VALERII SOLDATENKO VS ROMAN MLYNOVETSKY

(Two Versions of Ukrainian Revolution)

Abstract

The article provides a comparative analysis of the conceptual foundations applied by the Ukranian émigré researcher Roman Mlynovetsky (pen name R. Bzhestsky) and contemporary domestic historian Valerii Soldatenko in their research of the Ukrainian Revolution during the Central Rada period. Specifically, it explores V. Soldatenko’s concept of the organic combination of national and social factors in the Ukraine’s revolutionary process, aimed at achieving Ukrainian autonomy within a federative, democratic and socialism- oriented Russia. This concept differs from R. Mlynovetsky’s vision of the Ukrainian Revolution as a classic national liberation process, initially aimed at autonomy and later at establishing its own statehood and social-economic transformations.
The analysis in the article indicates that the vision of the Ukrainian Revolution as a process driven by autonomists with «two interconnected principles» and a socialist perspective, which Soldatenko has popularized in his publications for over thirty years, contradicts historical facts. On the contrary, Mlynovetsky’s belief that Ukrainian autonomy within federative Russia and socialism are utopian, and that national liberation of Ukraine is impossible without state independence and a complete political break with Russia, is confirmed by the entire course of historical events. It is emphasized that even after the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence in January 1918, many active participants of the Ukrainian Revolution remained committed to autonomist positions. Their new slogan thus became: «…Now we move from independence to federation – a new path to the old goal».
As an active participant in and researcher of the Ukrainian Revolution, Mlynovetsky was convinced that the course towards autonomy was, among other things, defined by historical peculiarities of the Ukrainian liberation movement. One of such peculiarities is the so-called double «Russian-Ukrainian» loyalty of the average Ukrainian intellectual who appeared at the helm of the state-building process clearly lacking both experience and moral strength to bring it to a logical conclusion, which is the creation of an independent, unified Ukrainian state. This idea, convincingly demonstrated by Mlynovetsky in his publications in emigration throughout 1960th and 1970th, is still beyond V. Soldatenko’s comprehention, as the latter remains trapped in post-communist and pro-Russian interpretations of the Ukrainian Revolution.