Pavlo Petrovych Skoropadsky (Ukrainian: Павло Петрович Скоропадський; 15 May [O.S. 3 May] 1873 – 26 April 1945) was a Ukrainian aristocrat, military leader and statesman who served as the hetman of the Ukrainian State throughout 1918 following a coup d'état on 29 April, of the same year. He abdicated on 14 December 1918.
Born the son of a nobleman, he attended the Page Corps from which he came out an officer. After his service in the Russo-Japanese War, he was promoted to the rank of colonel, later in command of the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment in 1910. Skoropadsky would be promoted to major general and aide-de-camp of Nicholas II in 1912. During the First World War, he became a lieutenant general in charge of the 34th Army Corps.
After the February Revolution, which saw the emergence of the Central Rada, Skoropadsky began to Ukrainize his 34th Army Corps, later known as the 1st Ukrainian Corps. With the tacit support of the German Empire, Skoropadsky overthrew the Ukrainian People's Republic and established the Ukrainian State. During his rule, he gave the occupying Austrian and German forces greater control over Ukraine while also appealing to the interests of large landowners.
Opposition to his rule grew, particularly among the rural population, due to the forced requisition of grain by the German and Austrian troops, which often acted violently towards the local Ukrainian peasants. After his issue of a controversial statement proclaiming his aim to join a federal union with the White movement, which was unpopular with many Ukrainians, the Anti-Hetman Uprising broke out on 14 November 1918 and removed him from power, re-establishing the earlier Ukrainian People's Republic.
Despite his short tenure as hetman, he is credited with founding the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, establishing diplomatic ties internationally and restoring relative peace and order amidst the wider Russian Civil War.
Pavlo Petrovych Skoropadsky was born on 15 May [O.S. 3 May] 1873 in Wiesbaden, German Empire, into the noble Skoropadsky family. The family traced its origin back to the Zaporozhian Cossacks, with one Ivan Skoropadsky serving as the Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host from 1708 to 1722. By the 19th century, the Skoropadsky family had become a prosperous noble clan, with many of the men serving as officers in the Imperial Russian Army. Pavlo spent the first 5 years of his life in Germany, even learning German as his first language, after which he moved to Trostianets, then part of the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine). As his father, Colonel Petro Skoropadsky, had contracted syphilis during the Caucasian War, he lived separately from the rest of the family, so Pavlo and his brother, Mykhailo, were raised by their grandfather, Ivan.
In Trostianets, Pavlo was deeply immersed in Ukrainian culture, as his grandfather strictly maintained old Cossack and Ukrainian traditions, although Pavlo did not learn Ukrainian at this time. Besides the overall atmosphere of the Ukrainian countryside, he was also fascinated by the huge collection of portraits of old hetmans, as he was directly related to many of them.
After Petro's death in 1885, Pavlo and Mykhailo were sent to study in Starodub, while the rest of the family moved to Moscow. Despite neither his father nor his grandfather having achieved the rank of general, which was the usual requirement to attend the Page Corps in Saint Petersburg, his mother, Maria Skoropadska, obtained Emperor Alexander III of Russia's personal permission for Pavlo to attend. Starting in 1886, Pavlo found the life at the Page Corps to be difficult, falling into a brief bout of depression after 2 years of largely unsuccessful studying. After a vacation in various parts of Europe with his mother, Pavlo returned to Saint Petersburg and graduated from the Page Corps at the rank of cornet
First assignments and Russo-Japanese War
Having graduated, Skoropadsky was assigned to the Chevalier Guard regiment where he was given command of a squadron. After two years he was promoted to be the regimental adjutant in the same regiment. In December 1897, he was promoted to lieutenant. When Skoropadsky's father-in-law died, he also received his substantial estate, making him extremely wealthy for the time.
Skoropadsky arrived in Manchuria on 16 March 1904 after volunteering to be transferred from the capital to the frontlines of the Russo-Japanese War. He was reassigned to the 3rd Verkhneudinsk Regiment under the Trans-Baikal Cossack Host upon his arrival and he began combat on 20 April 1904. On 1 May he was promoted to serve as adjuntant under General F. E. Keller. After Keller was killed in July 1904, Pavlo Skoropadsky remained in a staff position until volunteering to be transferred to the 2nd Chita Cossack Regiment on 1 October, where he took command of the 5th Sotnia of the regiment. He received the Order of St. Anna on 29 October 1904 for his battles against the Japanese from 20 April to 4 July.
In May 1905, he was transferred to serve under Nikolai Linevich. During the war, Skoropadsky was awarded the Golden Weapon for Bravery and several orders. In December 1905, Emperor Nikolai II made him a Fliegel-Adjutant in a rank of colonel. On 4 September 1910, Colonel Skoropadsky was commissioned as the commander of the 20th Finnish Dragoon Regiment, while still continuing to be a Fliegel-Adjutant of the H. I. M. Retinue. On 15 April 1911, he was reassigned to the Leib-Guard Cavalry Regiment. Leib-Guards were the elite Russian military forces assigned for a personal protection of the emperor. On 6 December 1912, Skoropadsky was promoted to the Major General of the H. I. M. Retinue.
At the start of World War I, Skoropadsky was given command of the reorganized 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Guard Division as part of the 1st Army commanded by General Paul von Rennenkampf. Skoropadsky already worked for von Rennenkampf during the Russo-Japanese War when the latter was commanding Trans-Baikal Cossack Host.
On 6 August 1914, his regiment distinguished itself in battles near Kraupischken as part of the Russian invasion of East Prussia. General Skoropadsky also temporarily commanded the 5th Cavalry Division from the summer of 1915 to March 1916. In March 1916, he was promoted to Lieutenant General and was commissioned the 1st Cavalry Guard Division.
On 22 January 1917, Skoropadsky was made commander of the 34th Army Corps.
Skoropadsky met the news of the February Revolution and Abdication of Nicholas II favourably, expressing hope that the new Provisional Government would lead Russia to greater prosperity. Meanwhile, in Kyiv, power was being seized by the newly-formed Central Rada, which initially sought to achieve autonomy for Ukraine within the Russian Empire and to conduct socialist reform. At the same time, on 5 May 1917, a meeting of 700 representatives of Ukrainian service members from all fronts and fleets gathered in Kyiv and agreed to form the Ukrainian General Military Committee, subordinate to the Rada.
Skoropadsky's 34th Army Corps took part in the failed Kerensky offensive of early June 1917, though without success, being plagued by a breakdown in discipline and low morale. On 19 July 1917, Skoropadsky met Lavr Kornilov, the new supreme commander of the Russian army, at the Southwestern Front headquarters in Kamianets-Podilskyi, where the latter ordered him to Ukrainise his corps. Skoropadsky was initially reluctant, but complied, and began retreating to Medzhybizh, where his 34 Army Corps was transformed into the 1st Ukrainian Corps.
In October 1917, at the first Congress of the Free Cossacks, he was awarded a title of the honorary Otaman. From October to November 1917 his 60,000-man Army Corps successfully defended the railway corridor stretching through Podolie to Polissya, Vapniarka – Zhmerynka – Koziatyn – Shepetivka and defended against the attacks from the Romanian front particularly the 2nd Guard Corps that was headed by Yevgenia Bosch.