Early years and education

Born in Poltava. He studied at the Poltava Theological Seminary. In 1900 he joined the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party. He worked as a journalist, adhered to left-wing nationalist views, and was one of the founders and leaders of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party.

In Kuban

In the summer (according to other sources, autumn) of 1902, S. Petlyura moved to Kuban, where he first got a job as a teacher, but it turned out that with his seminary education he could only teach in church schools, the training in which was very poorly organized. A few months later, S. V. Petliura was arrested for revolutionary activities and after that could not work as a teacher [unauthoritative source?]. Knowing this, he was invited to be his assistant by F.A. Shcherbina, who at that moment was working with the archive of the Kuban Cossack Army to write the fundamental work “History of the Kuban Cossack Army.” Petlyura received an extremely positive assessment from F.A. Shcherbina for this work. In addition, several of his published works are known in local periodicals and in collections. At the same time, his research on the history of Kuban was published in the Literary and Scientific Bulletin.

The last Prime Minister of the Kuban People's Republic, Vasily Ivanis, wrote in 1952 about the outstanding diligence and hard work of S. V. Petlyura when working in the Kuban archives and his contribution to their study.

Among his journalistic works there is an article about the famous Kuban historian, first secretary of the Kuban Statistical Committee, chairman of the Caucasian Archaeographic Commission E. D. Felitsyn, with whom S. Petliura was personally acquainted.

Petliura stayed in Kuban for no more than two years. Being under threat of another arrest for his revolutionary activities, he was forced to leave Kuban. S. V. Petlyura subsequently dedicated a number of his works to Kuban, published in both journalistic and scientific publications.

Much later, in 1912, and being far from Kuban, S. V. Petlyura, having become the editor of the magazine “Ukrainian Life”, published a number of publications about Kuban, the authors of which were both himself and the Kuban correspondents of the magazine.

It was no coincidence that S. V. Petlyura sympathized with Kuban, since the Kuban people had a favorable attitude toward Ukraine [unauthoritative source?].

During the First World War

During the First World War, he worked in the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos and Cities, created in 1914 to help the government Russian Empire in organizing army supplies.

Proclamation of the UPR

After the proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic, he became the secretary general of military affairs of the new government, but was soon dismissed (according to other sources, he resigned himself). Participated in battles against the Red Guards. In December 1917, from volunteers, mainly foremen and Cossacks from Kyiv military schools, he formed the military unit of the Gaydamat Kosh, becoming its chieftain.

After the establishment of the dictatorship of Hetman Skoropadsky (Ukrainian State) he was in opposition to the new regime. In November 1918, he took part in the uprising against Skoropadsky; on December 14, his militia occupied Kyiv. The Ukrainian People's Republic was restored, and Vladimir Vinnychenko became its head.

On February 10, 1919, after the resignation of Vinnychenko, Petliura actually became the sole ruler of Ukraine. In the spring of the same year, trying to stop the Red Army's seizure of the entire territory of Ukraine, he reorganized the UPR army. He conducted active negotiations with the Entente representative office on the possibility of joint action against the Bolshevik army, but did not achieve success.

On April 21, 1920, after the fall of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, Symon Petlyura, on behalf of the UPR, concluded an agreement with Poland on a joint campaign against Kyiv, with the aim of expelling Soviet troops. In exchange for support, the UPR agreed to establish a border between Poland and Ukraine along the Zbruch River, thereby recognizing the entry of Galicia into Poland.

Professor of the Jagiellonian University Jan Jacek Bruski, on the pages of the Ukrainian newspaper Den, assessed the Pilsudski-Petliura agreement of 1920 as follows:

In exile

After the defeat and expulsion of the Polish-Petliura troops from Ukraine, the Riga Peace Treaty was signed, and Petliura emigrated to Poland. In 1923, the USSR demanded that Warsaw extradite Petliura, so he moved to Hungary, then to Austria, Switzerland and in October 1924 to France.

Murder of Petliura

Schwarzbard himself, in his first confessions to the French police, said that he had heard about brutal pogroms from fellow believers whom he met in 1917 on the road from St. Petersburg to Odessa. This is evidenced by publications in the French press of that time: in the newspapers Eco de Paris, Paris-Midi and others. Schwarzbard's lawyer, Henri Torres, put forward a different version of the defense: about 15 Schwarzbard relatives, including parents, killed in Ukraine by Petliurists during the Jewish pogroms (the Jewish Encyclopedia also writes about this). Torres justified Symon Petliura’s personal responsibility for the pogroms of Ukrainian Jews by the fact that Petliura, as head of state, was responsible for everything that happened in the territory he controlled.

Petliura’s associates and relatives presented more than 200 documents at the trial, indicating that Petliura not only did not encourage anti-Semitism, but also harshly suppressed its manifestations in his army. However, they were not taken into account, since lawyer Torres testified that most of them were drawn up after the fact, after the expulsion of the Petliuraites from Ukraine, and none were signed by Petliura personally.

Ukrainian historian Dmitry Tabachnik, who devoted several works to the murder of Petliura, refers to the Jewish historian Semyon Dubnov, who claimed that the archives of Berlin contain about 500 documents proving Petliura’s personal involvement in the pogroms. The historian Cherikover spoke similarly at the trial.

Schwartzbard was completely acquitted by a French jury.

According to the testimony of Simon Petliura’s comrades, he allegedly tried as best he could to stop the pogroms and cruelly punished those who participated in them. For example, on March 4, 1919, Petliura’s “ataman” Semesenko, 22 years old, gave his “Zaporozhye Brigade”, stationed near Proskurov, the order to exterminate the entire Jewish population in the city - Semesenko, on the eve of the pogrom, declared that there would be no peace in the country, as long as there is at least one Jew left there. On March 5, the entire “brigade” of 500 people, divided into three detachments, led by officers, entered the city and began killing Jews. They broke into houses and often massacred entire families. Over the course of the whole day, from morning to evening, more than a thousand people were killed, including women and children. They killed exclusively with cold steel. The only person killed by a bullet was Orthodox priest, who, with a cross in his hands, tried to stop the fanatics. A few days later, Semesenko imposed an indemnity of 500 thousand rubles on the city and, having received it, thanked in an order the “Ukrainian citizens of Proskurov” for the support they provided to the “People’s Army”. It was reported that because of this, on March 20, 1920, on the orders of Petlyura, he was shot

However, witnesses A. Chomsky and P. Langevin, who spoke at the Schwarzbard trial, testified that the “trial” and “sentence” were staged, and Semesenko himself was secretly released on the orders of Petlyura.

Memory

State honors

On May 16, 2005, President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko signed a Decree on perpetuating the memory of Symon Petliura (along with other figures of the UPR) and erecting monuments to him in the city of Kyiv and others. However, as of 2012, there is no monument to Petliura in Kyiv.

Streets of Simon Petlyura

Monuments to Simon Petlyura

Under President Yushchenko, it was planned to erect a monument to Symon Petlyura in the center of Kyiv, at the intersection of Vladimirskaya Street and Taras Shevchenko Boulevard. However, this was not done.

On May 23, 2007, the opening ceremony took place in Poltava memorial sign Simon Petliura. The event was accompanied by clashes between the police on one side, and communists and members of right-wing parties on the other. The head of the Poltava Regional State Administration Valery Asadchev, people's deputy Nikolai Kulchinsky, first deputy chairman of the Poltava Regional State Administration Ivan Bliznyuk, deputy head of the Poltava Regional Council Petro Vorona and deputy chairman of the UNP Ivan Zaets took part in the ceremony of laying the memorial sign. In his speech, Valery Asadchev said: “When the first monument to Petliura in Ukraine is built on the site of the stone, its opening will be an event on an all-Ukrainian scale.”

Petliura's works published in Ukrainian

Information provided by the National Library of Ukraine.

1. The fight against the “Great United Russia” // Liberal Way. - 1991. - No. 7. - P.771-776.
2. On the day of the Ukrainian Holy Power // Liberal Way. - 1990. - No. 1. - P.3-4.
3. Selected documents / All-Ukrainian Partnership named after. T. Shevchenko / A. V. Golota (comp.). - K.: Dovira Firm, 1994. - 271 p.
4. Drahomanov on the Ukrainian question // Voice of the past. - 1913. - No. 9. - P.299-304.
5. Commandment // Free Way. - 1950. - No. 5. - P.22..
6. I. Franco - sings of national honor (Uriv.) // Divoslovo. - 1996. - No. 8. - P.3-4.
7. On the history of the scientific society named after Shevchenko in Lviv // Voice of the Past. - 1915. - No. 1. - P.264-272.
8. Sheet to A.V.Nikovsky: [The sheet contains information about the problems of the zagal-political and sovereign development of the nation] // Inform. Ukr. Bulletin Libraries im. S. Petlyuri in Paris. - 1990. - No. 53. - P.2-3.
9. M. P. Drahomanov and his correspondence // Education. - 1909. - No. 9-10. - P.42-50.
10. The demand for Ukrainian literature // Book. - 1918. - No. 7. - P.375-376. The statistics cover the needs of Ukrainian military literature.
11. Ship's pardon document: The Schwarzbard trial. - Paris: Nationalist view in Europe, 1958. - 152 p.
12. The soul of our people: Statistics about T. G. Shevchenko. - Kh.: Eye, 1991. - 19 p.
13. Moscow louse: Proven uncle Seeds about how Moscow louse eats Ukraine and what needs to be done with them. - Paris: Nationalist view in Europe: B-ka im. S. Petlyuri, 1966. - 100 p. Zmist: p.101.
14. Unforgettable. - K.: Hour, 1918. - 80 p. Contains literary-critical miniatures about the work of T. Shevchenko, I. Karpenko-Kary, I. Frank, M. Kotsiubynsky, K. Mikhalchuk.
15. Statti. - K.: Dnipro, 1993. - 341 p.
16. Statistics, sheets, documents / Cent. com. tribute to the memory of Simon Petlyuri in America. - New York: Ukr. Vilna Academy of Sciences in the USA, 1956. - 480 p.
17. Statti, sheets, documents / Ukr. Vilna AN in the USA. B-ka im. S. Petlyuri in Paris. - New York, 1979. - T.2. - 627 p. Zmist: p.623-627.
18. Statti. Leaves. Documents / Institute of Research on Modern History of Ukraine in the USA, Foundation im. Simona Petlyuri in Canada / V. Sergiychuk (comp.). - K.: View im. Reindeer Carts, 1999. - T.3.-615p.

