions and reflections of Pavel Petrovich, in which he substantiated his planned agrarian reform and connected it with the investment climate and inflationary processes in the country:

The state grain monopoly was maintained. Hetman Skoropadsky himself was against it, but, as he recalled, this monopoly was imposed on him by the Germans. A significant part of the harvest collected by the peasants was subject to requisition, and a tax in kind was introduced (to fulfill Ukraine’s obligations to Germany and Austria-Hungary under the Brest-Litovsk Treaty).

Skoropadsky's governments relied on the restoration of large landowner and middle peasant farms, in which the German-Austrian occupation authorities were also interested. Supporting the hetman, the landowners stated that small peasant farms were not able to ensure large-scale commercial production of agricultural products, as war-ravaged Germany and Austria-Hungary demanded from Ukraine. The latter, in turn, were unable to fulfill their obligations to supply industrial goods and agricultural implements to Ukraine. These circumstances aggravated the already tense political and socio-economic situation in Ukrainian society to the limit, and the repressive actions of the Hetman’s punitive detachments provoked the population into armed resistance.

Military policy

On July 24, the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian state adopted a law on universal military service and approved the plan for organizing the army prepared by the General Staff. The size of the peacetime army was planned to be increased to more than 300 thousand, while the actual number of armed forces in November 1918 was about 60 thousand. The infantry and cavalry regiments of the army of the Ukrainian state were renamed regiments of the former Russian army, subjected to “Ukrainization” in 1917, ¾ of which were led by former commanders. All positions in the hetman's army were occupied by Russian officers, the vast majority of whom were not Ukrainians by nationality, who had previously served in the Russian Imperial Army and the Revolutionary Army of Free Russia.

Hetman Skoropadsky conducts a review of the Serozhupan division, 1918.

In Ukraine, with the permission of the authorities, Russian volunteer organizations were actively formed and operated. Ukraine and especially Kyiv became a center of attraction for all those fleeing the Bolsheviks from Petrograd, Moscow and other regions of the Russian Empire.

National-cultural policy

Under Skoropadsky, a policy of soft support for the Ukrainian national-cultural revival was pursued in Ukraine: the opening of new Ukrainian gymnasiums, the introduction of the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian history and Ukrainian geography as compulsory subjects in school. Ukrainian state universities were created in Kyiv and Kamenets-Podolsky, the Faculty of History and Philology in Poltava, the State Ukrainian Archive, the National Gallery of Art, the Ukrainian Historical Museum, the National Library of the Ukrainian State, the Ukrainian Drama and Opera Theater, the Ukrainian State Chapel, the Ukrainian Symphony Orchestra, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

Defeat of the Hetman regime

In the fall of 1918, due to the obvious approach of the defeat of the Central Powers in the war, Skoropadsky began to maneuver and look for ways to maintain power and establish an alliance with the Entente. The Hetman invited the National Union to negotiations on the formation of a new government of “national trust.” On October 24, a new cabinet of ministers was finally formed, in which the National Union, however, received only four portfolios and declared that it would remain in opposition to the hetman's regime.

On November 14, 1918, a few days after the news of the Compiègne Armistice, Hetman Skoropadsky signed the "Charter" - a manifesto in which he declared that he would defend the "long-standing power and strength of the All-Russian Power" and called for the construction of the All-Russian Federation as the first step towards re-creation of a great Russia. The manifesto meant the collapse of all efforts of the Ukrainian national movement to create an independent Ukrainian statehood. This document finally alienated most of the Ukrainian federalists, the Ukrainian military and the intelligentsia from the hetman. An anti-hetman uprising unfolded in Ukraine under the leadership of the UPR Directory. Within a month, under the command of Symon Petliura, the hetman's regime was overthrown by rebels and hetman troops who went over to the side of the Directory. On December 14, Skoropadsky signed a manifesto of renunciation and fled from Kyiv along with the departing German troops.

Further fate

Mural with a portrait of Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky in Kyiv at st. Starovokzalnaya 12, 2018

He lived in Germany as a private individual at Berlin-Wannsee, Alsenstrasse 17. The German authorities assigned him a pension of 10 thousand marks per year and in 1926-1927 allocated 45 thousand marks to cover his debts.

Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky (May 3, 1873, Wiesbaden, Germany - April 26, 1945, Metten, Bavaria, Germany) - Russian general, Ukrainian military and political figure; Hetman of Ukraine from April 29 to December 14, 1918.
Biography
Pavel Skoropadsky- Russian and Ukrainian military and statesman, hetman of Ukraine. Born on May 3, 1873 in Wiesbaden (Germany) into a noble family. Father P.I. Skoropadsky is a major landowner of the Chernigov and Poltava provinces, colonel of the Russian army, a direct descendant of the Ukrainian hetman I.I. Skoropadsky (1708-1722). Mother M.A. Miklashevskaya is from an old Cossack family.
Early years. The genealogy of the Cossack family of Skoropadsky dates back to the first half of the 17th century. The clan was connected by marriage with such Ukrainian families as the Apostles, Zakrevskys, Kochubeys, Lizogubys, Lysenkos, Miloradovichs, Polubotkis, Razumovskys, Tarnavskys, Markevichs. Pavel Skoropadsky himself was a descendant of Vasily Skoropadsky, brother of Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky, son of Pyotr Skoropadsky and Maria Andreevna Miklashevsky. He spent his childhood years on the family estate Trostyanets in the Poltava region. The Skoropadsky estate had a large collection of Ukrainian antiquities and portraits of prominent figures. In family life, the family preserved and adhered to old Ukrainian customs.
He began his education at the Starodub Gymnasium.. Family traditions, like the traditions of the entire aristocracy of the Russian Empire at that time, demanded that young Skoropadsky follow the path of a military soldier. A military career also attracted him. In 1886, Pavel entered the St. Petersburg Corps of Pages and successfully graduated in 1893. The young officer was assigned to serve in the Cavalry Regiment, where he temporarily served as squadron commander. Within two years, Pavel was appointed to the position of regimental adjutant of this regiment, and in December 1897 he became a guarantor. After graduating from the St. Petersburg Corps of Pages, he received the rank of cornet and was appointed squadron commander of the Cavalry Guard Regiment (1893). In 1895 he became a regimental adjutant. In 1897 he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1898 he married A.P. Durnovo, the daughter of the Moscow Governor-General. He took part in the Russo-Japanese War: he commanded a hundred of the 2nd Chita Cossack Regiment, then served as an aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in the Far East, General N.P. Linevich. Awarded the Arms of St. George and the Order of St. Vladimir. In December 1905, he was promoted to colonel and appointed aide-de-camp to Emperor Nicholas II. In 1910-1911 he commanded the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment. In 1911 he was appointed commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. In 1912 he was promoted to major general. During the First World War, he commanded the 1st Brigade of the 1st Guards Cavalry Division, then appointed commander of the 3rd, and later the 5th Guards Cavalry Division. In 1916 he became lieutenant general. In January 1917, he received command of the 34th Army Corps.
After the February Revolution, which caused the rise of the autonomist movement in Ukraine, found himself in a difficult position - subordinate to the Provisional Government and the Supreme Command, Skoropadsky was forced to reckon with the Central Rada, since his corps was located on territory controlled by it. When the Provisional Government recognized the legitimacy of the Central Rada (July 2, 1917), it began to Ukrainize its corps, which was called the “1st Ukrainian”. On October 6, the congress of the Free Cossacks in Chigirin proclaimed him ataman.

