The Polish pro-Austrian orientation in comparison with the Ukrainians lasted less and had many opponents. The activity of the Ukrainian national movement in Galicia aimed at an independent Ukrainian nation, before the war, occasionally created tensions in relations between Russia and Austria-Hungary [3]. As a result, relations between the two neighboring peoples developed in the direction of conflict, and the main question of ethnic boundaries and borders remained. The intentions of Ukrainian circles to create their own national state caused anxiety to Galician Poles, as it threatened to cut them off from their people and turn them into a genuine national minority.
The response to this threat was different. The attitude of Polish politicians was close to neutral: on the one hand, they understood that the formation of a Ukrainian state in the Dnieper would respond to Galicia and create a threat there for Poland, on the other, they were even more frightened by the danger of the restoration of "great Russia" [4].
1. Geopolitical status and relations between Ukraine and Poland after the end of the
From the political and legal point of view, Congressional resolutions proclaimed the right to self-determination of the Ukrainian people, by empowering the UCR to implement it, as well as the right for international status of Ukraine. These decisions were supported by the All-Ukrainian Military Congress. Its delegates recognized the UCR as "the only competent body capable of dealing with all matters relating to the whole of Ukraine and its relations with the Provisional Government" [4, 6]. The process of realizing Ukraine's real place in the new political context forced the UCR to reconcile and harmonize the relations between Kyiv and Petrograd, to begin negotiations with the Provisional Government in order to secure the publication of a special declaration recognizing the right of the Ukrainian people to national-territorial autonomy. However, these negotiations failed [7].
The discussion of the problem at the session of the UCR on June 1 showed that the leadership of the Central Rada chose not the path of compromise, but a further radicalization of their demands and actions. The Ukrainian camp finally split into three parts: moderately conservative, radical and radical-liberation. The central government officially refused to recognize the Council as an expression of the will of the entire Ukrainian people, since it was not elected by popular vote. The shakiness of the legitimate and political positions of the Provisional Government itself, the unwillingness to attract other peoples to self-determination, the desire to prevent further complication with the Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, the circumstances of wartime and geopolitical considerations, were the factors that prevented the satisfaction of the demands of the Ukrainian side.
The tactics of the central government in negotiations with the leaders of the Ukrainian national movement, which was to postpone the decision of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, led to radicalization of the requirements of the latter, the intentions of which became ultra-socialist. In particular, it was about the prompt implementation of the basic principles of the autonomous system of Ukraine. On June 10, at the Second All- Ukrainian Military Congress (and not at the meeting of the Central Rada), the text of the I Universal of UCR was adopted, which proclaimed the autonomy of 9 provinces in Russia.
Despite the loud propaganda meaning, I Universal did not become a factor in the consolidation of split society [7].
The adoption of the II Universal played an important role in the political history of Ukraine [8, 9]. It was the document that the Council itself did not consider and did not accept its session ended two days before. The Universal consolidated the agreements reached with the "socialist" part of the Russian Government: the General Secretariat was assigned the status of a regional executive authority, the refusal to implement the autonomy of Ukraine prior to the convening of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly was reported.
Another innovation of the document was that its authors first appeared on behalf of "citizens of Ukraine", and not only "the Ukrainian people" [10].
Most of the leaders of the Ukrainian movement in the summer of 1917 began calculating the possibility of a political combination, as a result of which "Ukrainian lands"
in the near future could become the subject and the object of independent political existence. This change was made possible solely by the position of the leadership of the constitutional-democratic party, on the one hand, and the extreme radicalism of the left- socialist parties and groups, especially the Bolsheviks, on the other [11].
After the July events in Petrograd, the UCR leadership was able to act without any attention to the central government. On August 4, Petrograd officially announced the adoption of a compromise "Temporary Instruction for the General Secretariat of the Provisional Government in Ukraine", based on the inability of the liberal-socialist government to develop a rational and acceptable approach to the Ukrainian problem for both sides. The adoption of the "Fundamentals of Temporary Management of Ukraine" or
"statute" of the General Secretariat took place in conditions where revolutionary enthusiasm took precedence over pragmatic calculations, and most importantly, over law. The subsequent decisions of the UCR, adopted by a minority of the votes of its full members, created an insurmountable gap between the various factions and groups of the Council, laid the precedent of imposing a political will by a majority, and finally recorded the withdrawal of this organization beyond the existing legal space in the state. The General Secretariat did not have full authority.
