The failed elections to the Sovereign Sejm of Ukraine (1918)

Abstract

The article focuses on the unrealized plans of Hetman Pavel Skoropadsky to convene the parliament of the Ukrainian state - the Sejm, which was to be opened in early 1919. The problem is considered in a number of works by Ukrainian researchers (first of all, the article by Ruslan Pyrih), but they are uninformative and contain a number of erroneous statements. The preparation for the elections to the Sejm - the parliament of an independent Ukraine - began in October 1918, but already in November, the political situation changed, and the Sejm began to be understood as a representative body of a subject in the future federative Russian state. In late November and early December 1918, a special commission, consisting mainly of members of the Constitutional Democratic Party, developed an electoral law on elections to the Sejm. The elections were to be held according to the majority system of a relative majority in 251 singlemember constituencies. Though women had no right to vote, the age limit was raised and the residence requirement was introduced, the electoral law was generally consistent with similar laws of the leading European states. Since the uprising headed by the Directory began and Hetman abdicated, the elections never took place. Drawing on materials from the Kiev press and archival sources, the author shows the historical roots of the Ukrainian Sejm, the process of developing the electoral law and its final version, as well as the attitude towards the Sejm on the part of various Ukrainian and Russian political forces.