Encyclopedia of misconceptions. War
Hetman Skoropadsky about Galicians April 16th, 2016
“After all, Galicians live on scraps from the German and Polish table. Their language alone clearly reflects this, where for every five words there are 4 of Polish or German origin.”
The current government of Ukraine is forced to recognize the Russian general Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky as one of the founders of the Ukrainian state, but according to the content of his memoirs, the current Svidomo Ukrainians would have lynched the hetman.
Skoropadsky's memoirs are written in the hetman's native Russian language. Although Pavlo Skoropadsky was a descendant of the hetman who replaced Mazepa, he was a Russian Little Russian landowner and did not know the so-called “Ukrainian language.”
In “Memoirs,” Skoropadsky also mentioned the Galicians, who like to call themselves the soul and conscience of Ukraine. Here is what Hetman Skoropadsky wrote about them:
"...Galicians, for whom it was important to present a false picture of the Ukraine that really exists, that is, has a sharp line between Galician Ukraine and ours. In reality these are two different countries. The entire culture, religion, worldview of their inhabitants is different. The Galicians want to present a picture of a united Ukraine, which is extremely hostile to the idea of Russia, and in this Ukraine the Galicians themselves would play the most important role...
Indeed, the cultural class of Ukrainians is very small. This is a misfortune for the Ukrainian people. There are many people who passionately love Ukraine and wish its cultural development, but these people themselves are of Russian culture, and while they care about Ukrainian culture, they will not change Russian culture at all. This narrow Ukrainianness is exclusively a product brought to us from Galicia, the culture of which is not completely transplanted to us: there are no prerequisites for success and it is simply a crime, since there, in fact, there is no culture there.
After all, Galicians live on scraps from the German and Polish tables. Their language alone clearly reflects this, where out of five words - 4 are of Polish or German origin. (...)
The Great Russians and our Ukrainians, through their common efforts, created Russian science, Russian literature, music and art, and to give up this lofty and good thing in order to take that the squalor that the Galicians so kindly offer to us Ukrainians is simply ridiculous and unthinkable...
As much as I consider it necessary that children at home and at school speak the same language in which their mother taught them, to know in detail the history of their Ukraine, its geography, as much as I consider it necessary that Ukrainians work to create their own culture, just as I I consider it pointless and disastrous for Ukraine to break away from Russia, especially culturally.
With the existence and free development of Russian and Ukrainian culture in our country, we can flourish, but if we now abandon the first culture, we will only be litter for other nations and will never be able to create anything great."
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When the Provisional Government recognized the legitimacy of the Central Rada (July 2 (15), 1917), it began to Ukrainize its corps, which was called the “1st Ukrainian”. On October 6, the congress of the Free Cossacks in Chigirin proclaimed him ataman.
SKOROPADSKY, PAVEL PETROVICH (1873–1945), Ukrainian military and statesman, hetman of Ukraine. Born on May 3 (15), 1873 in Wiesbaden (Germany) into a noble family. Father P.I. Skoropadsky is a major landowner of the Chernigov and Poltava provinces, a colonel in the Russian army, a direct descendant of the Ukrainian hetman I.I. Skoropadsky (1708–1722). Mother M.A. Miklashevskaya is from an old Cossack family. After graduating from the St. Petersburg Corps of Pages, he received the rank of cornet and was appointed squadron commander of the Cavalry Guard Regiment (1893). In 1895 he became a regimental adjutant. In 1897 he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1898 he married A.P. Durnovo, the daughter of the Moscow Governor-General. He took part in the Russo-Japanese War: he commanded a hundred of the 2nd Chita Cossack Regiment, then served as an aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in the Far East, General N.P. Linevich. Awarded the Arms of St. George and the Order of St. Vladimir. In December 1905, he was promoted to colonel and appointed aide-de-camp to Emperor Nicholas II. In 1910–1911 he commanded the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment. In 1911 he was appointed commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. In 1912 he was promoted to major general. During the First World War, he commanded the 1st Brigade of the 1st Guards Cavalry Division, then appointed commander of the 3rd, and later the 5th Guards Cavalry Division. In 1916 he became a lieutenant general. In January 1917 he received command of the 34th Army Corps.
After the February Revolution, which caused the rise of the autonomist movement in Ukraine, he found himself in a difficult position - subordinate to the Provisional Government and the Supreme Command, he was forced to reckon with the Central Rada (the body of all-Ukrainian power created by local national parties on March 4 (17), 1917), since its corps was in the territory under its control. When the Provisional Government recognized the legitimacy of the Central Rada (July 2 (15), 1917), it began to Ukrainize its corps, which was called the “1st Ukrainian”. On October 6, the congress of the Free Cossacks in Chigirin proclaimed him ataman.
The October revolution was met with hostility. He submitted to the Central Rada and was appointed commander of the armed forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed on November 7 (20). From December 3 (16), he conducted successful military operations against the Bolshevik-influenced units of the South-Western Front and detachments of the Ukrainian Soviet government based in Kharkov; was able to prevent the establishment of Soviet power in most of Ukraine. On December 29 (January 11), in protest against the Rada’s decision to dissolve the 1st Ukrainian Corps, he resigned.
