The Emergence of Ukraine: Self-Determination, Occupation, and War in Ukraine, 1917–1922 ed. by Wolfram Dornik (review)

As a slightly condensed version of the German publication Die Ukraine swischen Selbstbestimmung und Fremdherrschaft 1917–1922 (Graz, 2011), this translation offers English readers a collection of essays on the less well-known history of the end of World War I and the status of Ukraine in the immediate postwar period. Written by historians from Germany, Austria, Ukraine, Poland, and Russia with sources from each of these countries, the book by Wolfram Dornik and his colleagues systematically examines Ukraine at perhaps its most complex historical moment. Different Ukrainian groups simultaneously sought individual recognition as the emerging nation's political leaders appealed for international recognition as an autonomous state. Regardless of who was speaking for the Ukrainian people, everyone found themselves operating in an environment of conflict and violence, "peacemaking," collapsed or collapsing empires (Romanov, Habsburg, Hohenzollern, and Ottoman), the emergence of independent East European states, and the ever present Bolsheviks who would eventually prevail. Taken together, the chapters in this book offer readers much new information and insight about how Central Europe emerged from World War I.

The book is divided into four sections. The first section covers a broad range of themes that include the invasion of Ukraine by German and Austro-Hungarian forces in 1917–1918, civil conflict within Ukraine and among Ukrainians, and ultimately the emergence of an occupation regime after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The second section consists of two chapters more tightly focused on internal developments as Ukrainians sought to resolve political and territorial differences over their future. The third section of the book exposes how the policy of the Central Powers toward Eastern Europe in war and defeat doggedly remained focused on gaining exploitative control over any and all economic assets. The fourth and final section places Ukraine into the context of international relations to explain how the rest of the world viewed the emergence of a new state in the borderlands of the former Russian Empire. The organizational scheme of the book offers a clear presentation of key themes, topics, and subjects that help to understand Ukraine's failure to secure autonomy and independence in 1917–1922.

Among the rich and informative studies included in the book, the chapter by Peter Lieb and Wolfram Dornik in the first section is of particular interest. It argues that the Austrians and Germans never developed a systematic occupation policy that could regularize relations with a popularly mandated Ukrainian government or stabilize life for the people living in the affected areas. Then in a series of chapters on military operations, the occupation, and economic utilization in the second section, Lieb and Dornik argue how coal was a top priority for the Central Powers, along with grain and other raw materials desperately needed for their war effort. The authors claim that the Central Powers discarded the idea of national self-determination in favor of securing for themselves a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe that would be economically dependent on Central Europe.

In his chapter in the first section, Vasyl Rasevych examines the seemingly unresolvable complicated relationship between Eastern and Western Ukrainians, which prevented the unity necessary for Ukraine to emerge as an autonomous nation during this time of turmoil. Bogdan Musial penned two chapters for the fourth section—one on the Bolsheviks', and the other on Poland's policies toward Ukraine. He shows how the irresolvable mutual territorial claims had persisted well after 1922, through the entire interwar period, poisoning relations between Poland and Ukraine (and by extension the Soviet Union).

Dornik concludes this collection of essays by noting that, compared to the large-scale violence of World War I and the brutality of the Russian Civil War, the in-between period of occupation of Ukraine by the Central Powers is striking for its relative calm and stability. This might help explain...