After the first news of the Bolshevik coup in Petrograd on October 25, the closed meeting of the Small Rada refused political support to the legitimate central government and chose the "Revolutionary Committee for the Protection of the Revolution in Ukraine", which should obey all local authorities power [11]. Thus, Small and, consequently, the Central Rada once again went beyond the legal field. The III All-Ukrainian Military Congress, in the euphoria of "revolutionary expediency", actually supported the Bolshevik armed insurgency and the immediate proclamation of the statehood of Ukraine. Ukrainian politicians could not become the main center of the anti-Bolshevik struggle at a time when the Bolshevik authorities have not yet acquired a nationwide scale.
On November 9, recognizing the existence of the Bolshevik government as the government of "Great Russian democracy", the General Secretariat made another important step towards the ultimate destruction of the democratic political and legal space that began to emerge in the country and the whole system of international legal and contractual relations that were defined the role and place of the country in the world. The UCR began practically implementing a course to establish a political regime of revolutionary "Soviet democracy", to break the allied relations with Western democracies. During the first weeks of November, the leaders of the Ukrainian national-socialist movement distanciated from the only legitimate source of power at that time in the country, made it impossible for any future compromises and understanding, terminated the existing international legal relations and unions, created at least three fronts for Ukraine:
1. foreign policy with the countries of the Entente;
2. internal politics with the Ukrainian Bolsheviks and their accomplices, on the one hand, and anti-socialist forces, on the other;
3. Military with the Bolshevik regime in Petrograd.
The leaders of the UCR chose to create an independent state in Ukraine using illegitimate means and methods - a subject of international law in the form of a national socialist republic, whose full rights should belong exclusively to representatives of the so- called "working classes of the population". The foreign policy of the newborn Ukrainian state fundamentally ignored the processes that took place in neighboring countries [12].
Within the Ukrainian politics there was no consensus on the very concept of "state independence of Ukraine". In the conditions of the collapse of the front, the spread of the Bolshevik attack on Ukraine, the loss of control over the territories, the absence of their own armed forces, the leaders of the Ukrainian revolutionary socialist state lifted the slogan of
"independence" as the only means that, in their opinion, would allow one-time solution of fundamental military, political, economic and legal problems that have arisen because of their previous actions. Already from the first steps of its activities, the Central Rada paid considerable attention to the issues of Ukrainian-Polish relations. During 1917 - early 1918, Ukrainian-Polish relations did not yet become interstate, since Ukraine was the only autonomy in Russia [13], but the nominal Polish Kingdom also did not constitute a full- fledged state body, because it was in the Austro-Germanic dependence. Thus, for Ukraine, the problem of Ukrainian-Polish relations was for some time internal in nature, since after Russians and Jews it was the third largest national minority in Ukraine. Poles supported the aspiration of Ukrainians to self-determination. Polish politicians were aware that in the Ukrainian state they would have a greater influence on political or economic life than in the Russian multinational, but not federal state.
Another important problem facing the UPR was the need to establish relations with Polish military formations that emerged from the ranks of the former Russian imperial army and to determine their status in Ukraine [4]. In fact, they no longer obeyed the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. For the Ukrainian political movement, this was an important factor in the event of an armed conflict, and also testified to the possibility of Polish-Ukrainian military cooperation.Fortunately, the process of creating Polish armed units in 1917 did not cause significant Ukrainian-Polish conflicts. Moreover, when at the turn of 1917-1918 the Bolshevik Russia initiated its first armed aggression against the UPR, the Ukrainian government tried to secure the support of Polish military formations, but they all chose a position of friendly neutrality towards Ukrainians, and some of the Polish units provided the troops to the Central Rada for the defense of Kiev from the Bolsheviks.
The course of events in Ukraine in the autumn of 1918 - beginning of 1919 indicates that the opposing forces could not find a compromise and find a way to civil peace [13]. The end of the World War posed many questions to the two neighboring nations.
The most important among them was the definition of borders and affiliation of Eastern Galicia. The fate of Ukraine, including Galicia, was decided in Brest-Litovsk, where peace talks took place from the beginning of World War [14]. On December 25, 1917, a delegation of the UPR, led by V. Golubovich, arrived in Brest-Litovsk. The delegation tried to put forward the idea of recognizing the power of the UPR over the territory outlined in III Universal, but also the inclusion of those Ukrainian ethnic lands that were part of Austria- Hungary, as well as Kholmshchyna and Pidlyashchyna. The identified borders between Poland and Ukraine lay along Bilgoray - Shchebreshin - Krasnoshtun - Pugachev - Radin - Mezhirichchya - Pruzhany. On February 2-4, 1918, a closed congress of Polish self- governing organizations from the Kingdom of Poland and Galicia was held in Krakow with the participation of various political parties and the Polish Independence League. The congress adopted the requirements for the formation of a Polish state from all the Polish lands and the admission of the Polish delegation to the negotiations in Brest. However, the Polish delegation, as well as delegations from the Galician Ukrainians, were not admitted to the Brest-Litovsk negotiations [4].