The capture of Kyiv by the Bolsheviks on January 26 (February 8), 1918 forced him to go underground. After the entry of German troops into Kyiv and the restoration of the power of the Central Rada, he headed the officer-Cossack organization “Ukrainian People's Community”. On April 29, 1918, at the congress of “grain growers” (large landowners), he was proclaimed “hetman of all Ukraine”; By order of the commander of the German troops, Field Marshal G. Eichhorn, the Central Rada was dissolved. The Ukrainian People's Republic ceased to exist, giving way to the Ukrainian state led by the hetman.
Having received power, P.P. Skoropadsky directed his efforts to create an independent Ukrainian state with all the necessary attributes: a law on Ukrainian citizenship was adopted, the state emblem was approved, its own monetary system was introduced, several national divisions were formed, the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church was proclaimed, the Ukrainian Academy was organized Sciences, two state universities have been opened. His domestic policy was based on the revival of the historical Ukrainian tradition (hetmanship as a political form, the constitution of the Cossacks as an estate) and on the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders (land ownership, freedom of trade and private enterprise). Ukrainization, however, did not mean pursuing a nationalist (anti-Russian) course. The regime supported the organizations of Russian officers, although it prevented them from creating large military formations. His support was from right-wing conservative circles. The Hetman cleansed the state apparatus of representatives of democratic parties, subjected left-wing nationalists (Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats) to repression, and carried out punitive expeditions against peasants who seized landowners' lands. In foreign policy, he focused on Germany and its allies, confirmed all the agreements previously concluded by Ukraine; nevertheless, he achieved recognition from the Entente and a number of neutral countries. He entered into an agreement with the nationalist authorities of Crimea and entered into a military alliance with the Cossack governments of the Don and Kuban.
After the defeat of Germany and the beginning of the evacuation of German troops from Ukraine, he tried to rely on the Entente and the White movement. He abandoned the slogan of an independent Ukraine and declared his readiness to fight for the restoration of a united Russia together with the Volunteer and Don armies. He began to form Russian officer squads. However, the uprising raised against him in mid-November by the leaders of the Ukrainian National Union (V.K. Vinnychenko, S.V. Petliura), and the successful offensive (with the neutrality of the Germans) of Petliura’s troops against Kiev led to the disintegration of the hetman’s troops and the collapse of the Ukrainian state. On December 14, 1918, Skoropadsky renounced power and, under the guise of a wounded German major, left Kyiv, leaving the city and its few defenders (five thousand white officers) to the mercy of fate.
In 1918–1945 he lived in Germany. It was the center of attraction of the monarchical wing of the Ukrainian emigration. During World War II he actively collaborated with the Germans. In April 1945, he fled from besieged Berlin to the south, but on the way he was bombed by Allied aircraft and was mortally wounded. He died on April 26 in a hospital in Metten (Bavaria).
Lieutenant General of the Russian Empire, head of the armed forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic, "hetman of all Ukraine", one of the leaders of the emigration and a good friend of Hermann Goering. The biography of Pavel Skoropadsky resembles the script of a spy film, and that’s what it was, in essence. Hetman managed to work for one, another and a third, but as a result he was never able to become “one of his own” anywhere. However, such metamorphoses still happen to Ukrainian politicians.
The future hetman was born in 1873 in the German town of Wiesbaden and came from the old family of hetman Ivan Skoropadsky, Mazepa’s successor. Pavel graduated from the Corps of Pages in St. Petersburg, in 1905 he became the aide-de-camp of Emperor Nicholas II, and after 10 years he received the rank of lieutenant general. It seemed that fate was predetermined. Everything changed after the February Revolution of 1917: an emergency situation required emergency measures. Therefore, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Lavr Kornilov, gives the order to Skoropadsky to carry out the “Ukrainization” of the troops under his command in order to raise the morale of the army. This moment became a turning point in the general’s life, says Dmitry Stepanov, an expert at the Center for Ukrainian and Belarusian Studies at Moscow State University:
“He (Skoropadsky) established himself in the eyes of various nationally oriented Ukrainian politicians, primarily in the eyes of the then Ukrainian parliament - the Central Rada, which was headed by Mikhail Sergeevich Grushevsky. After this, Skoropadsky gained the trust of Ukrainian political circles, which then did not yet see independent "of Ukraine, and heads the armed forces of the country. And after Ukraine declares independence on November 7, he effectively becomes the head of the armed forces of an independent country."
But the new authorities could not stop the chaos and collapse in Ukraine. And then Skoropadsky, the minister of defense of the new government, took the initiative into his own hands. The Germans, who by that time occupied part of Ukraine, helped him in this. Senior researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Marchukov says:
“Skoropadsky was, of course, a protege of the Germans. Because the coup d’etat itself in April 1918 was organized and carried out in fact by German forces who were in Kiev at that time. By the way, with very insignificant forces. And the ease with which they dispersed the Central Rada, testifies to the extreme weakness and extreme unpopularity of the Central Rada among the population. On the other hand, it clearly shows that it was the Germans who were the ruling force at that time. Everyone understood this very well, and Skoropadsky understood this too."
