Memorandum to the Government of the United States on the Recognition of the Ukrainian People's Republic — A Closer Reading

Ethnographic and Linguistic Arguments

The memorandum grounds Ukraine's claim to statehood in what it calls the 'canons of ethnology and history.' Bachynskyi asserts that Ukrainians constitute a 'physical type clearly different' from Great Russians, White Ruthenians, or Poles—a claim he attributes to 'leading anthropologists, even among the Russians.' He emphasizes that the Ukrainian language is a 'separate Slavic tongue, not merely a dialect of Great Russian,' and that cultural and temperamental peculiarities permeate the nation's 'whole social and moral nature.' These assertions are presented as rebuttals to the prevailing misapprehension in America that Ukraine is a Russian province. The text does not provide specific citations for these anthropological claims, but the rhetorical strategy is clear: to establish Ukraine as a distinct nation deserving of sovereignty under Wilsonian self-determination.

Economic Infrastructure and Development

Beyond ethnic arguments, the memorandum devotes substantial attention to Ukraine's economic potential and needs. Bachynskyi details a program of internal improvements: regulation of navigable rivers, exploitation of hydroelectric power from the Dnieper rapids, construction of central power stations, modernization of mining, erection of grain elevators, and scientific management of agriculture, milling, and sugar refining. This section reads as a development prospectus, arguing that Ukraine's resources have been exploited by neighbors and that independence would allow rational, modern economic organization. The emphasis on infrastructure—railways, rivers, power stations—reflects a technocratic vision of state-building, linking political sovereignty to economic modernization.

Evidence of Popular Will and the 'Plebiscite of Blood'

Bachynskyi counters the charge that Ukrainian nationalism is artificially stimulated by pointing to concrete demonstrations of popular support. He cites the Central Rada's 1917 proclamation of independence, a subsequent congress of workers and peasants that affirmed the Rada by a vote of 2,000 to 70, and the 1917 election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, in which 75% of Ukraine's 230 deputies were Ukrainian nationalists. The memorandum also notes that even Ukrainian communists initially opposed Russian Bolshevik invasion, and that the so-called Ukrainian Soviet Government was headed by a Romanian, Rakovsky, and functioned as a 'local agency of Moscow.' The phrase 'plebiscite of blood' encapsulates the argument that prolonged armed struggle—against Bolsheviks, anti-Bolsheviks, Germans, and Denikin's forces—constitutes the 'most sincere evidence of the will to self-determination.'

Readers should note that this memorandum is a diplomatic artifact, not a neutral history. It presents a carefully constructed case for recognition, omitting internal divisions or complexities that might weaken its argument. The document's value lies in its articulation of a specific political claim at a critical historical moment, using the language of self-determination and economic modernity. For context, consult contemporaneous accounts of the Ukrainian-Soviet War and the Paris Peace Conference.

Reading the dry, hopeful words of Bachynskyi’s 1920 memorandum, I felt the weight of a nation pleading for a place on the map—so fragile, so earnest. It reminded me, oddly, of another kind of plea: the schoolchildren in The Childrens' Story of the War, Volume 2 (of 10) From the Battle of Mons to the Fall of Antwerp. — A Closer Reading. Both capture a moment when ordinary hopes were caught in history's brutal tide.