All-Ukrainian Union of Landowners

All-Ukrainian Union of Landowners (Всеукраїнський союз земельних власників; Vseukrainskyi soiuz zemelnykh vlasnykiv). A conservative, monarchist organization of middle and large landowners, formed in Ukraine in the spring of 1917 on the initiative of Mykhailo Kovalenko. Originally, the union was a branch of the All-Russian Union of Landowners. Most of its members were opposed to the idea of Ukrainian independence. The union, together with the Ukrainian Democratic Agrarian party, held a farmers’ congress in Kyiv on 29 April 1918 at which Pavlo Skoropadsky was proclaimed hetman. In October 1918 the union split into two groups: the large landowners, primarily Russian reactionaries (V. Purishkevich, I. Dusan, Nenarokhomov, et al), who demanded federation with Russia; and the middle and small landowners (M. Kovalenko, M. Chudyniv), who formed the All-Ukrainian Union of Landowning Farmers (Всеукраїнський союз хліборобів-власників; Vseukrainskyi soiuz khliborobiv-vlasnykiv). The latter group demanded an independent Ukrainian state with a democratic, parliamentary system under the leadership of a hetman, the retention of land ownership on a limited scale (to be achieved by the compulsory repurchase of excess estates), and immediate agrarian reforms. Both alliances were dissolved after the fall of the Hetman government.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]