The October Revolution was met with hostility. He submitted to the Central Rada and was appointed commander of the armed forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed on November 7. From December 3, he carried out successful military operations against the Bolshevik-influenced units of the Southwestern Front and detachments of the Ukrainian Soviet government, based in Kharkov; was able to prevent the establishment of Soviet power in most of Ukraine. On December 29, in protest against the Rada’s decision to dissolve the 1st Ukrainian Corps, he resigned. The capture of Kyiv by the Bolsheviks on January 26, 1918 forced him to go underground. After the entry of German troops into Kyiv and the restoration of the power of the Central Rada, he headed the officer-Cossack organization "Ukrainian People's Community". On April 29, 1918, at the congress of “grain growers” ​​(large landowners), he was proclaimed “hetman of all Ukraine”; By order of the commander of the German troops, Field Marshal G. Eichhorn, the Central Rada was dissolved. The Ukrainian People's Republic ceased to exist, giving way to the Ukrainian state led by the hetman.
Having received power, Pavel Skoropadsky directed his efforts to create an independent Ukrainian state with all the necessary attributes: a law on Ukrainian citizenship was adopted, the state emblem was approved, its own monetary system was introduced, several national divisions were formed, the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church was proclaimed, the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences was organized, and two state universities were opened. His domestic policy was based on the revival of the historical Ukrainian tradition and the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders. Ukrainization, however, did not mean pursuing a nationalist course. The regime supported the organizations of Russian officers, although it prevented them from creating large military formations. His support was from right-wing conservative circles. The hetman cleansed the state apparatus of representatives of democratic parties, subjected left-wing nationalists to repression, and carried out punitive expeditions against peasants who seized landowners' lands. In foreign policy, he focused on Germany and its allies, confirmed all the agreements previously concluded by Ukraine; nevertheless, he achieved recognition from the Entente and a number of neutral countries. He entered into an agreement with the nationalist authorities of Crimea and entered into a military alliance with the Cossack governments of the Don and Kuban.
After the defeat of Germany and the beginning of the evacuation of German troops from Ukraine, he tried to rely on the Entente and the White Movement. He abandoned the slogan of an independent Ukraine and declared his readiness to fight for the restoration of a united Russia together with the Volunteer and Don armies. He began to form Russian officer squads. However, the uprising raised against him in mid-November by the leaders of the Ukrainian National Union (V.K. Vinnychenko, S.V. Petliura), and the successful offensive of Petliura’s troops on Kyiv led to the disintegration of the hetman’s troops and the collapse of the Ukrainian state. On December 14, 1918, Skoropadsky renounced power and, under the guise of a wounded German major, left Kyiv, leaving the city and its few defenders to the mercy of fate.
In 1918-1945 he lived in Germany. It was the center of attraction of the monarchical wing of the Ukrainian emigration. During World War II he actively collaborated with the Germans. In April 1945, he fled from besieged Berlin to the south, but on the way he was bombed by Allied aircraft and was mortally wounded. Pavel Skoropadsky died on April 26 in a hospital in Metten (Bavaria).

Russo-Japanese War
With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Skoropadsky submitted a report with a request to be transferred to the front in the active army. At the end of February 1904, he left St. Petersburg for Manchuria. From March 16, 1904, Skoropadsky served in Mukden, as part of the 1st Manchurian Army. He was a captain of the 3rd Verkhneudinsk Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. On May 1, the young officer was transferred to headquarters, to the post of adjutant to Lieutenant General Fedor Keller, commander of the Eastern detachment of the Manchurian Army. However, on October 1, Skoropadsky left his staff job of his own free will and became the commander of the 5th hundred of the 2nd Chita Regiment of Transbaikal Cossacks. His troops took part in reconnaissance operations and lightning attacks on enemy lines.
On October 29, 1904, for his services in the battles against the Japanese from April 20 to July 4, Tsar Nicholas II awarded the Ukrainian officer the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree with swords and bow. He was also awarded the St. George's Arms "For Bravery". In May 1905, Skoropadsky was appointed to the post of adjutant to General Nikolai Linevich, commander of Russian troops in the Far East. He remained in this position until November 7. In December 1905, Emperor Nicholas II appointed Skoropadsky as his aide-de-camp, with the rank of colonel. On September 4, 1910, Colonel Skoropadsky became commander of the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment, remaining an aide-de-camp. In 1912 he was awarded the rank of major general of the imperial regiment.

