Ukrainian National Council in Petrograd

Ukrainian National Council in Petrograd (Ukrainska natsionalna rada v Petrohradi). The council, established on 1 April 1917, consisted of Petrograd representatives of the Society of Ukrainian Progressives (TUP), Ukrainian Social Democrats, the Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee, Ukrainian factions of soviets of workers' and soldiers' deputies, Ukrainian students and workers, the Petrograd Hromada, and other groups. Oleksander Lototsky headed the executive committee. His deputy was Mykhailo Korchynsky, and the secretary was Petro Stebnytsky (who was elected head in May). Other members of the executive were Hryhorii Holoskevych, Maksym Slavinsky, Fedir Sliusarenko, and Pavlo Zaitsev. The council became formally associated with the Central Rada on 3 April. It also sent a delegation to the first head of the Provisional Government, G. Lvov, which submitted a memorandum concerning Ukrainian national rights and the Russian army's occupation of Galicia and Bukovyna. The council met with Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky (who had returned from exile) and acted as a liaison with the Provisional Government for the Central Rada. After the consolidation of the Central Rada's position in Kyiv most members of the council left Petrograd, and the group's liaison functions diminished. After the Second Universal (see Universals of the Central Rada) P. Stebnytsky, the Provisional Government's Ukrainian commissioner, assumed the council's liaison functions.

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