Piskun Valentyna

Fedir Sliusarenko on the Collapse of Russia and the Fate of Ukrainians

Abstract: The article discusses the research work of Ukrainian scholar Fedir Sliusarenko (1886–1958). Archival research revealed several important documents that clarify Fedir Pavlovych’s biography and include photographs of him. An analysis of his research works, including On the State Orde, The Collapse of Russia and the Organization of National Forces, and Ukraine in the Political Balance of the East, has been conducted. These works have not received attention from his contemporary researchers, yet the issues they address remain relevant today. In On the State Order, Sliusarenko examines the features of state-building and its key components, which include state territory, the people and their rights and responsibilities, state authority, and its legitimacy in relation to citizens. He is among the first to advocate for universal suffrage for men, women, and all social classes. For Ukraine, the appropriate form of state, according to Sliusarenko, should be a democratic republic. In The Collapse of Russia and the Organization of National Forces, he analyzes the key elements of the Russian Empire and the sources of its strength, both domestically and on the international stage. The main force supporting the empirewas not so much Russian culture as the Russian army. It was structured along national lines but aimed its strength at keeping in submission and subordination those regions that, for each part of it, were either ethnically distinct or beyond national boundaries. Sliusarenko sees the main reason for the defeat of the Ukrainian Revolution (1917-1923) as the lack of a strong army and the organizational dysfunction that Russian Bolsheviks introduced into Ukrainian society. In Ukraine in the Political Balance of the East, he analyzes Ukraine’s role in countering Russia’s imperial ambitions in Eastern Europe. He asserts that Ukraine, as an independent state, will serve as a unique stabilizing force on the continent, helping to curb Russian imperial aspirations.

Keywords: Fedir Sliusarenko, scientific articles, features of the state, Russian army, collapse of Russia, independence of Ukraine.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/np.73.288     Citation

• Piskun Valentyna (M. S. Hrushevsky Institute of Ukrainian Archaeography and Source Studies National Academy of Sciences of Ukrainе, Kyiv, Ukraine, [email protected]) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3817-0852

Cite:
Piskun Valentyna (2024). Fedir Sliusarenko on the Collapse of Russia and the Fate of Ukrainians. Academic Papers of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, (73) 288-301. (In Ukrainan). doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/np.73.288

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