The history of the UNR and the ZUNR for a history student (03.06.2023)
A lecture-monologue by Vitaliy Dribnytsya, prompted by a history student, on the era of the UNR and the ZUNR: the two Treaties of Brest (Brest-Litovsk), the arrival of German and Austro-Hungarian troops under the UNR’s separate peace, the Central Rada’s inability to fulfil the treaty on food supplies, Field Marshal Eichhorn’s appeal to the peasants over the Rada’s head, and the mounting conflict between the Central Rada and the German command that ended in Skoropadskyi’s hetman coup. The material supplements the article on the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921 with details of the German-Ukrainian interaction of 1918.
Key moments
- 02:43 The Treaty of Brest: Austria-Hungary and Germany promised military aid in exchange for grain and meat
- 02:53 ~450,000 German and Austro-Hungarian troops against 40,000–60,000 Bolshevik ones
- 03:25 The Central Rada could not fulfil the Treaty of Brest — it had neither police nor a tax service
- 03:47 Field Marshal Eichhorn appealed to the peasants over the Rada's head → conflict between the Central Rada and the Germans
- 04:51 The hetman coup of 29 April 1918 with German support; a company of soldiers dissolved the Rada