Age of Revolution
Revolutionary events in Petrograd led to the demoralization of the army and its gradual Bolshevisation. In Ukraine, the national revolutionary movement was led by the socialist Central Rada. Pavel Skoropadsky was hostile to the socialist ideas of the Ukrainian and Russian revolutionary parties. In May 1917, the First All-Ukrainian Military Congress took place in Kyiv, which decided to create a Ukrainian national army. In August 1917, by order of General Kornilov, as a result of Ukrainization, the 34th Corps under the command of Skoropadsky was transformed into the 1st Ukrainian Corps. The complete Ukrainization of 20 divisions and several dozen reserve regiments took place according to the joint September order of Kerensky and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Dukhonin. Such a sharp change in the attitude of the Provisional Government to the “Ukrainian question” took place due to the fact that the Central Rada, during the coup led by General Kornilov, supported the Provisional Government. In addition, the Ukrainization of the army became an obstacle to the influence of reactionary Russian officers and Bolshevik propaganda in the army.
On October 16-17, 1917, at the congress of the Free Cossacks in Chigirin, Skoropadsky was elected ataman of the Free Cossacks by delegates from 5 Ukrainian provinces and Kuban. Among the Cossacks, the face of a descendant of the hetman's family, military general Skoropadsky, was very popular. Later, Skoropadsky lost all his acquired authority among the free Cossacks by agreeing to run for the Constituent Assembly from a bloc of reactionary Russian landowners. After the Bolshevik coup in November 1917, Skoropadsky recognized the superiority of the orders of the Central Rada and carried out the orders of the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Colonel General Dmitry Shcherbachev, who in turn was subordinate to the General Secretariat.
In November 1917, the Bolshevik 2nd Guards Corps, led by Evgenia Bosh, moved to Kyiv to disperse the Ukrainian government. Skoropadsky received orders from Petlyura and Shcherbachev: to disperse the rebels. Since the Bolshevik units had a low level of discipline, the liquidation of their offensive took place without significant bloodshed. In particular, near Vinnitsa the rebels were met by the Ukrainian rifle division of Skoropadsky. The Red units were instantly disbanded almost without a fight, loaded into trains and sent to Russia. In January 1918, the Bolsheviks occupied Kyiv and Skoropadsky was hiding from repression.
With the return of German-Austrian troops to Kyiv, the Central Rada in March 1918 announced the extension of its internal socialization policy, which was reflected in the III Universal. The peasants did not submit to the actions of officials of the Central Rada and were reluctant to give up grain and products that the Central Rada was supposed to give to the Germans as payment for military assistance. The occupation forces, believing that the Ukrainian authorities would not keep their obligations to transfer food products to the Germans, began punitive actions to forcibly confiscate food while leaving documents on the confiscation. In response to the punitive actions of the German and Austrian troops, the resistance movement in Ukraine is expanding and organizing.
On April 29, 1918 in Kyiv, the All-Ukrainian Congress of Grain Growers unanimously called for Pavlo Skoropadsky to be proclaimed hetman of Ukraine. The Central Council was dispersed by the Germans, but the formation of the Ukrainian State was immediately announced, headed by the hetman, who assumed the authority to govern the region.
Hetmanate
On April 29, 1918, as a result of a coup d'etat, Pavel Skoropadsky took power in Ukraine. The general population did not support the Central Rada and its Council of Ministers, so the coup took place almost without shots or blood, only three officers who believed in the hetman were killed in a battle with the Sich Riflemen. The main reason for the success of the coup was the paralysis of the Central Rada. In the St. Sophia Cathedral, Bishop Nikodim anointed Hetman, and a solemn prayer service was served on St. Sophia Square. At the same time, a “Certificate to the entire Ukrainian people” was published, in which the Hetman stated that he had temporarily assumed full power. According to this document, the Central Rada and all land committees were dissolved, ministers and their comrades were dismissed from their posts, and ordinary civil servants were to continue working. The right to private property was restored. The Hetman also reported that he would soon issue a law on elections to the Ukrainian Seimas. It was promised to provide the population with peace, law and the opportunity for creative work." Until the convening of the Sejm in Ukraine, the "Laws on the temporary state structure of Ukraine", issued on the same day, should be in force. They determined the main directions of Hetman's activities in the political sphere and the organization of public administration , these guarantees of civil rights of the population, announced the establishment of the Ukrainian State instead of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The new state was based on both republican and monarchical principles. According to the “Laws..., all power, including the legislative, was concentrated in the hands of the hetman. In form it was a dictatorial government with the attributes of a national tradition, in political essence it was an authoritarian regime of the conservative part of the population without a clearly defined model for building a new state.
The Hetman tried, by force of power and moderate reforms, to eliminate revolutionary changes on the land issue and restore stability in society, but from the first days he was opposed by federalist socialists, social democrats, Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries and other parties that had previously supported the Central Rada. The Hetman's state received international recognition among countries that were in a military alliance with Germany. Having established diplomatic ties with Germany, which the hetman visited on an official visit in September 1918 and where he held successful negotiations with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ukraine received greater freedom of action in its foreign policy, in particular the Germans’ consent to the development of a regular Ukrainian army. Political and economic relations were also established with Crimea, Don, Kuban, recognition was obtained and a truce was signed with Soviet Russia (June 12, 1918).

