Ukrainian Democratic Party (UDP), was a Ukrainian party that existed in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

since 1897 first as a clandestine General Ukrainian nonpartisan democratic organization that grew into a political party just before the

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, th ...

. The 1897 organization was formed out of the already existing wider community organization network known as

Hromada In Ukraine, a hromada () is the main type of municipality and the third level Administrative divisions of Ukraine, local self-government in Ukraine. The current hromadas were established by the Cabinet of ministers of Ukraine, Government of Uk ...

(Community) that existed since 1859 and the Taras Student Fraternity, a more direct student organization of 1891.

Name change

Some of these are simply name changes while others are dissolution and creation of a new organisation with a significant number of members of the old. * General Ukrainian Unaffiliated Democratic Organization (1897 - 1904) * Ukrainian Democratic Party (1904 - 1905) ** Ukrainian Radical Party (1904 - 1905) * Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party (1905 - 1908) * Society of Ukrainian Progressives (1908 - 1917) * Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists (1917 - 1923) * Ukrainian Radical Democratic Party (1923 - 1939)

General Ukrainian Nonpartisan Democratic Organization

The party was formed out of the General Ukrainian Organization, also known as General Ukrainian Nonpartisan Democratic Organization. The organization was formed in Kyiv earlier in 1897 by the Ukrainized Polish political activist

Volodymyr Antonovych Volodymyr Bonifatiyovych Antonovych (; ; , tr. ''Vladímir Bonifát'evich Antonóvich''; – ) was a prominent Ukrainian historian, archivist and archaeologist, who was known as one of the most prominent figures of the Ukrainian national revi ...

and the Ukrainian

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...

Oleksandr Konysky Oleksandr Yakovych Konysky (18 August 1836 – 12 December 1900) was a Ukrainian interpreter, writer, lexicographer, pedagogue, poet, and civil activist of liberal direction. He had around 150 pen names, including О. Return-freedom (), F. Gorov ...

. That organization united all ''Hromada''s from some twenty cities across the Ukrainian lands. The organization published the magazine ''Vik'', organized the Shevchenko's festivals, and provided political

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred space, sacred place, such as a shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This seconda ...

for the politically persecuted national activists.

First years and split

The UDP was seeking liquidation of absolutism in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

and the introduction of a constitutional order (similarly to the Russian

Kadet The Constitutional Democratic Party (, K-D), also called Constitutional Democrats and formally the Party of People's Freedom (), was a political party in the Russian Empire that promoted Western constitutional monarchy—among other policies� ...

s). The party also was pursuing an autonomy for the Ukrainian lands with its own regional diet (sejm) and implementation of the

Ukrainian language Ukrainian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first language, first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians. Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of t ...

throughout the territory. Among its early leaders were Serhiy Yefremov,

Borys Hrinchenko Borys Dmytrovych Hrinchenko (, ; December 9, 1863 – May 6, 1910) was a classical Ukrainian prose writer, political activist, historian, publicist, and ethnographer. He was instrumental in the Ukrainian cultural revival of the late 19th and be ...

, Yevhen Chykalenko. At the end of 1904 a left-inclined group of its party members split into another political party, the Ukrainian Radical Party. Unlike the democrats, the Ukrainian radicals were for the

constitutional monarchy Constitutional monarchy, also known as limited monarchy, parliamentary monarchy or democratic monarchy, is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in making decisions. ...

. Among the radicals were the above-mentioned Serhiy Yefremov, Borys Hrinchenko as well as Modest Levytsky,

Fedir Matushevsky Fedir (Ukrainian: Федір ''FEHD-ihr'') is a Ukrainian name derived from the Ancient Greek name Theodoros. The patronymic names (from Eastern Slavic naming customs) are Fedorovych for men and Fedorivna for women. People * Fedir Androshchuk ...

, and others. The party published its periodicals in

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

and

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. It did not manage to create much of influence on the local population in Ukraine and in the autumn of 1905 reunited back with democrats into the Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party (UDRP).

UDRP

The fundamental principals of the party were

parliamentarism A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legisl ...

and

federalism Federalism is a mode of government that combines a general level of government (a central or federal government) with a regional level of sub-unit governments (e.g., provinces, State (sub-national), states, Canton (administrative division), ca ...

: Ukraine had to acquire under the Constitution of Russia a wide degree of autonomy. UDRP also was seeking a compulsory purchase from private owners its land and industries that eventually would be nationalized. The party was represented in the

State Duma of the Russian Empire The State Duma, also known as the Imperial Duma, was the lower house of the legislature in the Russian Empire, while the upper house was the State Council (Russian Empire), State Council. It held its meetings in the Tauride Palace in Saint Peters ...

in its first two convocations. The State Duma UDRP parliamentarians organized into the ''Duma's Ukrainian Hromada''. During this period the party published its own press media '' Hromada's Thought'' which was a predecessor of the newspaper ''

Rada The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central Lond ...

''. With early dissolution of the Second State Duma and the growing Russian nationalism on the Ukrainian territory (see

Pogroms A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century attacks on Jews i ...

), the party reorganized into the ''Society of Ukrainian Progressionists'' (TUP) together with some members of the

Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party The Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party (), also commonly known as Esdeky (), was a social-democratic political party in the Ukrainian People's Republic. The party was reformed in 1905 at the Second Congress of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Par ...

References

External links

Society of Ukrainian Progressives

Encyclopedia of Ukraine The ''Encyclopedia of Ukraine'' (), published from 1984 to 2001, is a fundamental work of Ukrainian Studies. Development The work was created under the auspices of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (Sarcelles, near Paris). As the ...

{{Authority control Political parties established in 1904 Political parties of the Russian Revolution Political parties disestablished in 1939 Ukrainian political parties in Imperial Russia Defunct socialist parties in Ukraine Political parties in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic