State Building in Revolutionary Ukraine examines six attempts to create governments on Ukrainian territories between 1917 and 1922. Focusing on how political leaders formed and staffed administrations, this study shows that in Ukraine during this time, there was an available pool of able administrators sufficiently competent in Ukrainian to work as bureaucrats in the independent national governments. These people could sometimes implement policies, a significant accomplishment in light of the upheavals of the time.

Stephen Velychenko compares Ukrainian efforts to create an independent national government with the analogous successful efforts made in Russia, Poland, Ireland and Czechoslovakia. He questions the notion that Ukrainian attempts at national independence failed because its society was 'incomplete' and its leaders unable to organize an effective administration. Pointing out that Bolshevik administrations at the time were no more effective in implementing policies than their rivals, Velychenko argues that more effective governance was not one of the reasons for the Russian Bolshevik victory in Ukraine.

Stephen Velychenko Stephen Velychenko is Senior Research Fellow and the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto. He is the author of Painting Imperialism and Nationalism Red and State Building in Revolutionary Ukraine.

Stephen Velychenko's profile page

‘…State Building in Revolutionary Ukraine marks an important contribution not only to the historiography of twentieth-century Ukraine but also to the study of the civil war in the former Russian Empire and to the literature on state building in newly independent nations.’

Journal of Modern History 2 (June 2013)

‘Velychenko’s monograph is a useful contribution to the debate on the revolution and civil war in the Ukraine… The work highlights a set of under-researched actors who helped determine how Ukrainians experienced the revolution and civil war, and whose views and activity both reflected and affected the attempts to build a state.’

Revolutionary Russia, vol 25:02:2012

‘Diligently researched book…. Velychenkos book will be of great interest to historians of modern sate, Eastern Europe, and what many of us still call misleadingly the ”Russian” revolution.’

American Historical Review; vol 118:03:2013

’Velychenko’s book will be of great interest to historians of the modern state, Eastern Europe, and what many of us still call misleadingly the “Russian” Revolution.‘

American Historical Review, June 2013