Literature about Petlyura

• Ivanis V. M. Simon Petliura - President of Ukraine. - Kiev: Naukova Duma, 1993.
• Simon Petliura and the Ukrainian national revolution. Zb. Prats Another for the competition of petliurists of Ukraine / V. Mikhalchuk (compiled). - Kiev: Rada, 1995
• Simon Petlyura and his homeland / Comp. V. Mikhalchuk. Kiev, 1996.
• Simon Petlyura in the context of Ukrainian national liberties: Zb. Sci. prac / Institute of History of Ukraine NAS of Ukraine / V. Verstyuk (ed.). - Fastiv: Polyfast, 1999.
• Finkelstein Yu. Simon Petlyura. Rostov-on-Don, 2000.
• Litvin S. Court history: Simon Petliura i Petliurian. Kiev, 2001.
• Sushko Yu. M. Loop for Petlyura. - M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2012. - 287 pp., 3000 copies, ISBN 978-5-227-03713-7

A more complete list of literature about Petlyura

Film incarnations

• 1926 - P.K.P. - Nikolai Kuchinsky
• 1928 - Arsenal - Nikolai Kuchinsky
• 1939 - Shchors - Georgy Polezhaev
• 1957 - Truth - Yuri Lavrov
• 1971 - The Kotsyubinsky Family - Konstantin Stepankov
• 1973 - Old Fortress - Evgeny Evstigneev
• 1987 - At the edge of the sword - Vladimir Talashko

Plan
Introduction
1 Biography
2 S. Petlyura in Kuban
2.1 Murder of Petlyura

3 Memory
3.1 State honors
3.2 Streets of Simon Petlyura
3.3 Monuments to Simon Petliura

4 Film incarnations
Bibliography

Introduction

Simon Vasilievich Petliura (Ukrainian Simon Vasilyovich (Vasiliyovych) Petlyura, May 10 (23), 1879, Poltava, Russian Empire - May 25, 1926, Paris, France) - Ukrainian political and military leader, head of the Directory of the UPR (Ukrainian People's Republic) since 1919 to 1920.

1. Biography

Born into a petty-bourgeois family in Poltava. He studied at the Poltava Theological Seminary. In 1900 he joined the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party. He worked as a journalist, adhered to left-wing nationalist views, and was one of the founders and leaders of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party.

During the First World War he worked in "All-Russian Union of Zemstvos and Cities", created in 1914 to help the government of the Russian Empire organize supplies for the army. After the proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic, he became the secretary general of military affairs of the new government, but was soon dismissed (according to other sources, he resigned). Defending the right of the Ukrainian people to state independence, he took part in battles against the Red Army. In December 1917, from volunteers, mainly foremen and Cossacks from Kyiv military schools, he formed the military unit of the Gaydamat Kosh, becoming its chieftain.

After the establishment of the dictatorship of Hetman Skoropadsky (Ukrainian State) he was in opposition to the new regime. In November 1918, he took part in the uprising against Skoropadsky; on December 14, his militia occupied Kyiv. The Ukrainian People's Republic was restored, and Vladimir Vinnychenko became its head.

According to the testimony of sister of mercy Maria Nesterovich, after the capture of Kyiv by the Petliurists:

Many officers who were being treated in hospitals were killed, the dump sites were literally filled with officer corpses... On the second day after Petlyura’s invasion, I was informed that the anatomical theater on Fundukleevskaya Street was littered with corpses, that 163 officers were brought there at night. Lord, what did I see! The corpses of those cruelly, brutally, villainously, savagely tortured were stacked on tables in five halls! Not a single one was shot or simply killed, all with traces of monstrous torture. There were pools of blood on the floor, it was impossible to walk through, and almost all of their heads were cut off, many had only their neck with part of their chin left, some had their stomachs ripped open. They carried these corpses around all night. I have never seen such horror even among the Bolsheviks. I saw more, many more corpses, but there were no such tortured ones!... Some were still alive, - the watchman reported, - they were still writhing here... Our windows looked out onto the street. I constantly saw how arrested officers were being led...

Pleshko N. From the past of a provincial intellectual // Archives of the Russian Revolution, 1X, p. 218.

On February 10, 1919, after the resignation of Vinnychenko, Petliura effectively became the sole dictator of Ukraine. In the spring of the same year, trying to stop the Red Army's seizure of the entire territory of Ukraine, he reorganized the UPR army. He conducted active negotiations with the Entente representative office on the possibility of joint action against the Bolshevik army, but did not achieve success.

On April 21, 1920, after the fall of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, Symon Petlyura, on behalf of the UPR, concluded a tactical agreement with Poland on a joint campaign against Kyiv in order to end the Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine. In exchange for support, the UPR agreed to establish a border between Poland and Ukraine along the Zbruch River, thereby recognizing the entry of Galicia into Poland on the basis of autonomy.

Professor of the Jagiellonian University Jan Jacek Bruski, on the pages of the Ukrainian newspaper Den, assessed the Pilsudski-Petliura agreement of 1920 as follows:

An agreement with the Polish government, which at that time had already established good relations with the West, was supposed to contribute, from Petliura’s point of view, to the process of international recognition of Ukraine. Of course, the Ukrainians had a weaker position in these negotiations than the Poles, who had already consolidated their state.

- [ http://www.day.kiev.ua/297052/ Igor SYUNDIUKOV, Nadiya TYSYACHNA, Olesya YASCHENKO, Lyudmila ZHUKOVICH, “The Day”, Denis ZAKHAROV. Piłsudski - Petliura

After the end of the war and the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty, Petliura emigrated to Poland. In 1923, the USSR demanded that Warsaw extradite Petliura, so he moved to Hungary, then to Austria, Switzerland and in October 1924 to France.

2. S. Petlyura in Kuban

While in exile in Kuban at the beginning of the 20th century, S. Petlyura worked here as a teacher and studied social activities. In addition, he was F.A. Shcherbina’s assistant in his work on “The History of the Kuban Cossack Army” and for his work received an extremely positive assessment from F.A. Shcherbina. In addition, several of his published works are known in local periodicals and in collections.

2.1. Murder of Petliura

Schwarzbard himself, in his first confessions to the French police, said that he had heard about brutal pogroms from fellow believers whom he met in 1917 on the road from St. Petersburg to Odessa. This is evidenced by publications in the French press of that time: in the newspapers Eco de Paris, Paris-Midi and others. Schwarzbard's lawyer, Henri Thores, a former communist, put forward a different version of the defense: about 15 relatives of Schwarzbard, including parents, killed in Ukraine by Petliurists during the Jewish pogroms (the Jewish Encyclopedia also writes about this). Torres justified Symon Petliura’s personal responsibility for the pogroms of Ukrainian Jews by the fact that Petliura, as head of state, was responsible for everything that happened in the territory he controlled.

Petliura’s associates and relatives presented more than 200 documents at the trial, indicating that Petliura not only did not encourage anti-Semitism, but also harshly suppressed its manifestations in his army. However, they were not taken into account, since lawyer Torres testified that most of them were drawn up after the fact, after the expulsion of the Petliuraites from Ukraine, and none were signed by Petliura personally. Ukrainian historian Dmitro Tabachnik, who devoted several publications to the murder of Petliura, refers to the historian Sh. Dubnov, who claimed that the archives of Berlin contain about 500 documents proving Petliura’s personal involvement in the pogroms. The historian Cherikover spoke similarly at the trial.

The Paris investigation in 1927 also did not take into account the testimony of witness Eliya Dobkovsky, who gave written testimony about the participation in the case of Mikhail Volodin, whom he considered an agent of the GPU (A. Yakovlev’s book “The Parisian Tragedy”). Volodin, having appeared in Paris in 1925, actively collected information about the chieftain, was personally acquainted with Schwartzbard and, according to Dobkovsky, helped him prepare the murder. The involvement of the GPU in organizing the murder of Petliura in 1956 was testified in the US Congress by KGB officer Pyotr Deryabin, who fled to the West. unreputable source? .

Alexander Vertinsky writes in his memoirs about the trial of Schwartzbard: “Of course, there was no hope for acquittal, because the French court acquits only for murder for love or out of jealousy. However, many voluntary witnesses to this appeared at the trial. little man, who developed such a picture of the chieftain’s atrocities in Ukraine that the French judges hesitated. Who hasn't passed before the eyes of the judges! There were people here whose fathers and mothers Petlyura shot, raped their daughters, threw babies into the fire... The last witness was a woman.

Are you asking me what this man did to me? - she said, bursting into tears. - Here!.. - She tore her blouse, and the French judges saw that both breasts had been cut off.

Schwartzbard was acquitted. My gypsies were also witnesses. They screamed at the trial and beat their chests, talking about the tortured two brothers, about the horses taken away, about the burned relatives. Their anger was terrible. The girls cried, remembering what they had seen as children. The brothers showed scars - signs of torture. They were barely taken out of the courtroom.” (Alexander Vertinsky “On a Long Road...” Moscow Publishing House “Pravda” 1990, 227 pp.)

