Symon Petliura
Symon Vasyliovych Petliura[a] (Ukrainian: Симон Васильович Петлюра; 22 May [O.S. 10 May] 1879 – 25 May 1926) was a Ukrainian politician and journalist. He was the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian People's Army (UNA) and led the Ukrainian People's Republic during the Ukrainian War of Independence, a part of the wider Russian Civil War.
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Vasylyovych and the family name is Petliura.
Symon Petliura
Position established
22 May 1879
Poltava, Russian Empire
Lesya (1911–1941)
Poltava Orthodox Seminary
Politician and statesman
1914–1922
Chief Otaman
Haidamaka Kish of Sloboda Ukraine
Petliura was born to a family of Cossack heritage in Poltava. From an early age he embraced socialism and Ukrainian nationalism, which he advocated through his highly prolific career as a journalist. After the 1917 February Revolution overthrew the Tsarist monarchy, the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed and Petliura was elected head of its military. The Republic was briefly interrupted by the pro-German Ukrainian State, but in late 1918 Petliura, along with other members of the socialist Directorate of Ukraine, organised a revolt and overthrew the regime, restoring the Republic. He became the leader of the Directorate in early 1919, after the Bolsheviks invaded Ukraine and drove the UNA to Galicia. Facing imminent defeat, Petliura entered an alliance with Józef Piłsudski's Poland. The Polish–Soviet War concluded with Polish victory but Ukraine remained under Soviet control, forcing Petliura into exile. He initially directed the government-in-exile from Poland, but eventually settled in Paris.
During the Civil War, the UNA were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jewish civilians, and Petliura's role in the pogroms has been a topic of dispute. In 1926, Petliura was assassinated in Paris by Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard, who had lost relatives in the pogroms.
Life in exile[edit]
In Paris, Petliura directed the activities of the government of the Ukrainian National Republic in exile. He launched the weekly Tryzub, and continued to edit and write numerous articles under various pen names with an emphasis on questions dealing with national oppression in Ukraine. These articles were written with a literary flair. The question of national awareness was often of significance in his literary work.
Petliura's articles had a significant impact on the shaping of Ukrainian national awareness in the early 20th century. He published articles and brochures under a variety of noms de plume, including V. Marchenko, V. Salevsky, I. Rokytsky, and O. Riastr.[9]
Legacy[edit]
Ukraine[edit]
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, previously restricted Soviet archives have allowed numerous politicians and historians to review Petliura's role in Ukrainian history. Some consider him a national hero who strove for the independence of Ukraine. Several cities, including Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and Poltava, the city of his birth, have erected monuments to Petliura, with a museum complex also being planned in Poltava. Petliura's statue, unveiled in Vinnytsia in October 2017, was denounced as disgraceful and deplorable by the World Jewish Congress.[39] To mark the 80th anniversary of his assassination, a twelve-volume edition of his writings, including articles, letters and historic documents, has been published in Kyiv by Taras Shevchenko University and the State Archive of Ukraine. In 1992 in Poltava, a series of readings known as "Petliurivski chytannia" have become an annual event, and since 1993, they have taken place annually at Kyiv University.[40]
In June 2009, Kyiv City Council renamed Comintern Street (located in Shevchenkivskyi District) as Symon Petliura Street to commemorate the 130th anniversary of his birth.[41]
In modern-day Ukraine, Petliura has not been as lionized as Mykhailo Hrushevsky (who played a much smaller role in the Ukrainian People's Republic), since Petliura was too closely associated with violence to make a good symbolic figure.[42] In a 2008 poll of "Famous Ukrainians of all times" (in which respondents did not receive any lists or tips), Petliura was not mentioned (Hrushevsky came in sixth place in this poll).[43] In the 2008 TV project Velyki Ukraïntsi ("Greatest Ukrainians"), he placed 26th.[44]
A nephew of Symon Petliura, Stepan Skrypnyk, became Patriarch Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church on 6 June 1990.
In December 2022, the city of Izium – recently liberated from Russian forces – decided to rename Maxim Gorky Street as Symon Petliura Street.[45]
Ukrainian diaspora[edit]
For part of the Western Ukrainian diaspora, Petliura is remembered as a national hero, a fighter for Ukrainian independence, a martyr, who inspired hundreds of thousands to fight for an independent Ukrainian state. He has inspired original music,[46] and youth organizations.[47]
Petliura in Ukrainian folk songs[edit]
During the revolution Petliura became the subject of numerous folk songs, primarily as a hero calling for his people to unite against foreign oppression. His name became synonymous with the call for freedom.[48] 15 songs were recorded by the ethnographer rev. prof. K. Danylevsky. In the songs Petliura is depicted as a soldier, in a manner similar to Robin Hood, mocking Skoropadsky and the Bolshevik Red Guard.
News of Petliura's assassination in the summer of 1926 was marked by numerous revolts in eastern Ukraine particularly in Boromlia, Zhehailivtsi, (Sumy province), Velyka Rublivka, Myloradov (Poltava province), Hnylsk, Bilsk, Kuzemyn and all along the Vorskla River from Okhtyrka to Poltava, Burynia, Nizhyn (Chernihiv province) and other cities.[49] These revolts were brutally pacified by the Soviet administration. The blind kobzars Pavlo Hashchenko and Ivan Kuchuhura Kucherenko composed a duma (epic poem) in memory of Symon Petliura. To date Petliura is the only modern Ukrainian politician to have a duma created and sung in his memory. This duma became popular among the kobzars of left-bank Ukraine and was sung also by Stepan Pasiuha, Petro Drevchenko, Bohushchenko, and Chumak.[50]
The Soviets also tried their hand at portraying Petliura through the arts in order to discredit the Ukrainian national leader. A number of humorous songs appeared in which Petliura is portrayed as a traveling beggar whose only territory is that which is under his train carriage. A number of plays such as The Republic on Wheels by Yakov Mamontov and the opera Shchors by Boris Liatoshinsky and Arsenal by Heorhiy Maiboroda portray Petliura in a negative light, as a lackey who sold out Western Ukraine to Poland, often using the very same melodies which had become popular during the fight for Ukrainian Independence in 1918.
Petliura continues to be portrayed by the Ukrainian people in its folk songs in a manner similar to Taras Shevchenko and Bohdan Khmelnytsky. He is likened to the sun which suddenly stopped shining.