THE ROLE AND PLACE OF HETMANYCH DANYLO SKOROPADSKYI IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINIAN MONARCHIAL MOVEMENT IN EMIGRATION PERIOD (1931–1957)

Abstract

Using the archival sources from Switzerland and Ukraine which are unknown for the researchers, as well as the rare literature, the author undertakes the first attempt to delineate the role and place of the son of hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi – hetmanych Danylo in the developing of Ukrainian monarchial movement in interwar and postwar emigration. Simultaneously, the author suggests the periodization of the political activity of Danylo Skoropadskyi. The first of the three stages defined by the author might be called the German stage, which lasted from 1931 till 1937. It witnessed the birth of a new political leader of Ukrainian monarchism, who in 1933 became officially proclaimed the hetman’s successor and the bearer of the Ukrainian monarchial national title – hetmanych. The timespan of the second – American – stage was from the September 1937 until March 1939. During this time, the hetmanych deeply recognized the Ukrainian people in the framework of his visits to main centers of the USA and Canada and fulfilled important tasks of his father – the former hetman of Ukraine, whose aim had been to strengthen the conservative traditional Ukrainian movement there. The final British stage lasted from the beginning of the Second World War until the death of Danylo Skoropadskyi in 1957. Most of the groups of Ukrainian monarchists in Great Britain, West Germany, the USA and Canada collaborated with each other under the guideness of hetmanych Danylo, who was the head of this movement from 1948 until 1957. The tradition of Ukrainian monarchism continued abroad and the role of hetmanych Danylo in its development was of primary importance for its preservation as a multiperspective phenomenon in the future, on the one hand, and the phenomenon of continuation of the dynastic form of government in Ukrainian case, embodied in its national, hetman’s perspective, on the other hand.