Ukrainian National-State Union

Ukrainian National-State Union (Український національно-державний союз; Ukrainskyi natsionalno-derzhavnyi soiuz, or УНДС; UNDS). A co-ordinating organization for Ukrainian political parties of the center and right wing (Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Independentists, Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists, Ukrainian Labor party (Kyiv), Ukrainian Democratic Agrarian party), as well as the Unified Council of Railways of Ukraine and the Postal-Telegraph Association. The UNDS was formed in Kyiv in mid-May 1918 with the purpose of ‘rescuing the threatened Ukrainian nationhood’ from the encroachment of influential Russian monarchists in the Hetman government. In its manifesto of 24 May the UNDS expressed a vote of nonconfidence in the government of Fedir Lyzohub, protesting the anti-Ukrainian activities of some of its ministers and administration and demanding the Ukrainization of the government apparatus. The UNDS widened its scope at the end of July, when it included the left-wing formations of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party and the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries; subsequently it transformed itself into the Ukrainian National Union.

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