Having taken power, Skoropadsky immediately began to create the necessary attributes of an independent Ukrainian state. The state emblem was approved, and its own monetary system was introduced. Skoropadsky himself declared himself the “Large Master Hetman of All Ukraine.” Naturally, Germany became the main ally in foreign policy. However, after Germany's defeat in World War I, Skoropadsky renounced power and secretly fled Kyiv on a German ambulance train.
Ukraine continues the work of MazepaThe case of Hetman Mazepa, who went over to the enemy’s side in the Northern War, continues to live in Ukraine. The manner of the current Kyiv authorities - taking advantage of the support of one side, to run over to the other - is ingrained in the consciousness. But does Ukraine need such “patriots”?Andrey Marchukov says:
“On the one hand, Ukrainian nationalists did not like him because this regime was not socialist, and they felt that it was not Ukrainian, in the sense in which they understood the tasks of Ukrainianism. On the other hand, Skoropadsky was despised in many ways by representatives of Russian society , tuned to the "white" movement, to restore a united Russia, considering him a Ukrainian separatist and a German protege. And those who adhered to the "red" orientation did not accept him, since under him landownership was restored, and in general the regime relied on "the big bourgeoisie - commercial, industrial and landed. Therefore, he turned out to be a stranger to everyone."
In Germany, he closely communicated with Hermann Goering himself. The Nazis counted on him when preparing the Ukrainian campaign, but then switched to what they thought were more promising individuals. Skoropadsky's star has finally set. In 1945, the former hetman died during a bombing by Anglo-American aircraft near Bavarian Regensburg.
So who was Skoropadsky? A faithful servant of the Russian emperor? Ukrainian separatist? A German protege? Or just an adventurer? It's not entirely clear. However, the answer to this question may be found. In the near future.
Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky was born on May 3, 1873 in the family of a representative of one of the oldest and most famous Ukrainian Cossack families, and Maria Miklashevskaya. The most famous paternal ancestor of the future hetman was General Referendar Ilya Skoropadsky, a faithful ally of Bohdan Khmelnytsky.
Hetman's grandfather
father
And his mother’s family - the Miklashevskys - descended in a direct line from the Grand Duke of Lithuania and Russia Gediminas.
Future Hetman with his mother.
"***
In 1893, Pavel Skoropadsky graduated from the Corps of Pages with distinction and joined the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment as a cornet. The young officer successfully commanded the squadron, earned the most flattering assessments from his superiors and was soon appointed regimental adjutant. Pavel Skoropadsky's comrades in the Cavalry Regiment were the scions of the most famous noble families of the Russian Empire, many of whom - for example, Baron Carl-Gustav Emil von Mannerheim (in the not too distant future had to write many glorious pages in the history of the Russo-Japanese and Great Wars, and in the years Russian Troubles to lead the forces of the White Guard in a mortal battle with Bolshevism). During his official leave, the young brilliant cavalry guard traveled almost all of Europe.
***
In 1898, Pavel Skoropadsky was legally married to Alexandra Durnovo, the daughter of Adjutant General P. Durnovo and Princess M. Kochubey. But the happiness of the young couple lasted only a short six years. When the Russian-Japanese War broke out in the Far East in 1904, Pavel Skoropadsky immediately filed a report and achieved a transfer as a captain to the 3rd Verkhneudinsk Cossack Regiment of the active army. With his excellent military knowledge and outstanding courage, Skoropadsky in the very first weeks of the war attracted the attention of the commander of the Eastern detachment of the Manchurian Army, General Count A. Keller, who made the young Cossack officer his adjutant. However, Skoropadsky somehow did not take root in his new position and very soon achieved a return to duty, becoming the commander of a hundred of the 2nd Chita Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. For personal courage in battle, the young officer, who quickly earned the sincere respect and love of the Trans-Baikal Cossacks, was awarded the golden St. George weapon.
His wife also selflessly carried out difficult front-line service, although on a different “section of the front” - as a nurse on a medical train of the Russian Red Cross.
The end of the Russo-Japanese War found Pavel Skoropadsky with the rank of colonel, in the post of adjutant to the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian troops in the Far East, General Linevich, also a native Little Russian Cossack.
Returning from the front, Colonel Skoropadsky became the aide-de-camp of the Sovereign Emperor and Autocrat of All-Russia Nicholas II.
Until the very beginning of the Great War in 1914, Pavel Skoropadsky, the owner of several rich estates in the Chernigov and Poltava provinces, was engaged in charitable activities. In addition, he invested a considerable part of his personal funds in restoring the combat power of the Russian navy, defeated by the Japanese at Port Arthur and Tsushima.
In 1911, Pavel Skoropadsky was appointed commander of the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment, then commander of the Life Guards Horse Regiment. On March 25, 1912, he received the rank of major general and was assigned to the Retinue of His Imperial Majesty.
Under the command of Skoropadsky, the regiment entrusted to him, rightly called the “regiment of Russian chevaliers”, since the sons of the best aristocratic families of Russia traditionally served in it, soon turned into one of the best cavalry regiments of the Russian Empire. And when the Great War broke out, Skoropadsky’s regiment, in one of the very first battles of this war, on August 6, 1914, completely defeated the German brigade. For this brilliant victory, Major General Pavel Skoropadsky, by decision of the St. George Duma of the Imperial Horse Guards, was awarded the highest military award - the Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George, IV degree. In those months and years, the name of General Skoropadsky was constantly mentioned by the Russian press among the most glorious heroes of the Great War. He soon took command of the 1st Guards Brigade, and on September 12, 1915, after successful battles near Trisvyaty, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general. On April 2, 1916, he took command of the 1st Guards Cavalry Division. The year 1917 found Lieutenant General Pavel Skoropadsky as commander of the 34th Army Corps.
