General Ukrainian Council (Zahalna ukrainska rada). Ukrainian interparty political organization formed on 5 May 1915 in Vienna out of the Galician Supreme Ukrainian Council by enlarging its mandate and membership. The General Ukrainian Council was to represent Ukrainians during the war, and was to be its chief spokesman within Austria-Hungary. The council consisted of 34 members. Galicia was represented by 24 delegates (most were from the National Democratic party, but a number were from the Ukrainian Radical party and 1 was from the Ukrainian Social Democratic party), Bukovyna by 7 delegates (5 from the National Democratic party, and 1 each from the Ukrainian Social Democratic party and the Ukrainian People's party), and Russian-ruled Ukraine by 3 delegates from the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine. Individual membership in the council changed frequently.

According to the council's program, Ukrainian territories under Russian rule were to form an independent Ukrainian state while the Ukrainian territories under Austria-Hungary were to become merely autonomous and unified into a single Ukrainian region. The presidium was the executive body of the council. It consisted of a president (Kost Levytsky), three vice-presidents (Mykola Vasylko, Lev Bachynsky, replaced later by Yaroslav Vesolovsky, and Mykola Hankevych, replaced later by Volodymyr Temnytsky), a deputy from the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (Oleksander Skoropys-Yoltukhovsky, replaced by Mariian Melenevsky), and a secretary (Temnytsky). Yevhen Olesnytsky, Stepan Rudnytsky, Stepan Tomashivsky, Stanyslav Dnistriansky, and Lonhyn Tsehelsky served as special advisers to the council. The imperial manifesto of 4 November 1916, which established the Polish Kingdom and sanctioned an autonomous, Polish-dominated Galicia within Austria-Hungary, undermined the position of the council; subsequently, leadership in Ukrainian political life passed to the Ukrainian parliamentary representation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pam'iatkova knyzhka Soiuzu vyzvolennia Ukraïny (Vienna 1917)
Levyts’kyi, K. Istoriia vyzvol’nykh zmahan’ halyts’kykh ukraïntsiv z chasu svitovoï viiny, 3 vols (Lviv 1929–30)

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989).]


Encyclopedia of Ukraine