UKRAINIAN FEDERATIVE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN WRANGEL’S CRIMEA (1920)

The article is dedicated to the Ukrainian Federative Democratic Party (UFDP), founded in Sevastopol in 1920 and positioned itself as the successor to the party of the same name which operated in Kiev in 1917–1918. Having emerged on the basis of the “Initiative Group of Natives of Ukraine” and closely cooperating with the authorities of the white Crimea, the UFDP held loyalist positions and fully supported the policy of the ruler of South Russia and commander-in-chief of the Russian Army P. N. Wrangel. Despite the name of the party, most of its leaders had previously had no connection with the Ukrainian movement, and the UFDP exhibited a more bureaucratic-monarchical character rather than a democratic one, as indicated by the involvement of several prominent officials (D. P. Perlik, P. P. Chubinsky, T. I. Akoronko) and former members of the All-Russian National Union (A. S. Gizhitsky, G. A. Kochubey). The article pays special attention to the biography of the party’s leader N. A. Kravchenko, who, having found himself in exile, abandoned federalist ideas and switched to separatist positions. The author concludes that the UFDP would hardly have been able to provide significant assistance to the authorities of South Russia or influence the Ukrainian separatists in any way.