Schwartzbard was completely acquitted by a French jury.

According to numerous testimonies from his comrades, Simon Petliura tried as best he could to stop the pogroms and cruelly punished those of his soldiers who took part in them. unreputable source? So, when on March 4, 1919, Petlyura’s “ataman” Semesenko, 22 years old, gave his “Zaporozhye Brigade”, stationed near Proskurov, the order to exterminate the entire Jewish population in the city, on March 20, 1920, by order of Petlyura, he was shot. However, witnesses A. Chomsky and P. Langevin, who spoke at the Schwarzbard trial, testified that the “trial” and “sentence” were staged, and Semesenko himself was secretly released on the orders of Petlyura.

On the eve of the pogrom, Semesenko declared that there would be no peace in the country as long as there was at least one Jew left there. On March 5, the entire “brigade” of 500 people, divided into three detachments, led by officers, entered the city and began beating Jews. They broke into houses and often massacred entire families. Over the course of the whole day, from morning to evening, more than a thousand people were killed, including women and children. They killed exclusively with cold steel. The only person killed by a bullet was an Orthodox priest who, with a cross in his hands, tried to stop the fanatics. A few days later, Semesenko imposed an indemnity of 500 thousand rubles on the city and, having received it, thanked in an order the “Ukrainian citizens of Proskurov” for the support they provided to the “People’s Army”.

Simon Vasilyevich Petlyura - Ukrainian military and political figure, head of the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1919-1920, Chief Ataman of the Army and Navy. He is an extremely controversial figure, controversy about which still continues to this day.

Born in Poltava. He studied at the Poltava Theological Seminary, from which he was expelled. In 1900 he joined the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP). He held left-wing nationalist views.

In 1902 he began his journalistic activities in the Literary and Scientific Bulletin. The magazine was published in Lvov (Austria-Hungary), and its editor-in-chief was M. S. Grushevsky. Petlyura’s first journalistic work was devoted to the state of public education in the Poltava region.

In 1902, fleeing arrest for revolutionary agitation, Petliura moved to Kuban, where he first gave private lessons in Yekaterinodar, and later worked as a research assistant on the expedition of corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences F. A. Shcherbina, who was engaged in systematizing the archives of the Kuban Cossack troops. Petlyura’s work received a positive assessment from F.A. Shcherbina.

Petliura stayed in Kuban for no more than two years. Continuing his revolutionary activities, he organized a RUP cell in Yekaterinodar - the Black Sea Free Community, and set up a secret printing house in his house to produce anti-government leaflets. This led to his arrest in December 1903. Only in March of the following year, on the basis of a fictitious certificate of illness, he was released on bail and kept under special police supervision, and later was forced to leave Kuban

Returning to Kyiv, he became involved in the secret work of the RUP, gradually gaining more and more influence in the organization. Fleeing from police persecution, in the fall of 1904 he emigrated to Lvov, where he edited the magazines of the Republican Unitary Enterprise "Selyanin" and "Trud", collaborated with the publications "Volya", "Literary and Scientific Bulletin", established contacts with I. Franko, M.S. Grushevsky. Without receiving a formal education, here he attended a course at the Ukrainian Underground University, where representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia of Galicia taught.

The amnesty of 1905 allowed Petliura to return to Kyiv, where he took part in the Second Congress of the RUP. After the split of the RUP and the creation of the USDRP, S. Petlyura joined its Central Committee. In January 1906, he went to St. Petersburg, where he edited the monthly USDRP “Free Ukraine”, but already in July he returned to Kiev, where, on the recommendation of M. S. Grushevsky, he got a job as secretary of the editorial office of the newspaper “Council”, published by the Radical Democratic Party, and subsequently worked in magazine "Ukraine", and since 1907 - in the legal journal of the USDRP "Slovo". In the fall of 1908, Petlyura again worked in St. Petersburg in the magazines “Mir” and “Education”.

Simon Petliura and his associates from the Poltava Theological Seminary.

In Russia, Simon met fellow countryman Olga Belskaya. This is how Odessa historian and writer Viktor Savchenko describes this novel in his book “Simon Petlyura”:

“In 1911, Petlyura, as one of the three main speakers, speaks at big meeting- an evening of the Ukrainian diaspora of St. Petersburg in the luxurious hall of the Noble Assembly. The evening was dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of Shevchenko’s death. Among the main speakers was Maxim Maksimovich Kovalevsky, who noticed Petlyura and told those present at the evening that Petlyura “would be useful.” This characterization of Kovalevsky was a ticket to influential circles in both Russian capitals. Perhaps it was Kovalevsky who arranged for Petliura to be found a good place in Moscow, where Simon was eager to move.

And matters of the heart called him to Moscow (...)

On one of these visits at the end of 1908, perhaps at Christmas, Petlyura met his fate. (...) At one “evening” of the Ukrainian community, Petlyura meets Olga Afanasyevna Belskaya, a student at Moscow University. (...) Common views and origins brought Simon and Olga closer together. Every visit to Moscow became a holiday for Simon - a meeting with his beloved... In 1910, their romance turned into a civil marriage (quite in the spirit of revolutionary students). Only in 1915 this marriage was officially registered, and then the church wedding of the newlyweds took place.

Olga Belskaya became for Simon Petliura the beloved woman of his entire life. Simon Vasilyevich, despite his revolutionary and journalistic authority and not a youthful age, was modest in “issues of gender,” and history is completely silent about his love affairs. His further life, already with Olga, shows that he was a monogamist and political activity for him was the main meaning of life.

Simon Petliura with his wife. 1920-26.

At the beginning of 1916, Petliura enlisted in the “All-Russian Union of Zemstvos and Cities,” created in 1914 to help the government of the Russian Empire organize supplies for the army, whose employees wore military uniforms and were contemptuously called “zemgusars.”

In this job, Petliura had to communicate a lot with the masses of soldiers and thanks to this she managed to gain popularity among the military. Largely thanks to his energetic activities after February Revolution on Western Front Ukrainian military councils were created - from regiments to the entire front. Petlyura’s authority among the soldiers and social activity promoted him to leadership of the Ukrainian movement in the army. In April 1917, he initiated and organized the Ukrainian Congress of the Western Front in Minsk. The congress created the Ukrainian Front Rada, and Petliura was chosen as its chairman.

On May 5-8 (18-21), 1917, Petlyura took part in the First All-Ukrainian Military Congress. More than 900 delegates gathered from all fronts, fleets, garrisons and districts not only of Ukraine, but also of the entire Russian Empire.

After heated and lengthy debates, they came to a compromise decision: to elect not a chairman of the congress, but a presidium, whose members would take turns leading the meetings. S. Petliura thus represented the front-line units, N. Mikhnovsky - the rear, V. Vinnichenko - the Central Rada, sailor Competent - the Baltic Fleet. The delegates elected M. Grushevsky as the honorary chairman of the congress and invited the commander of the First Ukrainian Regiment named after Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Colonel Yu. Kapkan, to the presidium.

Despite the fact that Petlyura's candidacy passed only a slight majority of votes, it was with his election as a member of the presidium of the Military Congress, and later as the head of the Ukrainian General Military Committee (UGVK) that Petlyura entered Ukrainian politics. On May 8, at the end of the congress, he was co-opted into the Central Rada.

Thanks to his repeated speeches at the congress, Petliura gradually gained popularity among the delegates. He chaired the meetings, made reports “On the nationalization of the army”, “On issues of education”, proposing to switch to training Ukrainian soldiers in their native language and translate into Ukrainian language military regulations, manuals, and also begin to transform the military schools existing in Ukraine. It is possible that it was precisely this practical approach that appealed to the military.

Rally in honor of the Third All-Ukrainian Soldiers' Congress.

In support of the demands for autonomy of Ukraine, the UVGK decided to convene the Second All-Ukrainian Military Congress.

Kerensky, in a telegram, prohibited the holding of the congress in all parts under the threat of a court-martial. In response, Petliura turned to Kerensky himself, as well as to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, commanders of the fronts and military districts, warning them that “the prohibition of the congress will cause an inevitable reaction and will sow distrust in the high command among the masses and will reduce the morale of the Ukrainians...”.

Despite the ban, the congress took place on June 5-10 (18-23), 1917 with the participation of about 2000 delegates. Researchers note a certain inconsistency in his speeches - on the one hand, guided by the program postulates of the USDRP, Petliura stated that “a standing army may have an element of danger,” and on the other hand, he recognized the need for real military force.

Sharp criticism was voiced at the congress regarding Kerensky's plans to prepare a major offensive. The delegates stated that this would only lead to massive losses among Ukrainians in favor of the interests of Russian government. When the situation became particularly tense, Petliura appeared on the podium, restraining radical delegates from speaking prematurely.

The situation that developed at the military congress pushed the Central Rada to adopt and promulgate the First Universal, which unilaterally proclaimed the national-territorial autonomy of Ukraine within Russia. The universal was read out by V. Vinnichenko at the congress on June 10 (23).

The congress made a number of important decisions in the field of military development, instructing the UGVK to develop a detailed plan for the Ukrainization of the army as quickly as possible and take measures for its immediate implementation. The staff of the UGVK, which was supposed to deal with this, was expanded from 17 to 27 people, and S. Petliura again headed it. The congress also elected an All-Ukrainian Rada of Military Deputies numbering 132 people. All members of the UGVK and the All-Ukrainian Rada of Military Deputies were co-opted into the Ukrainian Central Rada.

During June, Petliura managed to establish the work of all departments of the UGVK, establish close contacts with the majority of Ukrainian military organizations, and establish cooperation with the headquarters of the command of the Southwestern and Romanian fronts. Petlyura tried to unite military specialists from among former senior officers around the State Military Command Russian army and ensure that the committee fulfills the role of the highest body of the created national army.

