Odesa on Periphery of the Final Stage of the Great War: Social and Political Dimension of Global Confrontation (1917-1918)

Abstract

The purpose of the research paper is to form a scientific model of the development of social and political processes in Odesa (then spelled Odessa) in the conditions of World War I, which became an additional catalyst for the maturation of revolutionary and, consequently, state-building processes in the period from 1917 to 1918.

The scientific novelty of the study is in its first attempt to provide a comprehensive analysis of the development of social and political processes in the largest city of the Northern Black Sea region in the conditions of World War I, a period when the events of the Russian and Ukrainian revolutions were closely intertwined.

Conclusions. Since the beginning of the Great War, Odesa had found itself in the zone of geopolitical interests of the ‘world powers’, which considered the Northern Black Sea region as a territory of potential armed confrontation and economic preferences. The creation in December 1916 of the Romanian Front with a rear area within the Odesa Military District, and above all, the fall of the Romanov monarchy, brought into the life of Odesa both signs of an increased level of militarization of social and political processes and transformations within the framework of the interweaving of the events of the Russian and Ukrainian revolutions. Despite being elected on a democratic basis in August 1917, the Odesa City Duma maintained its commitment to upholding the principles of preserving the unity of the Russian state. Local political elites found a compromise option regarding the definition of the status of the largest metropolis in the South of Ukraine, which was later determined by the definition of a ‘free city’.

1918 was marked for the region by the escalation of military and political conflicts in three directions at once – the war of Bilshovyk Russia against the UNR, the incursion of Romanian units into the territory of Bessarabia, the violation of the armistice on the Eastern Front, with the subsequent advance of the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ukrainian armies in order to liberate the local population from the Bilshovyk power. The restoration of Kyiv’s control over the region meant the transformation of Odesa into the main administrative center within the wide boundaries, from the Dniester to the Crimea. Additionally, the Ukrainian governments assigned local administrators the role of key communicators with the command of the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The constructed framework of domestic and foreign political relations was shattered by the defeat of the Central Powers on the Western Front of the Great War.

Funding. The research was conducted within the framework of the project ‘Ukraine and the Central Powers in 1918: Confrontation and Cooperation in the Black Sea Region’ under the EURIZONE grant for Ukrainian researchers (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 871072).