However, at the Brest negotiations at the request of the Germans, Austria-Hungary agreed not only to give the Ukrainians Kholmshchina and Pidlyashchia, but also promised to divide the land into two separate parts, Ukrainian and Polish [15]. This condition was recorded in the secret protocol attached to the main text of the Brest Peace, and the signing of a peace treaty took place on February 9, 1918. The course of Brest talks accelerated the evolution of Ukraine's independence. This was the first international legal act that defined the UPR as a subject of international law.
The Brest peace has established the borders between Ukraine and Austria-Hungary along the old border with Russia: the Austrians did not agree give eastern Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia to the UPR. In a secret protocol, they pledged to create from the Eastern Galicia and Bukovina within the monarchy the only Ukrainian autonomous region.
Consequently, the provinces of Galicia and Bukovina, according to the treaty, should have become the Ukrainian provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The news about the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty was negatively assessed by the Polish political camp. In public opinion, the division of Galicia, the transfer of Volyn and the Kholm region to Ukraine, the separation of the Belarusian and Lithuanian lands seemed "betrayal of national interests." The achieved understanding in Polish-Ukrainian relations was lost. However, the conditions for signing the agreement in Brest revived the enthusiasm of the Ukrainian population of Eastern Galicia. For many centuries, under the control of other states, most of the population of the western Ukrainian lands sought reunification with the Great Ukraine. The Ukrainian politician, led by E. Petrushevich, convened in Lviv a meeting of representatives of political parties, ambassadors of the Sejm and Parliament [2, 4]. The congress decided to create a national-territorial autonomy from the Ukrainian lands of Galicia and Bukovina in which representatives of all nationalities
would have equal political rights. Again, the requirement for the separation of Galicia and the formation of a separate Cropland from the lands of the Eastern Galicia and Bukovina were decided. To this end, it was decided to convene an inter-party council and to form a Ukrainian administration in eastern Galicia as an organ of protection of national-political rights of the Ukrainian people.
The Western Ukrainian People's Republic united Ukrainian ethnic lands, the historical name of which is Bukovina, Halychyna, Transcarpathia. The Ukrainian People's Council was the central representative body of the Ukrainian population of Galicia and Bukovina. From October 1918 to June 1919, it acted as the interim legislature of the republic, having no permanent staff throughout the period of existence. UPC created its own structural unit Presidium consisting of President E. Petrushevich, four deputies and two secretaries. As a result of such events, in the first half of 1918 the Polish-Ukrainian relations in Galicia became critical. [15]. The Brest peace was a harbinger of the future Polish- Ukrainian armed conflict, which for some time held back Germany and Austria-Hungary, which after the signing of the agreement kept under control not only Poland but also Ukraine. At this time, Ukrainian-Polish relations in the internal affairs of Ukraine are beginning to grow into inter-state relations.
At the final stage of the war, the relationship between the Ukrainian and Polish political forces was characterized by the transition from a temporary position of neutrality between the two peoples to a sharp struggle for ethnic territories. Moreover, the sooner the war reached its completion, the more acute the relations between the two neighboring nations became. Particularly they worsened when it was a matter of the Eastern Galicia, which both peoples wanted to see in the composition of their state. Because of such events, at the end of 1918 the Ukrainian-Polish relations moved from political struggle to armed, which became a new stage of cohabitation of two neighboring peoples.
After the revolutions in Germany and Austria-Hungary in autumn 1918, a number of self-proclaimed committees and governments claiming supremacy took place in the occupied territories of Poland. A Polish liquidation commission was established in Krakow, which announced the purpose of the reunification of Galicia with other Polish lands [16].
The uncertainty of the eastern border gave the Poles the opportunity to develop expansionist plans. The Entente in general was friendly towards Poland as an anti-Soviet force in Eastern Europe. Taking advantage of the extremely difficult situation of the Soviet republic, already in mid-February 1919, Polish troops launched an offensive from the Bug in the east - first in Eastern Galicia, then in Belarus and Lithuania. The Red Army retreated without major battles, because its main forces were engaged in the south and east in the struggle against the white movement. In April 1919 Poles took Vilna, in the summer East Galicia [17], in August - Minsk, by autumn they went to the Western Dvina and Berezina. After this campaign, there was a temporary lull.
2. Ukrainian foreign policy during the November National Democratic Revolution of