104 year ago Kuban Peopleʼs Republic declared its independence from Russia and for several times tried to unite with Ukraine.
As a result, Bolsheviks captured everyone — hereʼs its story
- Author:
- Serhii Pyvovarov
- Editor:
- Yevhen Spirin
- Date:
In 1917, the Kuban Peopleʼs Republic became one of the state entities that appeared after the collapse of the Russian Empire. There were many descendants of the leaders of Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, resettled from modern Ukraine territory at the end of the XVIII century. The republic declared independence and existed until the spring of 1920, and during this time it tried several times to unite with Ukraine. The Kuban Cossacks held negotiations with three Ukrainian authorities — the Central Rada, the Pavlo Skoropadskyi government and with the Directorate of Ukrainian Peopleʼs Republic. However, the unification did not work out, and both republics, both Ukrainian and Kuban, eventually collapsed under the onslaught of the Bolsheviks. Babel recalls the history of the Kuban Republic and its attempts to unite with Ukraine in archival photos.
Up to XX century Kuban maintained close historical and cultural ties with Ukriane. Everything is simple here. At the end of the 18th century the Cossacks of the Black Sea army, which was formed from the remnants of the Zaporozhian Sich, were resettled in the Kuban. And in XIX century, peasant settlers from Dnipro, Sloboda, Chernihiv and other Ukrainian regions appeared here.
In the mid-1910s, about 1.4 million Cossacks, about 1.6 million peasants lived in Kuban, the rest of the population were representatives of the Caucasian mountain peoples. More than half of the Cossacks and peasants were Ukrainians. In the second half of the XIX century, in Kuban, the rise of the Ukrainian national movement began, which fought for its cultural and political rights.
After the February revolution
of 1917 that resulted in the elimination of the monarchy, national movements began to rise in various regions of the former Russian empire.
In Kuban, everything happened roughly according to the Ukrainian scenario. In March 1917, the Ukrainian Central Rada was created in Kyiv, and in April-May, at the Cossack meeting, Kuban created their own representative body — the Cossack Military Rada.
In September, Military Rada on their 2nd session replenished with members from the mountain peoples and representatives of the non-Cossack population. During this session, Military Rada renamed Kuban oblast into the Kuban Krai (Kuban Territory) with the capital in Yekaterinodar
and adopted the Constitution according to which the government of the Kuban Krai and Parliament — the Kuban Legislative Rada were created. The parliament elected the government and the ataman, who was the commander-in-chief of the military forces of Kuban, and also had the right to veto laws that the parliament adopted.
The most influential political forces of the Legislative Rada were two Cossack factions: the pro-Ukrainian “Black Sea Cossacks” and the pro-Russian “Caucasus Line Cossack”. But the struggle between them did not go beyond the parliamentary one, during the discussions they managed to find a compromise, and all decisions were recognized by both factions. To some extent, they even balanced each other. For example, Aleksander Filimonov, a line cossack, was chosen as the first ataman, and Nikolai Riabovol, a Black Sea cossack, became the head of parliament.
It was Riabovol, along with other influential Kuban “Black Sea” politicians, who advocated the sovereignty of Kuban and the establishment of ties with Ukraine. On his initiative, representatives of the Central Rada were invited to the meeting of the Military Rada on September 24, 1917, who were greeted in Ukrainian: “Dear guests! The stepmother-fate tore our grandfathers of the Zaporizhian Cossacks from the motherʼs womb and threw them to Kuban. came to life and, like faithful children of our Mother, we follow the path that she indicated, we go where love between people already sparkles, where a free union of free peoples awaits us too”.
Like the Central Rada, the Kuban parliament first announced the creation of the Kuban Peopleʼs Republic (KPR) as part of the Russian federal state. Then, in October 1917, the Bolsheviks staged a coup and actually unleashed a civil war. It became clear that there would be no federation. Therefore, at the beginning of 1918, following the Ukrainian Peopleʼs Republic (UPR), the Kuban Peopleʼs Republic declared independence.
During the existence of the Kuban Peopleʼs Republic in 1917 — 1920 there were at least three attempts to unite with Ukraine either on the basis of autonomy or in the format of a federation. The Kuban parliament made its first attempt a few days after declaring independence from Russia on February 16, 1918.
Even if the Black Sea faction managed to win over the parliament, the situation with the peasant population was much worse. Since the tsarist times, the Cossacks had certain privileges and benefits. One of the main ones was the right to purchase land. The peasants could only rent it from the Cossacks. Because of this, the these classes developed hostility towards each other, and marriages between them were very rare and, as a rule, are not approved in society.
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