Russian occupation of Eastern Galicia and Bukovyna and Russian cadets during the First World War

Abstract

The article analyzes the attitude of the Constitutional Democratic Party (People’s Freedom Party) to the Russian occupation of Galicia and Bukovina during the First World War. It has been proven that the Russian cadets defined the Great War as a defensive, just war, the task of which was to complete the formation of the territory of the Russian Empire. In the conditions of the war, the Constitutional Democratic Party abandoned the opposition confrontation with the government, actualizing the consolidation of social and political forces to achieve victory, strengthen strategic positions, and strengthen the power of the empire.
The attitude of the Constitutional Democratic Party to the Ukrainian issue did not go beyond national and cultural requirements, which could not be fulfilled in the conditions of the war. Russian cadets actively cooperated with representatives of the Ukrainian movement in the Dnieper region, in particular with the Society of Ukrainian Progressives, who demanded to respond to the facts of mass repressions, arbitrariness, looting, and prohibitions in the territories of Galicia and Bukovina occupied by the Russian imperial army. The cadets negatively assessed the persecution of Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture by the Russian administration during the occupation of Galicia and Bukovyna in 1914–1915. Behind official statements of a declarative nature, discussions at meetings of the Central Committee and party conferences, which revealed differences among the cadets, testified to the existence of several currents: the right ( P. Struve, V. Maklakov, A. Tyrkova-Williams, D. Protopopov), whose representatives denied the Ukrainian movement and culture; of the center (P. Milyukov, A. Shingaryov, V. Vernadskyi, F. Rodichev), who supported the idea of cultural self-determination, but linked its practical implementation, as well as solving the problem of Galicia, to the distant future; of the left (Ukrainian cadets), who insisted on meeting the demands of Ukrainians and preserving the political rights of Galicians.