Ukrainian liberal-democratic parties in the Russian empire at the beginning of the 20th century: development of projects of the state system

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to reveal the content of the projects of the state system developed by the Ukrainian liberal-democratic parties in the Russian Empire at the be- ginning of the 20th century, to carry out their comparative analysis. Research methodology includes the principles of historicism, objectivity, comprehensiveness, and systematicity, which are implemented using such research methods as analytical, comparative and others. Th e sci- entifi c novelty of the work lies in the fact that it holistically and comprehensively reveals the essence of the projects of the state system developed by Ukrainian liberal-democratic parties in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, their comparative analysis is car- ried out, common features and existing diff erences are identifi ed, an attempt is made to give a modern assessment of their value, expressed critical perception of the possibilities of their imp- lementation. Conclusions. It was found that the projects of the state system, developed in the program documents of the Ukrainian liberal-democratic parties in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, having common features and certain peculiarities of their own, refl ected, in fact, only one concept of solving the issue of statehood, as they saw the future of Ukraine in its national-territorial autonomy as part of federal democratic Russia. Th ey did not consider or develop a concept that provided for the achievement of an independent Ukrainian state, which gives grounds for asserting that the development of the projects of the state system by the Ukrainian liberal democrats was not complete. Th e proposed party projects did not agree with the idea of a conciliar independent Ukrainian state, which was included as a strategic goal in the program requirements of Ukrainian parties in Austria-Hungary in the second half of the 90s of the 19th century. From the point of view of civilizational development, the projects generally met the require- ments of the time and certainly had an external appeal. But today, taking into account the cen- tralizing tendency of russian politicians, the imperial experience of russia in the 20th and early 21st centuries, the genocidal war of the russian Federation against Ukraine, the reluctance of the russian power structures for decades to take the path of the democratic and legal development of the state, obviously, one can question their realism.