Union for the Liberation of Ukraine

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Union for the Liberation of Ukraine

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Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (Soiuz vyzvolennia Ukraïny, or SVU). An organization
of Ukrainian émigrés from the Russian Empire established in Austria-Hungary and Germany
during the First World War as an organization representing Ukrainians under Russian
domination. Its members were mostly socialists from central Ukraine who had either fled or
been deported to Austrian territory. They sought to use the war, in which Austria-Hungary
and Germany were pitted against the Russian Empire in the east, as a means of securing
Ukrainian independence. Ultimately they hoped to establish a constitutional monarchy with a
democratic structure and a unicameral legislature in Ukraine.

The SVU's presidium, initially headed by Dmytro Dontsov and Mykola Zalizniak, consisted
of Volodymyr Doroshenko, Mariian Melenevsky, Oleksander Skoropys-Yoltukhovsky, and
Andrii Zhuk. It was assisted by various Galician and Bukovynian activists, including Ivan
Krypiakevych, Bohdan Lepky, Mykhailo Lozynsky, Stepan Rudnytsky, Vasyl Simovych,
Stepan Smal-Stotsky, Roman Smal-Stotsky, and Mykhailo Vozniak. The group was initially
centered in Lviv, but moved to Vienna in August 1914. From its inception the SVU worked
with the Supreme Ukrainian Council (after May 1915, the General Ukrainian Council) in
Vienna, in which it was represented by Doroshenko, Skoropys-Yoltukhovsky, and
Melenevsky.

The SVU undertook a wide-ranging campaign of distributing information and making

representations to the Central Powers and neutral European nations. Its representatives were
in Germany (Oleksander Skoropys-Yoltukhovsky), Turkey (Mariian Melenevsky), Bulgaria
and Romania (Lev Hankevych), Italy (O. Semeniv), Sweden and Norway (Osyp Nazaruk),
and Switzerland (P. Chykalenko). It published the journal Vistnyk Soiuza vyzvolennia Ukraïny
(edited by Volodymyr Doroshenko, Mykhailo Vozniak, and Andrii Zhuk) and the weekly
Ukrainische Nachrichten in Vienna and La Revue ukranienne in Lausanne. It also issued about 50
books and 30 brochures about Ukraine in German, French, English, Italian, Turkish, Swedish,
Romanian, Croatian, Czech, and Bulgarian. Among the more important monographs it issued
were Doroshenko's Ukraïnstvo v Rosiï (The Ukrainian Movement in Russia) and Pivtorasta lit
ukraïns’koï politychnoï dumky (150 Years of Ukrainian Political Thought), Volodymyr Hnatiuk's
Natsional’ne vidrodzhennia avstro-uhors’kykh ukraïntsiv (The National Revival of Austro-

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Union for the Liberation of Ukraine

Hungarian Ukrainians), Ivan Krypiakevych's Ukraïns’ke viis’ko (The Ukrainian Military),

Mykhailo Lozynsky's Halychyna v zhytti Ukraïny (Galicia in the Life of Ukraine), Stepan
Rudnytsky's Ukraina, Land und Volk, Mykhailo Hrushevsky's Geschichte der Ukraine, and
Volodymyr Temnytsky's Ukraïns’ki sichovi stril’tsi (The Ukrainian Sich Riflemen).

With the support of the Ukrainian community of Galicia and Bukovyna and the approval of
the Austro-Hungarian and German military authorities the SVU provided medical, religious,
and cultural services for Ukrainian prisoners of war of the Russian army held in prisoner of
war camps in Austria (in Freistadt), Hungary (Duna-Serdagel), and Germany (Rastatt,
Salzwedel, and Wetzlar). As a result of its efforts about 50,000 prisoners of war in Germany
and 30,000 in Austria were provided with hospitals, schools, libraries, reading rooms, choirs,
orchestras, theaters, and courses in political economics, co-operative management, Ukrainian
history and literature, and German language. Various newspapers were established,
including Rozsvit (printed in Rastatt), Vil’ne slovo (Salzwedel), Hromads’ka dumka (Wetzlar),
Rozvaha (Freistadt), and Nash holos (Josefstadt). A number of educational brochures were also
published.

In 1916 the SVU set up an office in Lviv, which established a private Ukrainian school system
in those regions of Volhynia that had been occupied by Austria-Hungary. In the spring of
1917 the SVU organized a group of former Ukrainian prisoners of war to set up about 100
schools (for about 5,500 pupils) and established the newspaper Ridne slovo (1917–19) (Biała
Podlaska) in Podlachia, a region controlled by the German army at that time.

With the outbreak of the February Revolution of 1917, the SVU declared that its mandate
extended beyond the supervision of prisoners of war and the defense of Ukrainian territories
under Austrian-Hungarian rule from Polish designs. As a result of SVU efforts two Ukrainian
army divisions, the Bluecoats (under the German army, commanded by Viktor Zelinsky)
and the Graycoats (under the Austro-Hungarians), were formed. They were later
incorporated into the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic.

The SVU was initially criticized by other central Ukrainians for its collaboration with the
Central Powers, but its activities gradually earned acceptance, particularly as a result of its
publishing. The supporters of the Entente and various Russian émigrés (including Vladimir
Lenin) were hostile to it. The journal Borot’ba, published by the Ukrainian Social Democratic
party and edited by Lev Yurkevych in Geneva, was also critical. The SVU was formally
dissolved on 1 May 1918.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pam’iatkova knyzhka SVU i kalendar na 1917 (Vienna 1917)
Terlets’kyi, O. Istoriia ukraïns’koï hromady v Rashtati 1915–1918 (Leipzig 1919)
Skoropys-Ioltukhovs’kyi, O. ‘Moï zlochyny,’ Khliborobs’ka Ukraïna, nos 2–4 (Vienna 1920–1)
Bihl, W. Österreich-Ungarn und der Bund zur Befreiung der Ukraina in Österreich und Europa
(1965)
Hornykiewicz, T. Ereignisse in der Ukraine 1914–22, vol 1 (Philadelphia 1966)
Rozdol’s’kyi, R. ‘Do istoriï SVU,’ Ukraïns’kyi samostiinyk, 1969, nos 1–6
Fedyshyn, O. ‘The Germans and the Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine, 1914–1917,’ in

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Union for the Liberation of Ukraine

The Ukraine: A Study in Revolution, ed T. Hunczak (Cambridge, Mass 1977)

Soiuz vyzvolennia Ukraïny, 1914–1918, Viden’ (New York 1979)

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]

List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Union for the Liberation of
Ukraine entry:

1 Bluecoats
2 Dontsov, Dmytro
3 First World War
4 Galicia
5 General Ukrainian Council

6 History of Ukraine
7 Kholm region
8 League of Ukrainian Nationalists
9 Lepky, Bohdan

10 Levytsky, Volodymyr S.
11 Levytsky, Yevhen
12 Lozynsky, Mykhailo

13 Museum of Ukraine's Struggle for Independence

14 Pachovsky, Vasyl
15 Parashchuk, Mykhailo

16 Podlachia
17 Prisoner of war camps
18 Ridne slovo (1917–19)
19 Rozsvit
20 Rozvaha

+ 20 Records >>

A referral to this page is found in 36 entries.

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