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portrait of petliura

there are three major villains in the novel "how steel was tempered". let's briefly summarize them:

one is poland. it may surprise you, but the polish army is definitely the most hateful in the novel.

the artillery fire that severely damaged paul came from the polish army.

paul's good friend seryosha said goodbye to his hometown in order to fight against the polish army. there is an inner monologue of his in the novel:

"...goodbye, my hometown, goodbye, dirty and ugly town, ugly huts, bumpy streets! goodbye, relatives, goodbye, varya, goodbye, comrades who have gone underground they! the vicious alien invaders - the ruthless white polish army are approaching."

seryosha's sister varya mentioned in this passage was also brutally hanged by polish soldiers after the polish army invaded because of her underground activities. the method was very cruel and the scene was unbearable.

therefore, the polish people have the highest degree of close connection with the characters in the novel, and the degree of harm is also the strongest.

the second is petliura's army. in the novel, petliura's name appears frequently. paul was arrested because of petliura's army. however, paul was accidentally released because of petliura's men.

the reason why paul was released was because one of petliura's men was worried that petliura would personally inspect the prison to prevent petliura from blaming him, so he went to clean up the prison in advance, thinking that paul was an insignificant person. so he let him go.

judging from this description, petliura is not considered a bad person. at least his men would be worried that petliura would blame them for arresting people and killing innocent people indiscriminately, so they let paul go.

the third is german. the first version of the soviet film adaptation of "how the steel was tempered" was shot in the 1940s, during the great patriotic war, and depicted the germans during world war i in the film as extremely vicious.

in the novel, paul stole a german pistol and was subjected to a fatal search. fortunately, paul refused to admit it and escaped with his life. but the germans were still civilized and did not kill as much as they did during world war ii.

in the novel "the white guard", which describes the same period, the military officers and intellectuals in the play generally have a favorable impression of the germans and hope that the germans will not withdraw and resist the siege of petliura's army.

"the white guard" illustration

the most confusing thing in "how steel was tempered" is petliura's army. where did they come from? how does ukraine evaluate it now?

the author went to check the information. from the domestic books and periodicals that can be found so far, there is no relatively detailed and complete introduction to petliura's life experience.

in today's ukraine, petliura is actually regarded as one of the three national heroes who contributed to ukraine's independence.

statue of petliura

and russia is obviously very cold about petliura. president putin directly referred to petliura as "a person with nazi views, an anti-semite who exterminated the jews during the war."

in "how steel was tempered", petliura's biggest misdeed was his men massacring the jews.

but in the novel, the author is also very cautious. he does not say that petliura directly ordered the massacre of the jews, but that his rebellious and independent subordinates made their own decisions to massacre. even when these subordinates were doing evil, they also he was afraid that petliura would find out.

therefore, when ukraine regarded petliura as a national hero, it also found an opportunity to defend petliura here, believing that petliura was unable to restrain his men and that the massacre of jews was not based on petliura's instructions. .

tomb of petliura

even ukraine calls petliura a hero of national independence. a closer look at petliura’s past does not completely match the historical facts.

because historical data show that petliura's original view in history was only to propose ukrainian autonomy, not ukrainian independence. in his early articles, he only proposed realizing ukrainian national autonomy within the larger framework of russia. therefore, he is often called a pro-russian faction among radicals.

so, how did he end up as a gangster among russians?

let's first find an introduction to petliura from domestic books and periodicals.

