Pavlo Petrovych Skoropadskyi
Павло Петрович Скоропадський
1873–1945
○ Died
The last hetman of Ukraine, installed under German occupation in 1918
On 29 April 1918 in Kyiv, the All-Ukrainian Congress of Landowners rose and unanimously acclaimed Pavlo Skoropadskyi as Hetman of Ukraine with shouts of 'Long live the Hetman!'
A Ukrainian aristocrat and tsarist lieutenant general who commanded a corps in the First World War. In April 1918, backed by the German army that occupied Ukraine after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, he overthrew the socialist Central Rada in a coup and was proclaimed Hetman of the Ukrainian State. During his eight-month rule he founded the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, established universities, and built diplomatic ties, but his pro-landlord agrarian policy and the German occupiers' forced grain requisitions provoked widespread peasant resistance. When Germany collapsed in November 1918, Symon Petliura's Anti-Hetman Uprising drove him from power; he abdicated in December and spent the rest of his life in German exile, refusing to collaborate with the Nazis.
Career timeline
- 1893Commissioned as an officer in the Chevalier Guard regiment
- 1904–1905Commanded Cossack units in the Russo-Japanese War, decorated for bravery
- 1912Promoted to major general, aide-de-camp to Nicholas II
- 1914–1916Commanded cavalry divisions in WWI, promoted to lieutenant general
- 1917Commander of 34th Army Corps, Ukrainised it into the 1st Ukrainian Corps
- 1917.10Elected Otaman of the Free Cossacks
- 1918.04–12Hetman of the Ukrainian State
- 1919–1945Exile in Germany, led the Hetmanite movement