Activists of the Ukrainian-Polish Political Movement of the 1850s-70s and the Southern Ukraine in the Reports of the Diplomatic Service of the Russian Empire (Based on Materials from the State Archives of Odesa Region)

Abstract

The article is the first to examine the role of Ukrainian-Polish movement of the 1850s-70s, based on the reports of ambassadors and consuls of the Russian Empire. The activists of this movement considered Odesa and Southern Ukraine as a strategically important region in the events of the Eastern War of 1853-1856, the January Uprising of 1863-1864 and its consequences. During the uprising, there are verbal and non-verbal signs appeared concerning the issue that the Ukrainian component in the future Polish state would be separated, that is, in result a ‘State of Three Peoples’ planned to be created, which had not happened before among the ideas of Polish movement. In addition, an office of Polish commissar of the ‘Southern lands’ (‘Southern countries’) was established for the territory of the Southern Ukraine. His entire activities covered the Southern Ukraine, Dobrudja, the Danubian principalities and Galychyna. The leaders of the Ukrainian and Polish movement, who were in very close position to the southern Ukrainian borderlands, such as M. Chaikovsky (Sadyk-pasha), Z. Milkovsky, M. Mrozovytsky, L. Mieroslavsky, were especially active. With their support, secret Polish organizations were created in the territory of the Kherson, Katerynoslav provinces and the Bessarabian region, and the ideas of the Polish movement were spread, which were associated by local officials, among other issues with Ukrainian national ideas on restoring Ukraine as a state.

Thus, the Southern Ukraine became a convenient center for communication between Ukrainian and Polish figures in emigration and local patriots, for transporting and storing weapons, collecting finances, and could even become a springboard for battle activities. All these processes were actively reported to the Russian authorities in the 50s-70s of the nineteenth century by Russian diplomats in the Ottoman Empire and the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia – who were in Istanbul, Galati, Tulcea and other cities, their messages and dispatches are stored in large numbers in the State Archives of Odesa Region.