***
He condemned the abdication of the Sovereign Emperor from the ancestral throne (by the way, not provided for by the laws of the Russian Empire, of which the Sovereign himself was considered the supreme guardian and guardian). Meanwhile, the abdication of the Tsar was regarded by many Russian public figures of the time who held “Ukrainophile” (that is, aimed, if not at separation from the Russian state, then at least at its autonomy) views, as an event that marked the loss of the Pereyaslav Treaty on the reunification of Ukraine with Russia of any legal force.
Pavel Skoropadsky couldn’t help but think about all this. The rupture of the dynastic union of Russia and Little Russia-Ukraine now so revived not just a “Ukrainophile”, but a truly Ukrainian national movement that in the spring of the stormy 1917, Ukraine (which still remained part of Russia) arose its own representative body - the Central Rada. 
At the front, constantly undermined and disintegrated by Bolshevik agitation, things were getting worse. Even before the appointment of General Skoropadsky, the 34th Army Corps, under the influence of the subversive propaganda of the Bolsheviks, was the first in the entire army to disperse the officers and flatly refused to carry out the orders of the command. With the arrival of Skoropadsky, the situation, however, changed radically. The new commander not only quickly restored order to the corps entrusted to him, introducing iron discipline, but also in the shortest possible time turned his corps into one of the best in the army! Suffice it to say that after the final collapse of the Russian army by Bolshevik agitators, Skoropadsky’s corps was the last of all Russian army corps to disarm, and Pavel Skoropadsky remained the last tsarist general to whom his subordinates, despite the Kadet-Octobrist-Socialist-Revolutionary-Anarcho-Bolshevik “democratization,” turned still: “Your Excellency.”
The soldiers of the Russian army, which was decaying before our eyes, refused to fight, consoling themselves with the fact that “the Germans will not reach the Urals and Siberia!” and deserted by the tens of thousands to “divide the land.” In desperate attempts to save the situation, the Provisional Government relied on the formation of “national” military units within the army. The 34th Army Corps, entrusted to Pavel Skoropadsky, was destined to become the first formation to undergo “Ukrainization” (it even received the official name “1st Ukrainian Corps” in August 1917). And soon the German front in Ukraine was held only by the “Ukrainized” formations of the “Free Russia Army”. These parts were different - against the backdrop of general “treason, cowardice and deceit”! - with the highest fighting spirit and the strictest discipline, under the command of experienced front-line officers, they fought with such courage and high combat skill that none other than the future hero of White Russia - the then Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, General Lavr Georgievich Kornilov - called the “Ukrainians” the best military formations he has ever commanded!
As for General Skoropadsky, he still had to play a decisive role in stabilizing the situation in Ukraine, shaken up by revolution, leading the forces of reaction and order - under the shadow of German bayonets, which he skillfully turned from a destructive force into a constructive one, under whose cover he was able, despite everything , start building a state...
After the Bolsheviks seized power in the central regions of the decapitated Russian state, they went to Kiev to disperse the Central Rada, strangulate the proclaimed (for separation not from Russia, but, above all, from the criminal Bolshevik regime that usurped power over Russia!) Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) and the establishment The former Russian (and now “Bolshevik”) 7th Army moved to the “Power of the Soviets.” At the forefront of this “shock detachment of the World Revolution” was the 2nd Guards Corps, led by Commissar Eugenia Bosh. However, having crossed bayonets with Skoropadsky’s fighters, the “revolutionary eagles” very soon realized that fighting them would probably be more difficult than slaughtering Russian officers who surrendered on their word of honor or shooting hostages. The units of General Skoropadsky, having blocked the railway lines, completely defeated the detachments of the 7th Army of the “Ukrainian” Bolsheviks with a series of crushing blows. In the end, Eugenia Bosh’s warriors allowed themselves to be disarmed and loaded into trains, after which the noticeably sobered and quiet “petrels of the world revolution” were sent to red Russia.
***
In light of all the facts stated above, it does not seem surprising that Pavel Skoropadsky enjoyed enormous popularity not only in military circles, with thousands of threads connected with historical Russia, but also among the resurgent Ukrainian Cossacks (“village Cossacks”). The All-Ukrainian Congress of the Vilnius Cossacks was convened in the city of Chihyryn. On October 6, 1917, two thousand delegates to the congress, representing 60,000 Cossacks from five traditional “Cossack” provinces, elected General Pavel Skoropadsky as their Troop Ataman (or, in Ukrainian, “Otaman”) and Commander-in-Chief of the Central Rada.
The Cossacks subordinate to him immediately began to form their own “kurens” and “koshas” with the standard weapons of the former Russian Imperial Army.
