Pavlo Skoropadskyi

Pavlo Petrovich Skoropadsky is the Hetman of Ukraine, Ukrainian statesman, political and public figure, soldier.

Place of Birth, Education

He was born on May 15, 1873 in the German city of Wiesbaden, in the family of an officer of the army of the Russian Empire Petro Skoropadsky. He spent his childhood on the family estate in Trostyanets, Kharkiv province.

He studied at the Starodub gymnasium.

In 1886, he joined the Page Corps in St. Petersburg, which he graduated in 1893.

Career

After completing his studies, Skoropadsky was sent to serve in the Cavalry Guard Regiment. Two years later, he was appointed regimental adjutant, and in December 1897 he received the rank of lieutenant.

During the Russo-Japanese War, he went to the front, where he received the rank of colonel and wing-adjutant.

In 1905, he was awarded the golden saber for his bravery.

At the beginning of the First World War, in 1914, he was awarded the St. George Cross of the IV degree. Subsequently, he received the rank of lieutenant general and took the post of commander of the Guards Cavalry Brigade, and after that – the 34th Army Corps.

After the Bolshevik coup in November 1917, Skoropadsky recognized the validity of the orders of the Central Rada and carried out the orders of the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Colonel-General Dmytro Shcherbachev, who, in turn, was subordinate to the General Secretariat.

The Secretariat of Military Affairs of the Central Rada appointed him commander of all Ukrainian military units operating in the Right-Bank Ukraine. In addition, he held the position of commander ataman of the Free Cossacks.

The instability in the country caused disappointment among the allies of the Central Rada – Germany and Austria-Hungary, who expected that the government would provide them with food resources. Discontent was also growing among the peasants.

Hetmanate

On April 29, 1918, Skoropadsky took power in Ukraine as a result of a coup d’état. Since then, the country has been proclaimed a Hetman state, headed by Skoropadsky.

The Hetman state gained international recognition by establishing diplomatic relations with dozens of countries.

During the reign of Skoropadsky, Ukraine achieved a noticeable development of science, education and culture. The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (UAS), a number of universities in Kyiv and Kamianets-Podilskyi, as well as about 150 Ukrainian gymnasiums were opened in the country. During this period, several million copies of textbooks were printed in Ukrainian.

On the day of the coup, April 29, Skoropadsky abolished the laws of the Central Rada on the expropriation of large land holdings, but only in November a plan was approved for the purchase of estates and the subsequent distribution of land among the peasants, which could not be implemented. The uncertainty with the rights of both peasants and landowners caused discontent. In addition, Russian landowners began to return to their estates and, with the support of the hetman’s armed formations, took away land from the peasants.

At the same time, dissatisfaction grew due to the dependence of the Skoropadsky government on Germany and Austria-Hungary, since Ukrainian grain, meat and sugar were massively exported to them.

Representatives of various political forces, as well as broad strata of the population, were increasingly critical of the hetman’s policy. In the end, everything ended with the collapse of the Hetmanate.

Emigration

Taking advantage of the situation, the Bolsheviks forced Skoropadsky to resign as hetman and leave Kyiv.

After that, he secretly left the territory of Ukraine and moved to Germany. For the next two years he lived in Switzerland, and later settled in the city of Wannsee near Berlin. In particular, he participated in the creation of hetman’s organizations abroad. In 1926, on his initiative, the Ukrainian Scientific Institute was founded at the University of Berlin.

Skoropadsky died on April 26, 1945 in the hospital of the Metten monastery. He was buried in the family crypt in the city of Oberstdorf.