In preparation for the offensive on the Southwestern Front, the command believed that the creation of “national units” (Polish, Latvian, Serbian, Czechoslovak, etc.) would help strengthen the combat capability of the Russian army, therefore it allowed the 34th and 6th to be Ukrainianized army corps and rename them the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian, and the 7th, 32nd and 41st corps were replenished with marching companies stationed in the rear provinces.

First General Secretariat of the UCR. 1917

On October 25 (November 7), 1917, a Bolshevik armed uprising took place in Petrograd, as a result of which the Provisional Government was overthrown. On October 26 (November 8), at a meeting of the Small Rada (a permanent committee of the Central Rada between sessions), with the participation of representatives of various political and public organizations, the Regional Committee for the Protection of the Revolution, responsible to the UCR, was created. At the same time, the Small Rada adopted a resolution on power in the country, in which it spoke out against the uprising in Petrograd and promised to “stubbornly fight all attempts to support this uprising in Ukraine.”

On October 28 (November 10), after an unsuccessful attempt at a Bolshevik uprising in Kyiv, the Central Rada abolished the Regional Committee for the Protection of the Revolution and vested it with the functions of the General Secretariat, in which Simon Petlyura again took the post of General Secretary of Military Affairs. On November 7 (20), by decision of the Small Rada, the Third Universal was adopted in an emergency manner, which proclaimed the creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic in federal connection with the Russian Republic.

By mid-November 1917, in conditions when the only real force was the army, the struggle for influence over which was not yet over, the post of head of the military department of the UPR became key.

Due to the fact that the leaders of the Ukrainian Central Rada intended to fulfill military obligations to the Entente, they rushed to form a national army, considering it one of the main attributes and guarantees of statehood. At first, the Bolshevik leadership did not interfere with the formation of national units, including Ukrainian ones, although Petlyura, in his addresses to Ukrainian soldiers, issued on November 11 (24), called on them to return to Ukraine immediately, regardless of the orders of the Council of People's Commissars.

Since November 21 (December 4), Ukrainianized units from different military districts and fronts began to arrive in Ukraine. During November, Ukrainization proceeded more slowly than the Kyiv authorities wanted, due to a number of objective circumstances, which included serious transport problems, the need to fill sections of the fronts that were abandoned by Ukrainized units, and difficulties with the Ukrainization of ethnically heterogeneous units.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian statehood, proclaimed by a unilateral act, did not yet have any international legal formalization - neither recognition by other states, nor official borders established through agreed demarcation with neighbors, including Soviet Russia - especially since the Central Rada refused to recognize the Bolshevik government in Petrograd.

Meanwhile, the All-Ukrainian Rada of Military Deputies demanded that the General Secretariat immediately begin resolving the issue of peace in agreement with the people's commissars and democrats in other parts of Russia. The Small Rada on November 21 (December 4) was forced to adopt a resolution on the participation of its representatives in the delegation from the Southwestern and Romanian fronts to negotiate a truce and to submit a proposal for peace negotiations to the Entente and the Central Powers.

On the evening of November 23 (December 6), Simon Petlyura notified via direct wire the Soviet Supreme Commander-in-Chief Nikolai Krylenko about the unilateral withdrawal of troops of the Southwestern and Romanian fronts of the former Russian army from the control of the Headquarters and their unification into the independent Ukrainian front of the Active Army of the UPR, which was headed by an anti-Bolshevik determined Colonel General D. G. Shcherbachev. Krylenko, without entering into a discussion, informed the Council of People's Commissars about what had happened and asked for instructions. Leon Trotsky gave instructions to Krylenko on November 24 (December 7). Trotsky approved the commander-in-chief’s instruction “not to create any political obstacles to the movement of Ukrainian units from north to south” and ordered the establishment of a representative office of the Ukrainian headquarters at Headquarters.

The People's Commissar suggested that the question of a united Ukrainian front should be considered open for now. At the same time, Trotsky instructed Krylenko to begin immediate preparation and deployment of armed detachments against the White Cossacks Kaledin and Dutov - and instructed to “ask the Ukrainian Rada whether it considers itself obligated to assist in the fight against Kaledin or whether it intends to consider the advance of our echelons to the Don as a violation their territorial rights." Krylenko on the evening of November 24 (December 7) asked Petlyura to give a “clear and precise” answer to the question about the passage of Soviet troops to the Don. The General Secretariat, however, based on Petliura’s report, decided to refuse entry to Soviet troops and decided to seek an agreement with the Don government.

Meanwhile, with the permission of the French military mission on the Romanian Front, General Shcherbachev concluded a truce between the combined Russian-Romanian and German-Austrian troops on November 26 (December 9). This allowed him to begin suppressing Bolshevik influence in the army.

The declaration of independence of the Ukrainian Front and the invasion of the Ukrainian authorities into the direct control of the fronts and armies led to disorganization and confusion, undermining the system of unity of command. The Extraordinary Congress of the Southwestern Front, held on November 18-24 (December 1-7), did not agree with the transition to subordination to the Ukrainian authorities, and on the issue of political power spoke in favor of Soviets of Soldiers', Workers' and Peasants' Deputies in the center and locally. General N.N. Stogov, who served as commander of the Southwestern Front, was concerned about the situation on the front line and reported to Kyiv that “Russian units are threatening to flee from the Ukrainian Front. A catastrophe is not far off."

The head of the UPR Directorate, Symon Petlyura, is among the political and military leaders of the UPR. 1918 – 1919.

On November 30 (December 13), Petliura sent a telegram to front commanders and Ukrainian commissars prohibiting the passage of military trains without special permission from the General Secretariat for Military Affairs. Having received a message about this, the chief of staff of the revolutionary Headquarters, General M.D. Bonch-Bruevich, ordered to “continue to give orders in accordance with the regulations on field command and control of troops.”

From the Southwestern Front, units of the Bolshevik 2nd Guards Army Corps advanced to Kyiv. In order to stop them, Petliura ordered the dismantling of the railway track, blocking of junction stations, and the immediate disarming of suspicious military units. The commander of the 1st Ukrainian Corps, General of the UPR Army P.P. Skoropadsky, was appointed commander of all the troops of the Right Bank of Ukraine (up to 20 thousand soldiers, 77 guns) covering Kyiv. Skoropadsky managed to disarm and disperse the masses of soldiers rushing towards Kyiv. The disarmament of garrisons and units occurred simultaneously in ten cities - those where Petliura's order to dismiss non-Ukrainian soldiers was not carried out - and in four more cities local Soviets were dissolved on suspicion of conspiracy.

In the period from December 4 to 11 (17-24), by order of Petliura and the commander of the Ukrainian Front, General Shcherbachev, troops captured the headquarters of the Romanian and Southwestern fronts, armies, right down to regiments, arrested members of the Military Revolutionary Committees and Bolshevik commissars, under Some of them were shot. This was followed by the disarmament by the Romanians of those units in which the Bolshevik influence was strong. Left without weapons and food, Russian soldiers were forced to leave on foot for Russia

Simon Petlyura in 1918 near Kyiv.

On December 4 (17), the Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia sent the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, opening in Kyiv, a “Manifesto to the Ukrainian people with ultimatum demands to the Central Rada,” which contained a demand for the UCR to stop the disorganization of the united common front and the passage of military units leaving through the UCR-controlled territory from the front to the regions of Russia.

The Council of People's Commissars stated that if a satisfactory response to the demands was not received within forty-eight hours, it would consider the Rada in a state of open war against Soviet power in Russia and Ukraine. The Central Rada rejected these demands and set its own conditions: recognition of the UPR, non-interference in its internal affairs and in the affairs of the Ukrainian Front, permission for the departure of Ukrainianized units to Ukraine, division of the finances of the former empire, participation of the UPR in general peace negotiations.

Speaking at the Congress of Soviets, UPR Minister of War Petlyura made a statement:

“A campaign is being prepared for us! We felt that we, Ukrainian democrats, had someone preparing a knife in our backs... The Bolsheviks were concentrating their army to defeat the Ukrainian Republic..."

On December 8 (21), trains with red detachments arrived in Kharkov under the command of R. F. Sivers and sailor N. A. Khovrin - 1600 people with 6 guns and 3 armored cars, and from December 11 (24) to December 16 (29) - up to five thousand more soldiers, led by commander Antonov-Ovseenko. In addition, in Kharkov itself there were already three thousand Red Guards and pro-Bolshevik soldiers of the old army.

On the night of December 10 (23) in Kharkov, those who arrived from Russia Soviet troops arrested the Ukrainian commandant of the city and established dual power in the city. Arriving in Kharkov, Antonov-Ovseenko initially focused on the White Cossacks as the greatest danger to the revolution. A policy of passive opposition was pursued towards the UPR. Ukrainian administrators in Kharkov were released from arrest, and neutrality was established in relations with the local Ukrainian garrison.

With the arrival of Soviet troops, a group of delegates who left the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kyiv also arrived in Kharkov, joined by deputies from the Congress of Soviets of the Donetsk and Krivoy Rog basins. On December 11−12 (24-25), an alternative to the Kyiv 1st All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets took place in Kharkov, which proclaimed Ukraine a Republic of Soviets. He declared a “decisive struggle against the policy of the Central Rada, which was disastrous for the worker-peasant masses,” established federal ties between Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia, and elected the Provisional Central Executive Committee of the Councils of Ukraine (VUCIK). On December 14 (27), the People's Secretariat, the first government of Soviet Ukraine, was separated from the VUTsIK. The Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR immediately recognized him.

