Gubernial commissioners

Gubernial commissioners (huberniialni komisary). Gubernial administrators who under the Russian Provisional Government replaced the governors of the tsarist regime. In March 1917, the Provisional Government appointed the heads of the gubernia zemstvo administrations as the first commissioners. In Ukraine these officials were recognized by the Central Rada in the summer of 1917. In gubernias where the Provisional Government recognized the authority of the Central Rada, the commissioners were Mikhail Sukovkin and then Oleksander Salikovsky in Kyiv; Andrii Livytsky in Poltava; M. Iskrytsky and then Dmytro Doroshenko in Chernihiv; Andrii Viazlov in Volhynia; and Mykola Stakhovsky in Podilia. After the proclamation of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) in November 1917, the Ukrainian government also accepted the gubernial commissioners previously confirmed by the Provisional Government in other gubernias of the UNR. As the influence of Bolshevik soviets increased, the power of the commissioners, especially in large industrial centers such as Kharkiv, Katerynoslav, and Odesa, diminished. Counties were administered by county commissioners. When in the spring of 1918 the Central Rada returned to Kyiv, it appointed its own gubernial commissioners as well as gubernial military commanders. On 14 May 1918 the commissioners were replaced by the Hetman government with 11 gubernial starostas; most of them were indifferent or even hostile to Ukrainian interests.