Ukrainian Agrarian party

Ukrainian Agrarian party (Ukrainska khliborobska partiia, or UAP). A numerically small liberal-democratic party representing the national and class interests of the Ukrainian peasantry, founded in Polish-ruled Galicia in 1922. Its leading members were the writers Mykhailo Yatskiv and Sydir Tverdokhlib, Rev M. Ilkiv, and S. Danylovych, and its organs were Ridnyi krai (Lviv) and Pravo narodu (Kolomyia). Whereas all other Ukrainian political parties and most Ukrainians in Galicia, regarding the Polish occupation of Galicia as illegal, boycotted the 1922 elections to the Polish Sejm, the UAP promoted co-operation with the Polish regime to bring about economic reconstruction and agrarian and political reforms, and, with government support, fielded candidates in the elections. While campaigning Tverdokhlib was assassinated by the underground Ukrainian Military Organization, but five UAP candidates (Rev Ilkiv, I. Dutchak, O. Zalutsky, I. Kravchyshyn, and S. Melnyk) were elected to the Sejm, where they constituted the Ukrainian Agrarian Club. After the elections the party's support (primarily in Pokutia) rapidly declined. In mid-1924 the club in the Sejm split into anti- (Ilkiv, Dutchak) and pro-government (Zalutsky, Kravchyshyn, Melnyk) factions. The latter faction later left the club, and in 1926 Zalutsky and Kravchyshyn left the UAP and joined the Ukrainian People's Union (UPU), newly founded in Stanyslaviv by Danylovych. In the 1928 elections the UPU received a paltry 8,887 votes.

Roman Senkus

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