The leaders of the Directory receive a military parade (Petliura in the center). 1918

In early December, Soviet Commander-in-Chief Krylenko addressed the front-line soldiers with a statement that the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR would fight "for an independent Ukrainian republic... where power will be in the hands of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies." By his order, up to 6 thousand soldiers of Ukrainianized units heading to Ukraine were disarmed in the Smolensk province and Belarus. In response to these actions, Petliura called on the Ukrainianized units of the Northern Front to stop Soviet troops heading to Ukraine. These calls from Petlyura prompted the government of Soviet Russia to take decisive action.

UPR Prime Minister V.K. Vinnychenko said that Petliura was to blame for the conflict with the Council of People's Commissars and his resignation would help avoid war. Vinnychenko advocated replacing the professional army with a people's militia, which would weaken the position of Petliura, who insisted on preserving the old army and creating regular military units. Stalin’s article “To the Ukrainians of the Rear and Front” was published in Kyiv newspapers, in which the author directly pointed to Petliura as the main culprit in the conflict between the UPR and Soviet Russia. Vinnichenko began to insist on the immediate disarmament of Cossack trains passing through Ukraine. Petliura refused, declaring that it was not profitable to break ties with the Russian Cossacks.

From December 12 (25), Petlyura began to transfer Ukrainian units to the east of Ukraine in order to take under protection the most important railway junctions: Lozovaya, Sinelnikovo, Yasinovataya, Aleksandrovsk, hoping to maintain contact with the Don as a possible strategic ally in the war against the Bolsheviks. Railway trains with Cossack units returning from the front passed through Lozovaya. Having learned about these movements, the command of the Southern Group of Soviet Forces took active action against the UPR. The plan of the command of the Southern Group of Soviet Forces did not initially envisage a wide war against the UPR, a march on Kyiv and the liquidation of the Central Rada. It was only about organizing defense in the Poltava direction, capturing the junction stations Lozovaya and Sinelnikovo.

Antonov-Ovseenko transferred command of the troops stationed in Ukraine to his chief of staff, Colonel Muravyov, and he himself led the fight against the Cossack troops of the Don. Muravyov, advancing on the main direction Poltava - Kyiv, had an army of about seven thousand bayonets, 26 guns, 3 armored cars and 2 armored trains. The advance of Muravyov’s main column was supported by the small “armies” of P.V. Egorov following him in echelons from Lozovaya station and A.A. Znamensky (Moscow special forces detachment) from Vorozhba station.

At a meeting of the UPR government on December 15 (28), it became clear that the UPR troops were unable to stop the advance of the Red Army. Vinnichenko did not believe in the reality of the full-scale war that had begun and proposed demanding that the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR cease hostilities and recall the troops. Petlyura proposed organizing an immediate offensive of UPR units on Kharkov and creating small mobile units from the remaining composition of the old decayed divisions for use along the railway lines without declaring war.

The General Secretariat of the UPR, instead of taking decisive action to defend the territory, formed another management structure - a Special Committee - the Board for the Defense of Ukraine. On December 18 (31), 1917, by decision of the General Secretariat and the Central Rada, Petlyura was dismissed from the post of Minister of War and removed from the General Secretariat due to abuse of power. Secretary General Nikolai Porsh was appointed in charge of military affairs.

Vinnichenko and Petliura. Kyiv, December 1918.

Removed from the leadership of the army, Petlyura decided to independently form a special volunteer combat unit in Kyiv - the Gaidamak Kosh of Sloboda Ukraine. It was meant that this formation would set as its goal the return of Sloboda Ukraine (the historical name of the Kharkov province) captured by the Bolsheviks. At first (with money from the French mission) only the First Red Haidamaks Kurken of 170-180 volunteers was created. Later they were joined by 148 Kyiv cadets.

The proclamation of Soviet power in Kharkov and the occupation by the Bolsheviks of a number of industrial centers in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, while maintaining the Central Rada in Kyiv, which declared the independence of Ukraine, inevitably led to the transition of the struggle for power in Ukraine between the Bolsheviks and the Central Rada into an acute phase. The Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, which recognized the Soviet government of Ukraine, on January 4 (17) decided to attack the troops of the Central Rada. It was decided to deliver the main blow from Kharkov to Poltava with further movement to Kyiv together with the Bolshevized units of the former Russian army, which threatened Kyiv from different sides, including parts of the disintegrated Southwestern Front. The overall management of the operation was entrusted to the chief of staff of the Southern Group of Forces, M. A. Muravyov.

On January 9 (22), in the face of the unfolding offensive of the Soviet troops, the Malaya Rada proclaimed the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic, instructing the new government of the UPR - the Council of People's Ministers - to begin peace negotiations with the states of the Austro-German bloc. On January 12 (25), parts of the Gaidamak Kosh of Sloboda Ukraine were thrown towards the Poltava direction in an attempt to stop the offensive. Ataman of the Gaydamat Kosh Petliura was asked to exercise overall leadership of the scanty remnants of the UPR forces on the Left Bank of the Dnieper.

On January 17 (30), however, Petlyura received an order to immediately return to Kyiv to eliminate the Bolshevik armed uprising, which threatened the very existence of the Central Rada. On January 19 (February 1), the Haidamaks broke through to Kyiv and on January 21 (February 3) they took part in the assault on the last stronghold of the rebels - the Arsenal plant. During the assault, Petlyura personally led his subordinates and, at the end of hostilities, allegedly stopped the impending execution of prisoners. The fighting against scattered groups of rebels continued the next day. By the evening of the same day, however, troops under the command of Muravyov approached Kyiv. A multi-day artillery shelling and assault on the city began.

On the night of January 25-26 (February 7-8), the government and the remnants of the UPR troops left Kyiv. Having retreated from the capital, Petliura refused to unite with the regular units of the UPR army and submit to the authority of the UPR military department, declaring that the Haidamaks are “partisan-volunteer” units with their own tasks and goals and are only in “alliance” with units of the UPR.

Simon Petliura during a prayer service on Sophia Square. January 22, 1919.

On the morning of January 28 (February 10), Prime Minister Golubovich announced the signing of peace with the Austro-German bloc in Brest-Litovsk. In exchange for military assistance in ousting Soviet forces from the territory of Ukraine, the UPR undertook to supply Germany and Austria-Hungary by July 31, 1918, a million tons of grain, 400 million eggs, up to 50 thousand tons of cattle meat, lard, sugar, hemp, manganese ore, etc. Austria-Hungary also committed itself to creating an autonomous Ukrainian region in Eastern Galicia. The parties expressed a desire to live in peace and friendship, renounced mutual claims for compensation for losses caused by the war, and pledged to restore economic relations, exchange prisoners of war and surplus agricultural and industrial goods.

Petliura greeted the news of peace without much joy. Meanwhile, the retreat of the UPR forces continued in the direction of Zhitomir, where the commander of the Southwestern Ukrainian Front, Ensign Kudrya, and his subordinate troops were located. In the same area, however, was the 1st Hussite Czechoslovak Division from the Czechoslovak Corps, formed as part of the Russian Army mainly from captured Czechs and Slovaks - former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army. Based on the decree of the French government on the organization of an autonomous Czechoslovak army in France, Czechoslovak units in Russia from January 15, 1918 were formally subordinated to the French command and were preparing to be sent to France.

The division command, having learned about the UPR’s alliance with Germany, began to show hostility towards the Ukrainian units. Already on January 30 (February 12), it was decided to withdraw the main forces from Zhitomir to the northwest, into remote Polesie, counting on the help of units of the Polish Corps, which rebelled against the Bolsheviks in Belarus, near Mozyr. Petlyura’s detachment headed to Ovruch and Novograd-Volynsky, and the Central Rada and the Sichov Kuren went further west, to Sarny, to the German-Ukrainian front itself. Rada leaders hoped to hold out here until German troops entered Ukrainian territory.

Heads of the Directory, government and officers of the UPR. Kamenets-Podolsky. June 1919.

On January 31 (February 13) in Brest, the UPR delegation, by secret decision of several Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries from the Council of Ministers, sent a memorandum to Germany and Austria-Hungary asking for help from the UPR against Soviet troops, which became a logical continuation of the peace treaty signed a few days earlier. Although the military convention between the UPR, Germany and Austria-Hungary was formalized later, the German command on the same day gave its preliminary consent to enter the war against the Bolsheviks and began to actively prepare for a campaign in Ukraine.

Starting from February 18, German and Austro-Hungarian units numbering more than 230 thousand people (29 infantry and four and a half cavalry divisions) began to cross the Ukrainian section of the Eastern Front line and advance deeper into Ukraine. On February 19, German troops entered Lutsk and Rivne, and on February 21 they ended up in Novograd-Volynsky. Austro-Hungarian troops invaded the UPR on February 25, crossing the border rivers Zbruch and Dniester, and immediately occupied the cities of Kamenets-Podolsky and Khotyn. Austrian military forces, advancing in the Odessa direction - along the Lviv - Ternopil - Zhmerynka - Vapnyarka railway, quickly occupied Podolia. When the occupation forces advanced along the railway lines, the small Ukrainian UPR troops, although they were in the vanguard, were completely dependent on the decisions of the German command. The Ukrainian command had to coordinate all its military operations and tactical actions with him.

Right-bank Ukraine returned to the control of the UPR practically without a fight. Knowing that the Germans were preparing a ceremonial entry into Kyiv, Ataman of the Gaidamak Kosh Petliura demanded that the Ukrainian command give the Haidamaks the opportunity to be the first to enter Kiev. At a meeting of Ukrainian commanders, an acute conflict arose on this issue between Petliura, Prime Minister Golubovich and the new Minister of War Zhukovsky. The Prime Minister and the Minister of War were categorically against Petliura's proposal, believing that the main forces - the Germans - should enter Kyiv first. But on Petliura’s orders, one of his commanders, Ataman Volokh, deployed the Haidamaks’ machine guns at direct fire at the windows of the ministerial carriage and demanded consent for the Haidamaks to enter Kyiv, threatening a military coup. The consent of the Prime Minister and the Minister of War was thus obtained, and Petliura’s detachment rushed to Kyiv along the railway, 8-10 hours ahead of the movement of German forces.

