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[MEMOIRS OF THE UKRAINIAN GENERAL] Na Ukrayini 1917-18. Spomyny. [i.e. In Ukraine. 1917-1918. Memoirs]

Omelyanovych-Pavlenko, M.

Item #2311

Prague: Stilus, 1935. 120 p. 19,6x13,1 cm. Original illustrated wrapper. First two pages are detached, but overall in a very good condition. The signature of the previous owner on the title page – book belonged to Mykola H. Haydak (1898-1971) «Mykola Haydak, Ingeneur of Agronomy degree, Polytechnic Institute at Praha (Ukraine); Ph.D., University of Wisconsin (1933)». Professor of entomology at the University of Minnesota (1933-1966). World renowned expert on bees and bee nutrition, at the time of the book publication he was a student of Agricultural Academy at Podebrady, Czechoslovakia. The book also bears his underlinings.

Design of the wrapper by Mykola Butovich. Photo of the general by K.Teodosiv. First edition. Very rare. Important work by one of the key figures in the battle for Ukrainian independence after the fall of Russian Empire.

The author (1878-1952), was the Commander of the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) and the Ukrainian People's Army in late 1910s. At the time of the publication of the book he served as defense minister for the exiled Ukrainian People's Republic. In the spring of 1917, Omelianovych-Pavlenko became an active supporter of the Ukrainian independence movement, and initiated the
creation of the Odessa battalion. He also initiated Ukrainian military academies in Zhytomyr and Kamianets-Podilskyi. At the end of 1917, Colonel Yemelyanovich-Pavlenko arrived in Kyiv — at the disposal of the Military Ministry of the Central Rada. There he was appointed to the post of military representative of the Central Rada at the headquarters of the Odessa Military District. And soon he took up the post of a member of the commission for the demobilization of the Romanian Front of the Russian army.

During the Hetmanate of Pavlo Skoropadsky, he was promoted to the rank of general-cornet (corresponding to the rank of major general of the former Russian army) and appointed to Poltava
to the post of chief of the 11th infantry division. When the anti-hetman uprising broke out at the end of 1918, not wanting to participate in the confrontation between Pavlo Skoropadsky and
the Directory of the UPR, he left for the ZUNR and on December 10, 1918, he led the Galician Army. The book covers the exact period, when for the first time in centuries the chance for sovereign
Ukraine was on the horizon. In this memoirs general gives an honest and detailed account of those years, with some personal stories that help us understand why the movement for the independence didn’t meet its goals at that historical opportunity.

One of the episodes he describes in Kyiv in winter 1917/1918:
«I personally had to deal with certain inconveniences. In the waiting room, a certain colonel, tall, noble, with a Zaporizhzhya mustache, drew attention to me, and a Ukrainian chubuk was
sticking out of his mouth continuously. Looking at me with his piercing eyes, he asked me for what business I was asking to see The General Staff’s Secretary. I have replied to him in order to show my willingness to learn the Ukrainian language, in what I knew at that time - the mix of Russian and Ukrainian. He did not like it. I grew up outside of Ukraine and studied the language only from books, who called me to a new activity, should have known this, and probably needed my pedagogical abilities and military experience more than the language, the importance and content of which in our cause I have never diminished since the first day of our national revolution was under the Ukrainian flag and consoled myself with the thought of some positive achievements. Thrown off balance by the colonel's arrogance, I asked him what right he had to question me. In response, he said: “I am Colonel Pilkevich, guard chief under the Military Secretary”. I could see from the face of my interlocutor that he was also impressed by my question.
How so, saying that I did not know him?... We found ourselves on a narrow path. Our conversation brazenly assumed a rather temperamental character. To end it, I cut him off, "Well, we'll see,
Mr. Colonel, which of us will serve Ukraine more: you, with your improved language, or me, with my "Volapük"!» General is honest in his assessments about the process on the path to independence and he sums it up in the last chapter, heavily underlined by professor Haydak: «The history of those days showed that politicians of good will were still a rare phenomenon in our country. Their efforts crashed into our deadly sins: envy, personal ambition, striving for a tactical moment, due to a lack of faith in one's own strength, turn it into an orientational one, abuse of the printed word, the sin can be the greatest with low political education of the masses… We regret to say that the process of keeping our "Little Russians", by which I understand our compatriots, supporters of Russian culture or those who are under the hypnosis of the role of the colossus-state, went too slowly. They were not explained properly, that observance of Christian morality, maintenance of certain foundations of Western European culture, then only around the powerful Kyivan State…
Which of the commanders of military units of the Russian army will not sign under the lines of Gen. Bykadorov ("Free Cossacks"), who say: "The huge number of prisoners depended mainly on the poor quality of the human material of the Great Russians," or under the scheme presented in his work by General Golovin, which also shows that the "Malorosi" (according to the nomenclature of the author of the work and especially the Cossacks gave (in the OP World War) the smallest percentage of prisoners».

Worldcat shows copies at Library of Congress, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, The British Library, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Toronto.

Price: $450.00