Meeting of the Free Cossacks in Chigirin 1917
Punished otaman of the Free Cossacks - Poltavets-Ostryanitsa
***
The rapid growth of the authority of the young general and the concentration in his hands of essentially almost all combat-ready military formations caused, however, a sharply negative reaction from the Central Rada, which consisted mainly of motley socialist and revolutionary parties of all stripes. The Rada, which proclaimed the main content of its policy the slogan: “We do not need a non-socialist Ukraine!”, tirelessly accused General Skoropadsky, who saved her Cossacks and soldiers from Bolshevism with bayonets and swords, of “counter-revolutionary plans and aspirations.”
On April 24, 1918, the chief of staff of the German troops, General Groener, at a meeting with General Skoropadsky, told him the following. If in the very near future Ukraine does not have its own strong government capable of fulfilling Ukraine’s international obligations under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the German Empire will be forced to declare Ukraine an occupied country. The German Kaiser General gave the Russian Tsarist General Skoropadsky a completely unambiguous assurance of support, formulated in the following terms: “In the event of a successful coup, you can count on the assistance of German troops in restoring law and order... On the day of the coup, we will maintain neutrality, but there will be no major unrest let's say." &
Tsarist General P.P. Skoropadsky, accustomed as a military man (unlike socialist dreamers, projectors and doctrinaires), to soberly weigh his strengths and capabilities, found himself faced with a difficult choice. Indeed, in those conditions, taking power in Ukraine into one’s own hands did not promise anything other than the hardest, thankless work and struggle with a great many enemies, external and internal. But circumstances forced him to act.
On April 29, 1918, the All-Ukrainian Congress of Grain Growers took place in Kyiv. 6,432 delegates to the congress expressed their dissatisfaction with the policies of the Central Rada (primarily its socialist experiments, the nationalization of land). The Congress of Grain Growers decided: “To save the country, we need a strong government, we need a dictator, according to ancient customs - the Hetman.” When, at these words, the tall, slender General Skoropadsky in a black Circassian coat with a white enamel St. George Cross appeared before the audience, the audience greeted him with thunderous applause - the election of the Hetman of Ukraine was accomplished! 
***
The seven and a half months of the reign of General Pavel Skoropadsky as Hetman of the Ukrainian State went down in history and were preserved in the memory of the population of Ukraine as a period of relative calm and prosperity. During these seven and a half months, the Hetman's government managed to pass about 400 laws. The first laws were adopted to restore private property rights to land and to confiscate part of the land at market value from large landowners in order to allocate land to land-poor villagers, as well as to improve the legal status and working conditions of the working class. 
***
In addition, Hetman Skoropadsky, showing remarkable tenacity and diplomatic resourcefulness, achieved the return to the Ukrainian State of all warships and auxiliary vessels of the former Russian Black Sea Fleet captured by the Germans.
This is what Duke G.N. wrote in his memoirs about life in Kyiv under the rule of Hetman Skoropadsky. Leuchtenberg:
“It was the end of July 1918. In Kiev, where I then lived with my older children, the government of Hetman Skoropadsky was gradually strengthened, under the protection of German bayonets, the Ukrainian government was organized, peace and quiet was established, and the economic life of the region began to revive.”
The Hetman established military alliances with the Don and Kuban. Romania was forced to come to terms with the fact of annexing southern Bessarabia to the Ukrainian State. In the shortest possible time, the Ukrainian State of Hetman Skoropadsky received the widest international recognition. Thirty (!) states of the world (primarily, naturally, the Central Powers - the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires and the Bulgarian Empire) established official diplomatic relations with it, ten of them opened their official diplomatic missions in Kiev. The Ukrainian State of Skoropadsky itself had ambassadors or diplomatic commissions in 23 countries of the world. And only the Entente countries, in essence, did not want to recognize the “pro-German regime of Skoropadsky.” Only after the defeat and capitulation of Kaiser Germany and other Central Powers and shortly before the forced abdication of the Hetman, the Ukrainian Power managed to appoint ambassadors to England, France and the USA, but the Hetman ambassadors did not have time to start work. The Entente generally arrogantly treated the Hetman's Power, not recognizing the Ukrainian army as a full-fledged fighting force. And not without the help of absurd, slanderous rumors spread by the “allies” (as well as the Bolsheviks), arose the unkind tradition, which continues in many historical works and literary and journalistic works, of portraying the sovereign Ukrainian “viysko” as a certain crowd of pogromists, deserters, looters, drunkards and in general - the dregs of society, or “the scum of humanity,” for whom the Bolsheviks threatened to “put together a strong coffin.” Meanwhile, in fact, through the efforts of the Hetman and his subordinates, it was an ordinary regular army with its own headquarters, a very large officer corps, and regulations (including disciplinary ones). In its entire structure and organization, the Hetman's army most closely resembled the former Russian Imperial Army, collapsed by the revolution of 1917. Yes, this is not surprising - after all, it was from the old Russian army that the entire command staff came, as well as a considerable percentage of the lower ranks (Cossacks and Streltsy) of the army of the Ukrainian state.
***
Formations of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Germany received the names Sinezhupannikov and Serozhupannikov, after the style of their outerwear. After completing their formation, they were sent to Ukraine where the Sinezhupanniks were disbanded due to the mistrust of the Germans. 