On March 1, the forward detachments of the UPR army - the Haidamaks, Sich Riflemen and Cossacks - entered the western outskirts of Kyiv. The next day, Petliura organized a parade on Sophia Square in Kyiv, along which the troops marched as they entered the city. A prayer service was held in front of a large crowd of people in honor of the expulsion of the Bolsheviks... The parade ended with a column of captured Soviet soldiers marching across the square. The next day, German troops, the UPR government, and the Central Rada arrived in Kyiv. The entry of Petliura's Haidamaks into the capital and their unauthorized parade infuriated the leadership of the Rada and the Germans (Petliura was considered a supporter of the Entente). Prime Minister Vsevolod Golubovich achieved the complete removal of Petliura, this “...adventurer who is very popular,” from the army. Petlyura was relieved of command of the Haidamaks and until mid-November 1918 remained a private citizen, outside the army and big politics.

On April 29, 1918 in Kyiv at the All-Ukrainian Congress of Grain Growers (landowners and large peasant owners, about 7,000 delegates), taking advantage of the protracted crisis of the Central Rada of the UPR and relying on the support of the German occupation forces, the former tsarist general P. P. Skoropadsky was proclaimed hetman of Ukraine. Skoropadsky dissolved the Central Rada and its institutions, land committees, abolished the republic and all revolutionary reforms. Thus, the Ukrainian People's Republic was abolished and a Ukrainian state was established with a semi-monarchical dictatorial rule of the hetman - the supreme leader of the state, army and judiciary in the country.

Despite the fact that the new government did not enjoy the support of either the Ukrainian population or “Russian circles”, which perceived the hetman as a separatist and enemy united Russia, they came to terms with the coup - the Central Rada was not able to decisively fight for power and capitulated.

On May 3, a government was formed headed by F.A. Lizogub. Ukrainian socialist parties refused to cooperate with the new regime. Skoropadsky intended to seek support in the old bureaucracy and officers, large landowners and the bourgeoisie. By May 10, the delegates of the Second All-Ukrainian Peasant Congress were arrested, and the congress itself was dispersed. The remaining delegates called on the peasants to fight against Skoropadsky. The first all-Ukrainian conference of trade unions also passed a resolution against the hetman. The hetman prohibited the convening of party congresses of the USDRP and UPSR, but they, ignoring the prohibitions, secretly met and passed anti-hetman resolutions. Zemstvos of Ukraine became the center of legal, irreconcilable opposition to the hetman's regime.

Petlyura, who headed the Union of Zemstvos of Ukraine during this period, was engaged in disseminating his ideas among the small and middle peasantry through zemstvo institutions, cooperative organizations, provincial clergy and rural teachers. As Hetman’s own Chief of Staff B.S. Stelletsky later admitted, “all his [Petliura’s] orders from the center reached the masses much faster and more accurately than Skoropadsky’s orders through his bureaucratic apparatus. Likewise, and vice versa, Petliura, through the same organizations, received much more accurate and full information about the mood on the ground."

S. Petlyura, V.K. Vinnichenko, N.E. Shapoval with other left Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries and in collaboration with the Peasant Union (Selyanska spilka) created shadow structures of opposition power throughout the country, held underground congresses of party cells and secret meetings influential local figures.

Meanwhile, in May 1918, a real peasant war began in Ukraine, which quickly engulfed its entire territory. The main reasons were the resumption of landlordism and the terror of punitive and requisition detachments of interventionists. The free Cossacks opposed the violence of the Austro-German troops and the hetman’s “warta” (guards), who refused to support their hetman. During the peasant uprisings in the spring and summer alone, about 22 thousand soldiers and officers of the occupation forces (according to the German General Staff) and more than 30 thousand Hetman Warts died. Peasant uprisings practically disrupted the collection and export of food.

A. Makarenko, F. Shvets and S. Petliura on the porch of the residence of the UPR Directory. Kamenets-Podolsky. 1919

At the end of May, the inter-party center-right Ukrainian National State Union was created. At first, he limited himself to moderate criticism of the regime and the government, but with the weakening of German influence and, accordingly, the position of the hetman, his activities became more and more radical.

On the night of July 27, on the basis of intelligence information received by the Hetman's Headquarters about the preparation of an anti-government conspiracy, in agreement with the German command, several dozen left-wing Ukrainian politicians were arrested (among them were, in particular, N.V. Porsh, Yu. Kapkan and etc.). Petlyura was placed in Lukyanovskaya prison, where he was held without charge.

Meanwhile, in August, with the annexation of the Ukrainian Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, the “Selyanskaya Spilka”, and the Petlyura Union of Zemstvos, the Ukrainian National-State Union became known as the Ukrainian National Union. In mid-September, it was headed by the leader of the USDRP, Vladimir Vinnichenko, who immediately began searching for contacts with the rebel chieftains. Vinnichenko and Nikita Shapoval, secretly from other leaders of the National Union, went to negotiations with Soviet representatives Kh. G. Rakovsky and D. Z. Manuilsky, who were negotiating peace with the Ukrainian State in Kyiv. Rakovsky and Manuilsky, for their part, hoped to push all opposition forces in Ukraine to revolt against the hetman and strengthen Bolshevik influence in Ukraine. They promised Vinnychenko that if the Ukrainian socialists won, Soviet Russia would recognize the new government of the Ukrainian Republic and would not interfere in its internal affairs.

Meanwhile, on November 3, a revolution began in Germany, on November 9, Germany was proclaimed a republic, Emperor Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands. On November 11, the First Compiegne Truce was signed between the Entente and Germany - an agreement to end hostilities in the First World War. According to one of the conditions of the armistice, Germany pledged to denounce the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Soviet Russia, while German troops were to remain on Russian territory until the arrival of the Entente troops.

The defeat of the Central Powers in the war added determination to the future rebels, who were waiting for just such an opportune moment. Moreover, as N. Shapoval testified, the conspirators secretly sent envoys to Berlin in advance in order to establish contacts with German Social Democracy, which would “vigorously oppose the German regime in Ukraine and demand the withdrawal of divisions of German troops.” Soon this pressure on the German military command in Ukraine began to manifest itself - including on the issue of the fate of imprisoned socialists.

On November 13, Petlyura was released at the urgent request of the German command. Hetman Skoropadsky later wrote that “he was forced to release Petliura at the insistence of the Germans, who otherwise threatened to release him by force.”

Petlyura promised not to speak out against the authorities, but the very next day he went to Bila Tserkva, where he led the anti-Hetman uprising, joining the Directory formed the day before and taking the post of Chief Ataman of the Army and Navy.

Against the entire army of the hetman (about 30 thousand bayonets and sabers), which, moreover, could receive support from numerous German-Austrian troops (150 thousand bayonets and sabers), Petliura had at his disposal only a small detachment of Sich riflemen of 870 people (according to others according to data, 1500 or even 2000 people) and about 100 volunteers. With such forces, Petliura decided not only to carry out a coup in Bila Tserkva, but also to immediately attack Kyiv, which contained more than ten thousand regular hetman troops and “vartas”.

On November 15, the Directory concluded an agreement with the Soldiers' Council of the German garrison of Bila Tserkva on neutrality during the confrontation between the Directory and the hetman. On the morning of November 16, when the rebels completely captured the White Church and disarmed the hetman’s “varta” (guard) of 60 people, the railway workers, joining the rebels, provided them with trains for a quick march to Kyiv. On the morning of November 17, Petliurists captured the neighboring Fastov station, and then the Motovilovka station. But then the path to Kyiv was blocked: the Vasilkov station was already occupied by the hetman’s punitive detachment - an officer squad under the command of General Prince Svyatopolk-Mirsky, an armored train and a regiment of Serdyuks - the hetman’s personal guard. The officer squad was defeated, and the Serdyuks avoided battle. Having learned about the defeat of the squad, Hetman Skoropadsky announced a general mobilization of officers (the former army of the Russian Empire), of whom there were up to 12 thousand people in Kyiv alone. But only about 5 thousand officers responded to this call, and even two thousand of them chose to serve in numerous headquarters and departments over the front.

On November 19, the Petliurists approached Kyiv from the southwest and intended to storm the city with 600 bayonets, but were stopped by officer squads. In the face of this threat, Skoropadsky appointed General Count F.A. Keller, popular among the Russian officers, as the commander-in-chief of his army, but his open monarchism and non-recognition of an independent Ukrainian state caused protest from the Ukrainian commanders from the hetman’s army. This led to the Zaporizhian Corps, the Serozhupan Division, and some smaller units going over to the side of the rebels. Within a week, Skoropadsky would remove Keller, accusing him of conspiracy and preparing a “right-wing” anti-hetman coup, which would force some of the officers of the former Russian army to leave Kyiv and rush to the North Caucasus, to Denikin. On November 26, Commander-in-Chief Keller will be replaced by General Prince A.N. Dolgorukov.

At this time, the Hetman Black Sea Kosh (460 bayonets) rebelled in Berdichev, which, on the orders of Petliura, immediately set out for Kyiv and on November 20 approached it from the west. However, even the two thousand soldiers that the Directory had at that moment near Kiev were not enough for the final assault and fight against the hetman’s garrison of the capital. Having recovered from the first military failures, General Svyatopolk-Mirsky organized a new officer squad, which on November 21 pushed back the advancing Petliurists, who had to switch to trench warfare.

