Mykola Mikhnovskyi: Lessons for Posterity

Abstract

The aim of this research is to study M. Mikhnovskyi’s analysis of Russian-Ukrainian relations, as well as its contextual impact on the forms and means of Ukrainians’ struggle for independence.

The research methodology is based on a set of general scientific, historical, and interdisciplinary approaches.

Conclusions of the study include an examination of M. Mikhnovskyi’s views on the nature of Ukraine-Russia relations and his understanding of the prospects for Ukrainians’ struggle for independence. It’s notable that M. Mikhnovskyi advocated for a radical political and socio-cultural break with Russia and Russian society as the only possible means of preserving Ukrainians as a separate ethnic community at the beginning of the 20th century. Various methods of struggle were envisioned, including cultural and educational, ideological, and military means aimed at the national mobilization of Ukrainians, transforming them into a modern nation capable of winning independence. At the same time, M. Mikhnovskyi opposed any political agreements with Russian political forces that refused to defend Ukrainian interests. With this, he and his followers stood out among the figures of the Ukrainian national movement, whose political program was limited to the requirements of the national-territorial autonomy of Ukraine. However, in 1917, M. Mikhnovskyi’s opponents led the Ukrainian revolution toward federation with “fraternal” Russia, hoping for its democratic revival. Nevertheless, history took a different turn, with Bolshevik Russia waging war against Ukraine and occupying most of it at the end of 1917. The next “window of opportunity” for a complete break with Russia opened only a century later, in the course of large-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, which began in February 2022. As a result, M. Mikhnovskyi’s proposed format of relations with Russia and its society turned out to be entirely correct, relevant, and acceptable. Within the context of those groundbreaking changes, further research on the ethnic-national and socio-psychological shifts in Ukrainian society over the past century is required.