"gates of europe: a 2000-year history of ukraine" is a widely cited book on ukrainian history in china. it was published in 2019. the author is a ukrainian-american. he introduced petliura's life experience in the book:

——petliura was born in poltava in 1879,... like joseph stalin, who was half a year older than him, petliura began to participate in revolutionary activities when he was still a theological school student, and gradually rose from the bottom, became one of the leaders of the ukrainian social democratic labor party. after the failure of the 1905 revolution, petliura served as editor of many ukrainian-language journals and newspapers - first in kiev, later in st. petersburg, and from 1912 in moscow. in 1917, he first served as the chairman of the general military council of ukraine, and later as the general secretary of military affairs of the "central rada", serving as the head of the ukrainian troops in the russian military establishment. later, one of these units was detached and placed under the command of the future ukrainian commander pavlo skoropadsky. ——

petliura's entry into the political arena began with the overthrow of the tsar.

the overthrow of the tsar was also a major event mentioned for the first time in "how steel was tempered".

paul originally lived in a small ukrainian town, which was once part of poland in history. therefore, in his hometown, there were many polish nobles and landowners, and there were many polish-style buildings in the local area.

in such an environment, paul lived an isolated childhood life until one day, the outside world blew into his hometown. in the second chapter of the first part of the novel, he writes:

——an earth-shattering news blew into this small town like a whirlwind: "the tsar has been overthrown!"——

this period is march 1917.

of course paul didn't know that when he focused his hatred on people around him, such as the priest who punished him and the foreman who bullied him, this area of ​​ukraine was undergoing earth-shaking changes.

after the tsar was overthrown, ukraine immediately became a power vacuum, and various forces emerged to seize the power.

let’s take a rough look at whose house the ukrainian overlord flag was planted on the lintel during this period:

1. the "central rada" regime led by grushevsky (april 1917 to april 1918).

gruszewski

2. skoropadsky’s hetman regime (april 1918 to december 1918)

skoropadski

3. the ruling cabinet system of vinnichenko and petliura (december 1918 - june 1920, until the defeat in ukraine)

the first period when the central rada was in power was not mentioned at all in "how steel was tempered".

in the second stage, when the hetman regime was in power, it was the passage mentioned in the novel when the germans came. the hetman regime was supported by the germans and replaced the "central rada". at this time, paul had impressions, written about the huge changes brought about by the germans after they came to their hometown.

the germans later had a revolution because of a fire in their own backyard and had to withdraw their troops. as a result, the hetman regime supported by the germans also collapsed.

petliura, wife and daughter

next, the so-called petliura gang came in.

now let’s focus on the advancement of the so-called leader of the petliura gang during the power vacuum in ukraine, and see how he transformed from a literate man who was proficient in writing to a man who commanded a large number of soldiers and controlled the life and death of a region to seize power. big boss".

let’s start with world war i.

the time node is 1914.

prior to this, petliura worked as an accountant for a moscow insurance company for three years, during which time his associates accused him of pro-russian tendencies because of his pro-russian comments. at this moment, ukrainian independence was unimaginable in his mind.

petliura and his wife

when world war i broke out in 1914, he wrote an article in the magazine "ukrainian life" and called on ukrainians to "fight to the end for russia." commentators believe that he now possesses the qualities of a politician, that is, he can say whatever he wants on any mountain. as long as it is beneficial to himself, he can promise others everything and then turn his back and immediately deny it.

petliura in 1915

in early 1916, petliura joined the "all-russian union of local autonomous regions and cities", an organization established in 1914 that was responsible for the russian government's logistical support for the army. from then on, he joined the army, a reversal of fortune, and began his military career. another advantage of this position is that it does not need to be used on the battlefield.

in february 1917, after the overthrow of the tsar, petliura traveled to kiev, where he distinguished himself on the ukrainian political scene by his ability as a public speaker and his popularity among soldiers.

in may 1917, the first all-ukrainian military congress was held in kiev. at the conference, petliura was elected as a member of the presidium as a representative of the western front, and after the conference, he was admitted to the central rada.

in 1917, the neutral was petliura

in june 1917, he assumed the position of secretary-general for military affairs (actually minister of defence). in his position, he advocated the ukrainianization of the army stationed on ukrainian territory and the recruitment of another army on the territory. but the interim government did not want to make concessions and only agreed that some of the troops would be composed of ukrainians.

after the october revolution in 1917, petliura's thoughts reversed. he saw the soviet army marching straight into ukraine, and his thoughts gradually turned to the position of ukrainian independence.