Petlyura, however, was helped by the transition of most units of the Hetman's army to the side of the Directory. Already on November 19–20, separate units of the Serdyuks, the Lubensky cavalry regiment, the Serozhupannikov division in the Chernigov region, and parts of the Podolsk corps went over to the side of the Petliurists. On November 20, the Zaporozhye Corps of Colonel Bolbochan (18 thousand bayonets and sabers) came out on the side of the rebels. The corps captured Kharkov and within ten days of the uprising took control of almost the entire territory of Left Bank Ukraine. On November 21–23, rebel detachments began to arrive from near Bila Tserkva to the capital, whom Petlyura supplied with weapons from captured warehouses.

Members of the Directorate of the UPR. Kamenets-Podolsky. 1919

Petliura scheduled a new offensive for November 27. From the south, from the area of ​​the Goloseevsky forest, 500 rebels of Ataman Zeleny came to Kyiv, from the southwest - 4 thousand Sich, Black Sea and peasant rebels. But on the day of the general offensive, the Germans decided to intervene in the course of events: the protracted fighting near Kyiv interfered with the evacuation of the German army. To release railway track to the west, German troops stormed the Shepetovka station from the rebels and demanded that the rebels move 30 km away from the capital and stop the attack on Kyiv until all German units were evacuated from the capital. Due to the superiority of the German army, the Directory was forced to accept the German ultimatum. On the other hand, representatives of the French forces intervened in the situation, for whom it was beneficial to delay the departure of German units in order to prevent the rebels from entering Kyiv and maintaining the hetman’s power.

On December 14, the troops of the Directory, which rapidly increased in numbers, took Kyiv. Hetman Skoropadsky fled. The Ukrainian People's Republic was restored, and the Directory became its supreme body authorities.

As historians Semenenko and Radchenko write, the Directory in principle rejected not Skoropadsky’s program, but his policies. In the current situation, it turned out to be not a collective body, but a state institution due to the lack of clear powers of its members. Creating power structures, she either tried to copy the Bolshevik system, or was satisfied with the formal renaming of the hetman’s bodies. Simon Petlyura declared his commitment to “ national idea": On January 2, 1919, his order was issued to expel from the borders of the UPR all its enemies "involved in criminal agitation against the Ukrainian government." On January 8, a decree was issued on the arrest and trial of all citizens wearing shoulder straps of the Russian army and royal awards, except for the crosses of St. George, as “enemies of Ukraine.”

At the beginning of February 1919, Vladimir Vinnychenko and other socialists were recalled by the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party (USDRP) from the Directory and the Council of Ministers, and from that time on it was actually headed by Petliura, establishing a military dictatorship.

Simon Petliura. Kamenets-Podolsky. 1919

On January 22, 1919, the Directorate of the UPR signed the “Act of Union” (Ukrainian “Act of Zluki”) with the government of Western Ukraine. The President of the Ukrainian National Council of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic Evgeniy Petrushevich, who joined the Directory, left it in June due to the intention of Petliura and the other members of the Directory to come to an agreement with Poland by ceding Western Ukrainian lands to it.

Petliura conducted active negotiations with the Entente representative office on the possibility of joint action against the Bolshevik army, with the establishment of a French protectorate in Ukraine, but did not achieve success. The Western powers supported General Denikin.

Simon Petlyura and Yevgeny Petrushevich during a review of troops. Kamenets-Podolsky. October 1, 1919.

On December 31, 1918, the Directory proposed peace negotiations to the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. During the negotiations, the Council of People's Commissars rejected the UPR's accusations of an undeclared war against it, stating that “there are no troops of the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic in Ukraine.” For its part, the Directory did not agree to the unification of the Directory with the Ukrainian Soviet government and refused to accept other demands that meant the self-liquidation of the UPR.

Heads of the Directorate of the UPR. Petliura is in the center (sitting).

On January 16, 1919, the Directory declared war on Soviet Russia. In January - April 1919, the main armed forces of the Directory were defeated by Ukrainian Soviet troops and rebels. Members of the Directory fled from Kyiv. The remnants of Petliura's troops were pressed against the border river Zbruch. Taking advantage of the transition of troops of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic to the territory of the UPR (under pressure from Polish forces), as well as the beginning of the offensive of Denikin's troops, the Petliurists, together with the Galician army, launched a counter-offensive and on August 30 (simultaneously with the Whites) occupied Kyiv, but the very next day they were expelled from there by the White Guards.

The command of the AFSR refused to negotiate with Petliura, and by October 1919, Petliura’s forces were defeated. The command of the Galician Army in early November signed a truce agreement with the command of the Volunteer Army and went over to the side of Denikin. The “Evil Act” was actually denounced. In Ukrainian historiography, the signing of this treaty is called the “November catastrophe” (Ukrainian: “Listopad catastrophe”). One of the reasons for the breakdown in relations between the UPR and WUNR is cited as Petliura’s negotiations with Poland, which the Galicians regarded as a betrayal.

On April 21, 1920, Symon Petlyura, on behalf of the UPR, concluded an agreement with Poland on joint actions against Soviet troops. In accordance with the agreement reached, the Petliura government agreed, in exchange for recognition, to provide assistance to the Poles in the fight against the Bolsheviks. The terms of the agreement turned out to be extremely difficult - the UPR agreed to establish a border between Poland and Ukraine along the Zbruch River, thereby recognizing the entry of Galicia and Volyn into Poland. Poland took over the Lemkivshchyna, Nadsanje and Kholmshchyna, populated mainly by Ukrainians.

Jagiellonian University professor Jan Jacek Bruski, writing in the Ukrainian newspaper Den, assessed this agreement as a weak “position.”

The alliance with Petlyura allowed the Poles to significantly improve their strategic positions and launch an offensive in Ukraine. On May 7, the Poles occupied Kyiv, then the bridgeheads on the left bank of the Dnieper. However, as a result of the Kyiv operation of the Red Army in the second half of May, Polish troops were forced to begin a retreat in the strip from Polesie to the Dniester. Then, during the Novograd-Volyn and Rivne operations (June - July), the troops of the Southwestern Front of the Red Army defeated Polish troops and Petliura detachments and reached the approaches to Lublin and Lvov, but were unable to capture Lvov and were forced to retreat in August. On October 18, after the conclusion of a truce with Poland, hostilities in the southwestern direction ceased.

Simon Petlyura and Polish General Antony Listovsky. 1920

In March 1921, the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR and Poland signed the Treaty of Riga, ending the Soviet-Polish War (1919-1921). Petliura emigrated to Poland.

In the fall of 1921, the UPR government in exile planned an invasion of the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, with the goal of organizing a “nationwide uprising against the Bolsheviks.” For this purpose, the “Rebel Headquarters” was created in Lviv, headed by UPR General Yuri Tyutyunnik. The governments of Poland and France assured Petlyura and Tyutyunnik that in case of first success they were ready to send their regular troops to Ukraine. In November, Soviet troops under the command of Vitaly Primakov and Grigory Kotovsky inflicted a crushing defeat on the participants of the “free raid” in the Zhitomir region.

The Soviet government lodged a strong protest with Poland, citing the provisions of the Riga Peace Treaty. In this regard, the leadership of Poland refused Petliura to support his hostile activities against the Ukrainian SSR.

In 1923, the USSR demanded that the Polish authorities extradite Petliura, so he moved to Hungary, then to Austria, Switzerland and in October 1924 to France.

Simon Petliura and Josef Piłsudski.

Despite the fact that the government of the Directory solemnly proclaimed the policy of national autonomy and granting Jews all national-political rights, and also created the Ministry of Jewish Affairs (see A. Revutsky), the activities of the Directory, which was actually controlled by the “ataman group” led by Petliura , was marked by bloody Jewish pogroms. The troops of the Directory, retreating in the winter of 1919 under the blows of the Red Army, turned into gangs of murderers and robbers, attacking Jews in many cities and towns of Ukraine (Zhitomir, Proskurov /see Khmelnitsky/ and others).

According to the Red Cross commission, about fifty thousand Jews were killed during these pogroms. Petlyura could not (according to numerous testimonies, and did not try) to put an end to the bloody atrocities that his army committed. To one of the Jews’ requests that he take advantage of his power to stop the pogroms and punish the pogromists, Petliura replied: “Don’t quarrel between me and my army.” Only in July 1919 did Petliura send a circular telegram to the troops, and in August 1919 issued an order to the army, sharply condemning the pogroms, declaring that Jews were not enemies of the Ukrainian people, and threatening severe punishment for the pogromists.

According to Ukrainian nationalist sources, several of the most zealous pogromists were executed. In October 1919, the remnants of Petliura's troops, defeated by the Red Army, fled to Poland. In 1920, Petlyura entered into an agreement with the Poles on joint military action against Soviet Russia. After the conclusion of peace between Soviet Russia and Poland (1921), Petliura continued to head his government and the remnants of the army in exile.

Pilsudski and Petlyura together with Polish officers and UPR officers.

Schwartzbard argued that the murder was solely an act of revenge for the Jewish pogroms of 1918–20. in Ukraine.

Lawyer Torres justified Symon Petliura’s personal responsibility for the pogroms of Ukrainian Jews by the fact that Petliura, as head of state, was responsible for everything that happened on the territory he controlled.

Petliura’s associates and relatives presented more than 200 documents at the trial, indicating that Petliura not only did not encourage anti-Semitism, but also harshly suppressed its manifestations in his army. However, they were not taken into account, since Torres showed that most of them were drawn up after the expulsion of the Petliuraites from Ukraine and none were signed by Petliura personally. According to the Red Cross Commission, during the pogroms carried out by the Directory troops in the winter of 1919, about fifty thousand Jews were killed. The prosecution was unable to cite a single case in which Petliura, through his direct actions, prevented a pogrom or punished pogromists. Petlyura’s words to the Jewish delegation at the Mameevka station appeared at the trial: “Don’t quarrel between me and my army.” Only in July-August 1919 did he condemn the pogroms and issue an order prohibiting them on pain of severe punishment.

