Українське питання в політиці провідних держав напередодні великої війни (1914–1918 рр.)

Abstract

Розглянуто значення українських земель для країн-учасниць Першої світової війни. Проаналізовано плани та цілі кожної з держав, які входили до складу різних воюючих блоків, відносно загарбання українських земель. The Entente and Triple Alliance – the two military-political alliances which had the relation to the beginning of the First World War, planned to lead the would-be war with the aim of enlarging their economical and political influences and for new outlet while redividing of the previously had already divided world. In this war Ukraine, as the largest European country of those without its own government, and having numerous labor and material resources and very convenient geographical location – had become a target of the comparative rival countries. Ukraine had become a center of a particular international attention. The matter of “Ukrainian question” which appeared in those days international politics could be explained by the absence of any kind of the independent state, territorial division of Ukraine, unsatisfied material, national and cultural conditions of Ukrainian people. The “Ukrainian question” became one of the most important reasons of European destabilization of the international relations in Europe, which in its own way provoked two military-political alliances to the conflict. The Russian Empire, from one side and Germany and the Austria-Hungary from the other one treated the question of the conquest of the Ukrainian lands as one with the most important priority. Besides, while eastern part of Ukraine, so called –Naddniprianska Ukraine - stayed a part of the Russian Empire, the last one wanted to conquer western Ukraine. On the other hand, as Austria-Hungary ruling western Ukrainian lands, claimed its rights to eastern Ukraine. Having started the war, the Russian Empire planned to conquer lands of Eastern Galicia, Northern Bukovina and Transcarpatia. It would let them solve two tasks: at first – to broaden the border of the Russian Empire and, at the same time, weaken or even destroy their western opponent; at second – to completely squelch the organising centres of Ukrainian liberation movements in Galicia, which not occasionally was called “Ukrainian Piemont”. The burglarious character of its intentions, Russian propaganda managed to hide by the will to unite the all Russian lands, of which, of course, Ukrainian lands were a part of. During the war, the Austria-Hungary Empire, aimed to strengthen their positions in Western Ukraine and unite to its lands the other inhabited by Ukrainians territories, in particular, Volyn and Podillia. It would let them enhance their influence on Slavic nations of the Empire (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks), and tend to be the most influential country in the Slavic world. The German Empire struggled for the expanding of its lands by conquering eastern and southern Ukraine – the most economically developed Ukrainian regions. Among German politicians the question of Ukraine was thought as essential, needed to defeat the Russian Empire. The German authority paid much attention to military actions held on Ukrainian lands, finding it as one of the most important scenes of the World War. Germans didn’t exclude the creation of formally separate Ukrainian state formed on the reclaimed from the Russian Empire lands.