at this time, petliura took on the post of secretary-general of military affairs and began to form troops. at that time, there were so many stragglers on the ukrainian soil that petliura took them all under his command. thus, petliura's troops were mixed, good and bad. notorious potential.

on the evening of january 9, 1918, the central rada declared independence. however, he felt that he was unable to compete with the soviet russian army, so he had to turn to foreign aid, negotiate with germany and austria, and ask them to help deal with the soviet russian army. the germans got what they wanted and marched into ukraine. but the central lada seemed weak and useless in the eyes of the germans. soon the germans kicked the central lada away and found another one they liked.

on april 29, 1918, skoropadsky, with the support of the germans, launched a coup to overthrow the "central rada" and declared himself the supreme commander of the ukrainian country, that is, hetman.

in "how steel was tempered", the germans came to paul's hometown, and at the same time they were followed by a group of hetman's pseudo-policemen. it can be seen that the second round of forces during the tumultuous period in ukraine was reflected in the novel. .

after the german puppet regime came to power, petliura took an oppositional attitude and subsequently led the all-ukrainian federation of local self-government to oppose skoropadsky and the occupying regime he represented, and began to establish a network of underground organizations to contribute to the power struggle. prepare.

in july 1918, petliura issued an anti-german manifesto calling for the abolition of landowners' land ownership and the return of land to farmers. for skoropadsky, who was geared toward large landowners, this was absolutely unacceptable. for this reason, petliura was arrested on july 27 and held in prison for nearly four months.

in early november 1918, a revolution broke out in germany. as the chinese said, the rabbit's tail could not grow. skoropadsky's puppet regime was in danger. petliuda's supporters exerted pressure. on november 11, peter lyura was released. .

in december, dictator skoropadsky fled with the germans without a fight, and petliura led his troops to attack kiev, thus entering the third stage of ukraine's turbulent period: the ruling government stage.

petliura was appointed commander of the ruling government's forces, and became chairman in may 1919, assuming sole power. this period became the peak period of his life. at that time, all the heroes in ukraine were competing for victory. soviet russia, the white army and poland competed alternately to see who would win or lose.

petliura in 1919

petliura's troops were unable to compete. in the spring of 1919, the soviet army defeated petliura's motley army and entered kiev. in august, petliura was eliminated.

with nothing to do, petliura again placed his hopes on foreign powers and tried to negotiate with the poles, who were at the time fighting the bolsheviks. in april 1920, he signed a treaty under which poland recognized the newly independent republic at the cost of losing two regions: galicia and volyn.

petliura and the troops in 1920

however, the poles did not ultimately fight for ukraine's interests. when poland was exhausted fighting moscow, poland and soviet russia signed the peace treaty of riga in 1921, effectively abandoning petliura.

in november 1921, petliura's followers organized a raid on soviet ukrainian territory, but it ultimately failed and petliura fled to paris.

in "how steel was tempered", a rebellion launched by the remnants of petliura was also mentioned, but it is unknown whether it refers to this time. the novel reads:

"the remnants of the petliura bandits, who were driven into white poland by the red army, closely colluded with some foreign missions stationed in warsaw to prepare to organize a riot here.

the remnants of petliura secretly formed a commando force. "

petliura was shot to death by samuel schwarzbird on may 25, 1926. the murderer made no attempt to hide and surrendered to the police. he said the murder was an act of revenge for the pogroms carried out by petliura in ukraine from 1918 to 1920, in which all his relatives were killed. even einstein launched an appeal to exonerate the shooter, and he was eventually acquitted.

trial scene

petliura's identity reversal in ukraine has brought more controversy internationally. in fact, we can see that the definition of petliura in "how the steel was tempered" does not deviate from the common understanding around the world. we can also see from the author's description of this character that in the vivid lives and humanity that once existed in that land that is still filled with hot wars.

this is why literature can preserve a period of emotion and history.