Ukraine has achieved certain successes in the fields of science, education and culture. Skoropadsky's generalists created the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Ukrainian universities in Kyiv and Kamenets-Podolsk, and 150 Ukrainian gymnasiums. Several million copies of Ukrainian textbooks have also been published; a wide network of general cultural institutions was founded.
On April 29, 1918, the hetman repealed the laws of the Central Rada on the confiscation of large estates, but the plan for their redemption and distribution among the peasants was adopted only in November. From the first days of its activity, the Hetman's government took measures to normalize the situation in the countryside, but was shocked by discontent, contradictions, and excesses. To prepare a new agrarian law and resolve conflicts between landowners and peasants, provincial and district commissions were created. Temporary rules on land commissions obliged the peasants to return the landowners' property and compensate for the damage they caused to large landowners. At the beginning of November, they prepared a draft agrarian reform, which provided for the forced purchase by the state of large land holdings and their distribution among peasants - no more than 25 acres per yard.
Most observers assess the 7.5 months of the Ukrainian State as a period of social and public peace. Contemporaries of Pavel Skoropadsky and historians state the fact of a certain economic rise in Ukraine during this period. This was facilitated by the restoration of private property, Hetman's support for free enterprise, the ability of industrial and commercial circles to significantly influence the economic policy of the authorities, and the widespread sale of goods to Germany and Austria-Hungary. At this time, money circulation was established, the monetary system was improved, a state budget was created, several Ukrainian banks were opened, and new joint-stock companies were founded. Railroad traffic was gradually revived. The external guarantee of this was, of course, the occupation Austro-German army, which stopped the state of war and the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. In these matters, the goals of the Austrian-German troops and the hetman coincided.
The Hetman's regime made fatal mistakes, and Pavel Skoropadsky failed to retain power for long. The guarantor of stability in the state was actually an external force - the occupation forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The restoration of the old order of the Russian Empire, attempts to return the land to the landowners, the mandatory transfer of crops by peasants to the state, an increase in the working day at industrial enterprises to 12 hours, and the prohibition of strikes contributed to the formation of the opposition. In July-August 1918, an anti-hetman wave of strike movement rose. At the same time, in the Kyiv, Chernigov and Yekaterinoslav regions, the peasant struggle against the occupiers and the hetman intensified. The rebel groups numbered more than 40 thousand people in their ranks. There were also sabotages, attacks, etc., which led to repression by the Hetman government and the German-Austrian military authorities.
The November revolutions of 1918 in Austria-Hungary and Germany eliminated the external guarantee of the stability of the hetman's power. On the other hand, representatives of England, France, the USA and Italy promised help only if they declared a course towards a federation with White Russia, which in the end, like the new (since November 1918) pro-Russian cabinet of ministers of S. M. Gerbel, turned out to be suicidal for Hetman.
Due to political differences, Hetman's cabinet of ministers split. Trying to defuse the atmosphere, on November 14, 1918, Pavel Skoropadsky signed a Charter-Manifesto to the Ukrainian people, which effectively liquidated the idea of ​​​​building an independent Ukraine as a counterweight development of the All-Russian Federation, of which Ukraine was to become an integral part. By this, Hetman alienated the Ukrainian community and was unable to attract Russian circles. Representatives of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine and pro-Russian chauvinist circles took a course towards overthrowing Skoropadsky’s government. Together, the ideologists of the anti-Hetman resistance M. Shapoval and Vinnychenko prepared an uprising, establishing relations with Ukrainian military circles. On November 13, 1918 in Kyiv, in the house of the Ministry of Railways, representatives of the socialist parties gathered and elected a Directory, which included Vinnichenko (chairman of