***
Ukrainian delegation of prisoners of war officers (creators of the Sinezhupana Division) in Berlin. In the middle is the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Division - V. Zelinsky in the protective general's shoulder straps of the RIA. Four officers have blue-yellow stripes on their cuffs, one of the officers has the sign of the Cathedral Ukraine. The photo was taken after the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, and before the departure of the Sinezhupana Division to Ukraine.
***
A special place in the sphere of diplomacy was given to issues of cooperation with neighbors - the regions of the Cossack troops. During negotiations with Donskoy Ataman, General P.N. Krasnov and the Kuban Rada, Hetman Skoropadsky raised the issue of a military-political union of all Cossack troops. 
Plans for creating the so-called “South-Eastern Union” were also seriously considered, which, along with the Ukrainian state, would include the regions of the Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks, Georgia and the White Volunteer Army (later the Armed Forces of the South of Russia) under the command of General A. AND. Denikin - again, for a joint fight against Bolshevism.
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Paradoxical as it may seem, it was precisely the rapid initial successes in restoring law and order in Ukraine, aimed at turning it into a “cell of order” on the territory of the former Russian Empire, that turned Hetman Skoropadsky, who “sold himself to the Germans,” into the worst enemy of both the red Soviet of Deputies and white Russia. General Denikin honored his former comrade and Knight of St. George Pavel Skoropadsky as “the second Mazepa.” At the same time, the Red People's Commissar for War Lev Davydovich Trotsky, who raved about the “World Revolution” into the fire of which he dreamed of “throwing Russia like an armful of firewood,” called Hetman Skoropadsky nothing less than “the Ukrainian Bonaparte.”
In fact, Hetman Skoropadsky, taking advantage of his good relations with the Germans (as, by the way, also another “German protege” - Ataman P.N. Krasnov), transported large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Ukraine to the White Don, which were then, through Krasnov , fell into Denikin’s White Army, “unshakably loyal to the allies” of Russia in the Entente. Moreover, it was in Ukraine, “under the wing of the German protege” Skoropadsky, that many thousands of Russian officers and political figures of old Russia, who fled from the Bolshevik terror, found refuge, and the recruitment bureaus of the same Volunteer Army of General Denikin were actively operating (which later led to a number of negative consequences). As Hetman Skoropadsky himself later wrote, “I take all the hardships of the Volunteer Army to heart, and it is extremely difficult for me to sit here calmly at such a moment when I have been with them all my life and throughout the war and shared all their joys and sorrows.” Yes, this is not surprising. After all, many recent comrades of the Russian General Skoropadsky, who were either his superiors, subordinates, or colleagues during the Great War, fought against the Bolsheviks in the Russian White armies. For example, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR), General A.I. Denikin, as the commander of the troops of the Southwestern Front in 1917, was Skoropadsky’s chief, and the future commander of the White Caucasian Army as part of the All-Soviet Socialist Republic, and later the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army that replaced the Armed Forces of Southern Russia, General Baron P.N. At the beginning of the Great War, Wrangel, on the contrary, commanded a squadron in the P.P. regiment. Skoropadsky and was personally Skoropadsky - the future Hetman of the “independent” Ukrainian State! - presented to George IV degree for capturing a German field artillery battery on horseback!
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Relations with allies were improved, incl. and the Germans. 
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as the head of the union state, Skoropadsky was awarded the German Order of the Red Eagle
On November 14, 1918, the Hetman extended his hand to the army of White Russia, proclaiming the Federation of Ukraine with the future non-Bolshevik Russia (in vain), which meant an actual alliance with Denikin, a zealot of the “One-Indivisible”. However, it was this statement that truly marked the beginning of the end of his military-political career in Ukraine. The decision to federate with Russia turned out to be an effective weapon in the hands of Hetman’s opponents from among the Ukrainian nationalists. If previously they branded the Hetman as “the sworn enemy of the Ukrainian working class and the working peasantry,” now they declared him a “traitor to the Ukrainian cause” and a “former royal hireling.” The failed agricultural policy also did not contribute to Hetman’s popularity.
Ukrainian socialists and “Borotbist” Socialist Revolutionaries took an open course towards an armed uprising and incited the Sich Riflemen in Bila Tserkva to an armed rebellion.
In the battle near Motovilikha, the rebels managed to defeat the selected units that remained loyal to the Hetman - the Serdyuk Guard and Russian officer detachments. Two days later, the Lubensky cavalry regiment and the regiment of Colonel Bolbochan joined the rebels, then the Zaporozhye and Serozhupannaya divisions of the regular hetman army. Taking advantage of the outbreak of civil strife, skillfully incited by the Bolshevik secret agents, Trotsky’s red-star hordes poured through the gap that had formed in the northeast.
In such a situation, Pavel Petrovich, who still had enormous authority among the troops who initially idolized him and among the Cossacks, could still take the supreme command of the army into his own hands. However, fearing accusations of “dictatorial habits,” he sought, first of all, to put an end to the fratricidal quarrel exclusively by political methods, so as “not to shed brotherly blood.” Moreover, Skoropadsky made a decision that turned out to be truly fatal in the situation at that time - he appointed as commander of the army his comrade in arms and staunch monarchist - “the first saber of Russia,” General Count Fyodor Arturovich Keller, the former commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps of the Russian Imperial Army.
