Ukrainian Democratic party

Ukrainian Democratic party (Ukrainska demokratychna partiia). A liberal democratic party that superseded the General Ukrainian Non-Party Democratic Organization in 1904. Its members (Volodymyr Antonovych, Volodymyr Chekhivsky, Oleksander Cherniakhivsky, Yevhen Chykalenko, Borys Hrinchenko, Mykhailo Komarov, Fedir Matushevsky, Modest Levytsky, Volodymyr Naumenko, Teodor Shteingel, Illia Shrah, Petro Stebnytsky, Ivan M. Steshenko, Yevhen Tymchenko, Serhii Yefremov, and others) adopted a program calling for the overthrow of tsarist absolutism and its replacement by a constitutional democratic federation, Ukrainian autonomy, and the official use of the Ukrainian language in the schools, courts, public institutions, and government; a Ukrainian territorial diet would nationalize all land, transfer the ownership of industrial enterprises to the workers, and introduce an eight-hour workday, pensions for seniors and the handicapped, and a progressive tax system. Early in 1905 a left wing led by Hrinchenko left the party and founded the Ukrainian Radical party (Kyiv). Both parties competed for support in the various local hromadas until they merged in December 1905 to form the Ukrainian Democratic Radical party.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]