The Pinnacle in the Activity of the Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in Romania (1921)

  • Post category:Issue XXII

Teofil Rendiuk
Doctor of History, Director of the Institute of Good Neighbourhood
ORCID: 0000-0003-2470-6932

DOI: 10.37837/2707-7683-2021-3

Abstract. The article deals with the peculiarities in the activity of the Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (EDM of the UPR) in Romania during 1921, when the whole territory of Ukraine was occupied by Bolshevik troops. In those circumstances, the State Centre of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in exile considered Romania as its important military and political partner in the struggle for Ukraine’s independence. For its part, the then Romanian leadership was deeply interested in the existence of independent Ukraine, primarily as a military and political buffer between Romania and expansionist Soviet Russia.
The author emphasises the existence at the beginning of and during 1921 of sufficiently favourable political conditions for the activities of the EDM of the UPR in Romania. During 1921, the head of the mission and seasoned diplomat, K. Matsievych, held two important meetings with King Ferdinand I of Romania, had numerous working contacts with the heads of Romanian governments, ministers of foreign affairs, ministers of war, as well as authorised members of parliament and politicians with whom he discussed the cooperation of the Directory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic with Romania, zealously defending the Ukrainian cause.
The EDM of the UPR in Bucharest and its consular offices in Iași, Chișinău, and Chernivtsi paid special attention to working with thousands of Ukrainian militaries as well as political and civilian emigrants throughout Romania, uniting the patriotic part of emigration and using its potential to liberate Ukraine. In this context, it is noted that during 1921 a military section was active in the EDM of the UPR in Bucharest, which from June of that year was headed by an experienced Ukrainian general, S. Delvih.
The study reveals the details of the formation in the summer of 1921 in Romania, with the assistance of the country’s authorities, of the Bessarabian (Southern) guerrilla group as part of the UPR Insurgent Army with headquarters in Chișinău to participate in the Second Winter Campaign (October–November 1921), aimed at liberating southwestern Ukraine from the Bolshevik occupation.
Keywords: Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission, Ukrainian People’s Republic, Directory, Kingdom of Romania, UPR Army, interned soldiers, guerrilla insurgent groups, Second Winter Campaign.

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