Ukrainian historian Dmitry Tabachnik, who devoted several works to the murder of Petliura, refers to the Jewish historian Semyon Dubnov, who claimed that the archives of Berlin contain about 500 documents proving Petliura’s personal involvement in the pogroms. The historian Cherikover spoke similarly at the trial.

The Paris investigation in 1927 did not take into account the testimony of witness Eliya Dobkovsky, who gave written testimony about the participation in the case of Mikhail Volodin, whom he considered an agent of the GPU. Volodin, having appeared in Paris in 1925, actively collected information about the chieftain, was personally acquainted with Schwartzbard and, according to Dobkovsky, helped him prepare the murder. The involvement of the GPU in organizing the murder of Petliura in 1926 was testified in the US Congress by OGPU employee Pyotr Deryabin, who fled to the West.

Schwartzbard was completely acquitted by a French jury

According to his comrades-in-arms, Simon Petlyura tried to stop pogroms and severely punished those who participated in them. For example, on March 4, 1919, Petliura’s “ataman” Semesenko, twenty-two years old, gave his “Zaporozhye Brigade”, stationed near Proskurov, the order to exterminate the entire Jewish population in the city. On March 5, more than a thousand people were killed, including women and children. A few days later, Semesenko imposed an indemnity of 500 thousand rubles on the city and, having received it, thanked in the order the “Ukrainian citizens of Proskurov” for the support they provided to the “People’s Army”. It was reported that because of this, on March 20, 1920, on the orders of Petlyura, he was shot. However, witnesses A. Chomsky and P. Langevin, who spoke at the Schwarzbard trial, testified that the “trial” and “sentence” were staged, and Semesenko himself was secretly released on the orders of Petlyura.

Petliura's grave at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

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("military general secretary") of the first Ukrainian government of the Central Rada in 1917-1918, head of the UPR Directory in 1918-1920.

3 exploits of Simon Petlyura.

1. He organized the first national armed forces in 1917.

As the first Ukrainian Minister of War ("Secretary General for Military Affairs") from June 1917.

He obtained permission from the Provisional Government of Russia, headed by Kerensky, to create the Ukrainian Armed Forces: only military units at the front remained subordinate to Petrograd, in the rear “the Ukrainization of the army began,” all garrisons on the territory of Ukraine, as well as reserve regiments, the replacement of the entire military administration with Ukrainian patriots and the transfer of Ukrainianized units from other fronts to the territory of Ukraine (to the Romanian and Southwestern fronts);

In November 1917 already from the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars Lenin achieved the reassignment of the troops of the Southwestern and Romanian fronts to the Ukrainian government, placing at the head of the front the anti-Bolshevik-minded tsarist Colonel General D. G. Shcherbachev, the ex-commander of the Romanian Front;

Suppressed the first Bolshevik uprisings (General Pavel Skoropadsky, at the head of the 20,000-strong “UNR corps,” disarmed and dispersed to their homes the 2nd Army Corps, which had gone over to the Bolshevik side);

In December 1917, he arrested all Bolshevik members of the Military Revolutionary Committees and Bolshevik commissars at the headquarters of the South-Western and Romanian fronts, forcing a number of Bolshevik-minded regiments to disarm and “go home on foot without weapons to Russia”;

At the end of December 1917 organized the defense of Aleksandrovsk (Zaporozhye), Sinelnikov, Lozova during the offensive of the Bolshevik troops of Colonel Muravyov.

2. Petlyura at the head of the UPR Directory: the formation of Ukrainian statehood and its Armed Forces (December 1918-November 1920). Power in Kyiv changed with kaleidoscopic speed:

Bolsheviks (February - April 1918);

Hetman Skoropadsky (April-November 1918), who was put in charge of Ukraine by the German-Austrian occupation forces that entered under the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty of 1918 (they left with Hetman Skoropadsky after the revolution that broke out in November 1918)

In December 1918, having defeated the troops of Hetman Skoropadsky (the plot of M. Bulgakov's novel "Days of the Turbins"), the Directory came to the head, first headed by Vinnichenko, then from February 13 - with Petliura. During this period, Symon Petlyura managed to lay the foundations of Ukrainian statehood and its armed forces.

Petlyura became a symbol of the struggle for the independence of Ukraine, proving that it is impossible to break them, they can only be stopped by death from the hired killer of Bolshevik Russia.

Iron Cross of the UPR

Biography of Simon Petlyura.

1901 - took part in the All-Ukrainian Student Congress, representing the society of the theological seminary, although by that time he had already been expelled from the educational institution for his political activity;

In the spring of 1902, he became one of the organizers of a speech by seminarians who demanded the abolition of the espionage system, the release of guards, and the introduction of Ukrainian studies subjects into the program. As a result of this, he began to face arrest. Simon Petlyura, together with his friend Poniatenko, leaves for Kuban;

Immediately upon arrival he becomes a member of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party and begins his journalistic activities;

1903 - got a job in the archaeographic expedition of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Fyodor Shcherbina, who was engaged in putting in order the archives of the Kuban Cossacks. He was arrested for his political activities, because of which he left for Kuban. His father posted bail for Petlyura, and he was soon released;

Autumn 1904 - changes his name to Svyatoslav Targon and crosses illegally, returning to his homeland. Settles in Lvov, where the Foreign Committee of the RUP is located at that time;

From March to April 1905 - edited the party "Selyanin";

December 1904 - spoke in Lvov at the RUP conference against the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party;

November 1905 - after the proclamation of political amnesty in the Russian Empire, he returns home;

August 1906 - goes to St. Petersburg to edit the central organ of the party - the month "Svobodnaya". However, the publication was soon closed, and Symon Petliura returned to Kyiv, where he became secretary of the Kyiv diary "Rada";

1908 - co-editor of the legal Social Democratic journal "Slovo";

1908-1910 - lives in St. Petersburg, where he takes an active part in the Ukrainian movement;

1911 - moves to Moscow, where a girl was waiting for him, born, who was named Lesya Petlyura. He worked as an accountant at the insurance company "". Gradually he turned into a famous public figure;

1916 - joins the Union of Zemstvos and Cities. He holds the position of Commissioner of the Main All-Russian Zemstvo Congress, as well as the head of the Control Board of the Zemstvo Congress on the Western Front. Moves to, where the headquarters of the Western Front is located;

1917 - Initiates the Ukrainian Congress of the Front in Minsk. Becomes the head of the front council and is delegated to the All-Ukrainian Military Congress;

1917-1918 - becomes the head of the Ukrainian General Military Committee, joins the Central Rada. Heads the Kiev provincial zemstvo and creates on its basis the All-Ukrainian community of zemstvos;

1918 - arrested for an anti-Hetman manifesto and served 4 months in the Lukyanovsky pre-trial detention center. After his release, he went to Bila Tserkva, where Yevgeny Konovalets’ detachment was based at that time;

December 6, 1919 - leaves for Warsaw to organize a military-political alliance there with Poland against Bolshevik Russia, which was signed in April 1920;

October 1924 - settled in Paris. He organized the publication of the weekly Trizub and continued to serve as head of the UPR Directory and Chief Ataman of the UPR.

A documentary film was made about Simon Petlyura:

Murder of Petlyura.

May 25, 1926 - Simon Petlyura was killed by S.-Sh. Schwartzbard, secret agent of the NKVD. Petlyura was shot at the intersection of Rue Racine and Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris at two o'clock in the afternoon, when the chieftain stopped near a bookstore. Schwartzbard fired seven bullets at him. He was caught at the crime scene and the wounded Petlyura was taken to the hospital, where doctors tried to save his life, but all efforts were unsuccessful.

Simon Petlyura was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

On the day of the funeral, 40 Polish generals knelt in a church in Warsaw.

Perpetuating the memory of Symon Petliura.

In 2005, a decree was signed to perpetuate the memory of Symon Petliura, as well as the installation of monuments to him in Kyiv and others, as well as the naming of individual military units after him;

Streets in the following cities were named in honor of Petlyura: Rivne, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Shepetivka, and many others;

February 11, 2008 - the Kyiv City Administration commission on issues of names and memorial signs decided to rename one of the streets in Kyiv to Simon Petlyura Street;

2009 - The Kiev City Council Commission on local self-government, regional, international relations and information policy recommended that the Kiev City Council rename Comintern Street in the Shevchenkovsky district of the capital to Simon Petlyura Street;

2009 - renaming occurred;

A monument to Simon Petliura was unveiled in the city of Rivne;

There is a Ukrainian library and museum named after Simon Petlyura in Paris.

Simon Petliura was born in Poltava on May 5, 1879. He received his education at the Poltava Theological Seminary. The year 1900 in Petlyura’s biography is marked by joining the revolutionary Ukrainian party. Since then, his active party activities began. A little later he became one of the founders and then the leaders of the Social Democratic Labor Party. When the UPR was proclaimed in 1917, he briefly worked in the government as military secretary.

In 1918, after coup d'etat Skoropadsky, the biography of Symon Petlyura became known as the brightest representative of the opposition to the dictatorship. After the restoration of the UPR, control was transferred to Vinnychenko. And in February 1919, almost all power passed to Petliura.

During the reign, several reforms were made in Petliura's biography, mainly military. He formed an army that opposed the takeover of Ukraine by the Red Army. Conducting a war with Poland, he lost, after which he emigrated from the UPR in 1920. Then from Poland Petlyura moved to Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, and France. In Paris on May 25, 1926 Petliura was killed.

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