And speaking out against Hetman - now not so much as a “German agent”, but as a “sell-out of Moscow”! - began to take on an increasingly threatening scale.
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The last, bloody point in the history of the Hetmanate in Ukraine, described in most detail in the literature, was set by the night uprising in Kiev organized by Bolsheviks and Ukrainian socialists sent from the Council of Deputies, Skoropadsky’s abdication of hetman’s powers, the re-proclamation, on the ruins of the Ukrainian State, of the new “Ukrainian People’s Republic” ", and Skoropadsky's departure "on a German armored train."
Here is the text of Hetman Skoropadsky’s abdication:
“I, the Hetman of All Ukraine, for seven and a half months have made every effort to bring the region out of the difficult situation in which it finds itself. God gave me the strength to cope with this task, and now, in accordance with the current circumstances, guided solely by the good of Ukraine, I renounce power.”
The “German hireling” Skoropadsky did not take with him a penny of government funds when he emigrated. At first, Pavel Petrovich intended to end his political career once and for all, and even completed his memoirs in 1919, covering the truly fateful events of 1917-1918. However, circumstances powerfully forced him to play an important role in political emigration.
In 1920, the “Union of Grain-Growers-Sovereigns” arose in exile, which set itself the goal of liberating Ukraine from the power of Red Moloch and turning it into a hereditary monarchy. The “grain growers-sovereigns” considered Hetman P.P. first of all as a future monarch. Skoropadsky. The organization, by the way, is quite serious with training, a supply of weapons and, it seems, even training for pilots (the plane ended under the red Roosevelt).
In 1921, Skoropadsky wrote to one of his friends: “I stand for an independent Ukraine because only a clearly and definitely stated national slogan can save Ukraine from the Bolshevik yoke; In addition, having resolutely believed in the desire of Russia of all camps for an honest resolution of the Ukrainian issue, I believe that only by following an independent path will Ukraine and Great Russia be able to establish honest, fraternal relations.”
There are conflicting opinions about the period after Adolf Hitler came to power. &
According to some sources, the former Tsarist general and Hetman of Ukraine “did not enjoy the special trust of the National Socialist authorities.” According to others, “During the Second World War, he collaborated with the fascists.”
At the end of World War II, P. P. Skoropadsky and his daughter Elizaveta tried to leave the territory, which was in danger of becoming a zone of Soviet occupation in the near future. Having come under bombing at the Bavarian railway station Plattling, the former Hetman was seriously wounded by a fragment of an English bomb and died on April 26, 1945 in the hospital of a local Catholic monastery. His body was reburied http://ledilid.livejournal.com/619212.html?view=8747980#t8747980 in the cemetery in Obersdorf, where all members of his family later found eternal rest.
Hetman's heir lived in Great Britain and died a mysterious death (there is information about poisoning).
lastly, greetings from 1918 - Oko magazine
and film http://video.mail.ru/mail/fierysteed/1716/1811.html
On December 14, 1918, His Serene Highness the Most High Pan Hetman of All Ukraine Pavel Skoropadsky abdicated and secretly fled to Berlin. He ruled under the German protectorate for less than a year, but managed to make a significant contribution to the Ukrainization of the territories under his control. At the same time, according to experts, modern Kyiv traces its continuity to the Ukrainian People's Republic of Symon Petliura, which replaced the Ukrainian state of Skoropadsky. RT found out why the hetman did not become a cult figure for the modern Independent Republic.
Pavel Skoropadsky came from an old noble family. His paternal ancestor, Ivan Skoropadsky, was the hetman of the united army of Zaporozhye. So for Pavel Skoropadsky, the hetmanship was almost a hereditary matter.
In 1886, at the age of thirteen, Pavel Skoropadsky entered the Corps of Pages. Since then, his life for many years was firmly connected with the army. Skoropadsky participated in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. Among his six orders received for military merits are the Order of St. Anne, fourth class, and the Order of St. George, fourth class. Skoropadsky successfully moved up the career ladder, and in 1916 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general.
The February Revolution and the abdication of Nicholas II found Skoropadsky on the Southwestern Front in Volyn, where he commanded the 34th Corps of the Russian Imperial Army.
In March 1917, on the initiative of the Partnership of Ukrainian Progressives, the Ukrainian Central Rada was formed, which included representatives of various Ukrainian organizations - from political to professional. In April, the Rada unilaterally proclaimed “autonomy of Ukraine.” The well-known ideologist of “Ukrainianism” Mikhail Grushevsky became the chairman of the UCR.
In 1917, Skoropadsky recognized the power of the Rada. At the same time, he did not share socialist ideas. At the end of 1917, Skoropadsky fought with Bolshevik units that were advancing on Kyiv. His popularity grew, facilitated by his personal courage and skillful command, and this irritated the leadership of the UCR.
In October 1917, by the decision of the All-Ukrainian Congress of Free Cossacks, Skoropadsky was elected general ataman. In this post, he defended the interests of the 1st Ukrainian Corps, which was left without supplies, which grew out of the 34th Corps of the Russian Imperial Army. However, the UCR, wanting to weaken Skoropadsky’s influence, blocked all his efforts.