the Directory), Petlyura, F. Shvets, A. Makarenko, P. Andriivsky. The Directory's appeal to the population stated that the hetman's power must be "foundedly" destroyed, and the hetman is "outside the law." Petlyura in Bila Tserkva issued a Universal to the people calling for an uprising. Over several weeks of fighting, the troops of the Directory, on December 14, 1918, captured the capital of the Ukrainian State. Circumstances that made it impossible for Skoropadsky to continue to remain in the role of hetman forced him to renounce the hetmanship that same day and leave Kyiv. The Directory announced the restoration of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The majority of the Directory's leadership actually stood on a socialist platform. The decrees of the hetman's government were annulled. The new government deprived not only landowners and capitalists of the right to participate in the political life of the country, but also the intelligentsia. The fight against the consequences of the hetmanate sometimes took on forms that could not but cause protest.
Emigration
After the abdication of power, Skoropadsky and his family moved to Berlin, then to Switzerland, and finally settled (in 1945) in Wannsee, a northwestern suburb of Berlin. Already in 1920, thanks to the insistence of the hetman emigrants, who, led by V. Lipinsky and S. Shemet, organized themselves into the “Ukrainian Union of Grain-Growers-Sovereigns,” Skoropadsky returned to active political life - he led the new hetman movement, and Vyacheslav Lipinsky became its theoretician .
In the early 1930s, disagreements arose between the practitioner Skoropadsky and the theorist Lipinsky regarding the existence of the movement, and the only “Union” split. The hetman's supporters united in the "Union of Hetman-Statists". Thanks to the efforts of Skoropadsky, branches of the hetman movement appear not only in Austria and Germany, but in Czechoslovakia, France, Canada, the USA, and in Western Ukrainian lands (Poland). In addition, by the measures of Pavel Petrovich, in 1926, the Ukrainian Scientific Institute was established in Germany at the University of Berlin, which played a major role in the development of Ukrainian science and culture.
With the National Socialists coming to power in Germany, Skoropadsky’s life became more complicated. I had to make considerable efforts and use my authority and connections to make possible the continued existence and activities of the “Union of Hetman-Statists” and the Ukrainian community in Germany. At the same time, foreseeing the inevitable war in Europe, Pavel Skoropadsky 1939 sent his son Danil to Great Britain in order to ensure the continued existence of the hetman movement in the event of the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition. And although the hetman did not support Nazism, he was forced to be “loyal” to it. But despite this, Skoropadsky always defended Ukrainian interests before the official Reich and among the public. For example, when, with the consent of Berlin, Hungarian troops occupied Carpathian Ukraine in 1939, the hetman sent a telegram of protest to Hitler. Skoropadsky's measures are due to the liberation of German concentration camps by Bandera, A. Melnik, Y. Stetsko, A. Levitsky and others.
Death of the Hetman
At the end of the war, Skoropadsky sent his wife Alexandra with their children Maria and the sick Peter to Oberstdorf - to the estate of family friends in the Bavarian Alps. Daughter Helena was in Würzburg at the time; Elizabeth remained with her father as an assistant secretary, and Hetman Daniil was in London.
On April 8, 1945, Skoropadsky himself, Elizaveta, adjutant Dmitry Grishchinsky and several other people left the village. Mellingen, near Weimar, in the direction of Oberstdorf. On April 16, 1945, during the bombing of the Plattling station (near Munich) by Anglo-American aircraft, Pavel and Elizaveta Skoropadsky were bombarded with stones from the destroyed station wall. The wounded father and daughter were taken to the hospital in Deggendorf and then to the nearby Metten monastery. At 4 o'clock in the morning on April 26, Skoropadsky died and was buried in the monastery cemetery by the Greek Catholic priest Gregory Onufrivim. In 1946, the remains of Pavel Skoropadsky were solemnly reburied in Oberstdorf. All members of the Skoropadsky family who died in exile were buried in the same grave with him, except for Danil, who was buried in Great Britain. During 1938-1941, Skoropadsky tried to rally all Ukrainian forces in the diaspora. He did not share the hopes of some emigrant groups that the Germans would restore Ukrainian statehood.