The Ukrainian November 1918: From Take-over to Symbolic State?

The lecture will discuss the new inclusion in the Ukrainian political-intellectual discourse of the events in November 1918 in Lviv. This new interpretation, or rather instrumentalization, took place in the 1920–1930s. The shift in the discourse was stipulated by the appearance of a radical nationalist youth wing that advocated the rejection of the methods of parliamentary struggle. An important element in the implementation of November 1918 into a historical fabric was a "unity-based" rethinking of these events. The substitution of the concept of the "Ukrainian movement" with the concept of "national liberation struggle" largely radicalized the interpretations of the recent past. In accordance with the concept of revolutionary Ukrainian history, the terminology also changed: the "November take-over," as the 1918 events were formerly called, was transformed into the "November Deed."

The lecture will be conducted in Ukrainian.

This lecture is a part of the public program "City on the Line: Lviv in November 1918." It invites the general public to discuss the centenary of the end of the Great War and the establishment of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic in the broader context of the fall of empires, revolutions, the making of new national states, and social and cultural transformations.

Credits

Cover Image: Rynok square during November 1918. Collection of Stepan Haiduchok / Urban media archive

Gallery Image by Iryna Sereda