Ukrainian Far Eastern Republic Recalled on Anniversary of Its Founding in 1919

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 30 – On this date in 1919, Ukrainians living in the far east proclaimed the formation of the Ukrainian Far Eastern Republic, a political entity which was suppressed by Moscow in November 1922 but that still exerts a powerful influence on Ukrainian thinking and alarms many in Moscow.

            In the last decade, as Russian pressure on Ukraine has intensified, Ukrainian officials and activists have devoted increasing attention to ethnic Ukrainian areas within what are now the  borders of the Russian Federation. Among these, known as wedges, the Green Wedge as the Ukrainian Far East is known, is by far the largest and potentially the most important.

            Not only is the Ukrainian government focusing attention on the Green Wedge and other Ukrainian areas in the RF, but there is growing attention to them by Ukrainians more generally. The Green Wedge has its own website (zelenyiklyn.com/), and Ukrainian outlets have given attention to it on this anniversary (https://abn.org.ua/en/news/may-30-independence-day-of-the-ukrainian-far-eastern-republic/).

            The most comprehensive discussion of the Ukrainian Far Eastern Republic is Ivan Svit’s Ukrainian-Japanese Relations (in Ukrainian, New York, 1972, 381 pp.) and John Stephan’s The Russian Far East (Stanford, 1994. Other sources are cited in abn.org.ua/en/history/the-ukrainian-far-eastern-republic-legacy-of-the-ukrainian-resistance-in-the-far-east/).

            For recent developments and their echoes in Moscow, Kyiv and elsewhere, see the following Window on Eurasia articles and the sources cited therein: windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/patrushevs-remark-suggests-kremlin.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/moscow-declares-two-ukraine-wedge.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/08/japan-ukraine-zeleny-klin-and-future-of.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/moscow-writer-denounces-links-between.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/08/kyiv-takes-up-cause-of-ukrainian-far.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/06/historical-memory-of-ukrainian-wedge-in.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-real-wedge-issue-ukrainian-regions-in.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/02/russian-nationalists-oppose-moscows.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/06/window-on-eurasia-zelenyi-klin-isnt.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/06/window-on-eurasia-second-ukraine-being.html.