Lubny Republic

Lubny Republic [Лубенська республіка; Lubenska respublika]. The name of a trial held in 1909 at the Military Circuit Court in Kyiv. Of the 57 defendants the principal ones were Andrii Livytsky, Mariia Livytska, Volodymyr Shemet, M. Shemet, and M. Sakharov. Among the lawyers conducting the defense were Mykola Mikhnovsky and Arnold Margolin. The charge of conspiracy to overthrow the tsarist government stemmed from the activities of the Revolutionary Coalition Committee, which was formed in Lubny at the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905 by the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party and other socialist parties, such as the Jewish Bund and Poale Zion. Having been frustrated in its plans by the failure of the revolution at the center, the committee set up a combat force known as Lubny Self-Defense or Civil Self-Defense under Livytsky's command to counteract Jewish pogroms organized by the Black Hundreds and to stop the arrests of revolutionaries. A court of appeal revoked the military court's harsh sentences and acquitted all the defendants.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]