To save the corps, Skoropadsky resigned from the post of ataman, but this did not help - soon the demoralized Ukrainian army collapsed. At the end of April 1918, it was Skoropadsky, with the support of the German occupation forces, who carried out a coup, the result of which was the elimination of the UCR.
- Emperor Wilhelm II of the German Empire and Hetman Skoropadsky at a meeting at the Headquarters of the High Command in Spa, August 1918
- Wikimedia Commons
The Ukrainian state, or the Second Hetmanate, was created under the protectorate of Germany. Skoropadsky became the head of this state entity. He adopted the official title “His Serene Highness the Most High Pan Hetman of All Ukraine” on April 29, 1918 at the All-Ukrainian Congress of Grain Growers in Kyiv.
Short-lived hetmanship
Skoropadsky served as Hetman for less than a year. His short-lived power relied on the support of the German occupation forces. All of Skoropadsky’s attempts to create a full-fledged army ran into fierce resistance from Western “partners” who feared the strengthening of the new Ukrainian authorities.
However, the decisions made by the hetman during the months he was in power concerned not only the military. In August 1918, Skoropadsky issued the law “On the compulsory study of the Ukrainian language and literature, as well as the history and geography of Ukraine in all secondary schools.” At the same time, it is known that Skoropadsky himself did not know the language.
During the same period, the Ukrainian State University opened in Kyiv. A similar institution began its work in the city of Kamenets-Podolsky, and departments of Ukrainian language, literature, history and law were opened in Russian-language higher educational institutions. In November, Skoropadsky decided to found the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, which was to be headed by the famous Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky.
In November 1918, Germany, defeated in World War I, began withdrawing units from the territories occupied by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. When troops of the UPR Directory led by Simon Petlyura and Vladimir Vinnychenko entered Kiev in mid-December, Pavel Skoropadsky abdicated power and secretly fled to Berlin with his wife Alexandra Durnovo and children.
The couple got married in 1897 without receiving the blessing of the bride's father. The maid of honor of the court, the daughter of the infantry general Durnovo, was a rich bride, and her father believed that Skoropadsky coveted a dowry. In their marriage, Pavel Skoropadsky and Alexandra Durnovo had six children. One of the sons, Daniil Skoropadsky, continued his father’s work, participating abroad in the hetman movement.
In Germany, the family lived on a pension of 10 thousand marks per year, assigned by the German authorities. In addition, in 1926-1927, another 45 thousand marks were allocated to cover Skoropadsky’s debts.
The former His Serene Highness the Lord Hetman of All Ukraine died on April 26, 1945 in the hospital of the Metten Monastery, having received a severe concussion as a result of the bombing of the Anglo-American Air Force.
According to the Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Pelensky, the period of Skoropadsky’s reign can be characterized as a “bureaucratic-military dictatorship.”
“I considered agreeing to the role of president of the republic disastrous for the entire country, and it would be better not to start this matter. The country, in my opinion, can only be saved by dictatorial power; only by the will of one person can order be restored to us, the agrarian question be resolved and democratic reforms that are so necessary for the country be carried out,” Skoropadsky would later write in his memoirs.
Historical memory
Pavel Skoropadsky has not become a cult figure for modern Ukrainians. In a conversation with RT, the president of the Ukrainian Center for System Analysis, Rostislav Ishchenko, noted that modern Kyiv traces its continuity not from Skoropadsky’s Ukraine, but from the Ukrainian People’s Republic of Symon Petliura.
“Skoropadsky’s statehood was an attempt to escape from the Bolsheviks, and not a desire to create Ukraine,” the expert emphasized.
- Memorial plaque to P.P. Skoropadsky in Kyiv
- Wikimedia Commons
According to the scientific director of the Military Historical Society, Mikhail Myagkov, Pavel Skoropadsky, while certainly an opponent of the Bolsheviks, “was not a Russophobe and a supporter of the separation of Ukraine - both political and cultural-civilizational - from Russia.”
“I consider it senseless and disastrous for Ukraine to break away from Russia, especially culturally,” Skoropadsky noted in his book “Memoirs. End of 1917 - December 1918."
Reflecting on the fate of the Ukrainians, the hetman noted the inadmissibility of abandoning Russian culture.
“With the existence and free development of Russian and Ukrainian culture in our country, we can flourish, but if we now abandon the first culture, we will only be litter for other nations and will never be able to create anything great,” he wrote.
Some words of the former hetman sound especially relevant today.
“The Great Russians and our Ukrainians, through their joint efforts, created Russian science, Russian literature, music and art, and to abandon this high and good thing of ours in order to take the wretchedness that the Galicians so kindly offer to us, Ukrainians, is simply ridiculous and unthinkable,” — wrote Skoropadsky.
According to Myagkov, Ukrainian statehood did not and could not take place in those years, since it was closely connected with Russia.
“The political ambitions of the nationalists who took advantage of the situation were implicated in the interests of other states. After Russia withdrew from the war, Ukraine was occupied by the Germans and Austrians. Their puppet protege Skoropadsky came to power, who then fled with the German troops,” Myagkov said in an interview with RT.
At the same time, according to the expert, “the majority of citizens were in favor of Ukraine remaining part of a single state, together with Russia, and the events associated with the so-called independence were largely inspired from the outside.”
