Simon Petlioura

Simon Petlioura (in Ukrainian: СимонВасильовичПетлюра, Symon Vassyliovytch Petlura) (Poltava, May 10th 1879 - Paris, May 25th 1926) is a Ukrainian Politician .

Youth

Born in 1879 with Poltava (Ukraine), under the imperial Russia, in a family orthodoxe Cossack , Simon Petlioura studied with the seminar of the city, but in 1901 was excluded from it to have organized a clandestine and revolutionary party (Party of the Ukrainian revolution, РеволюційнаУкраїнськаПартія , RUP).

It left then for Krasnodar where he became teacher in a school, but pursued by the Russian authorities (as an Ukrainian freedom fighter), he was stopped in 1903. After the amnesty of 1905, it founded with Volodymyr Vynnytchenko the Ukrainian working democratic Party social (USDRP), and worked with the review Slovo ( Parole ), which it had founded with friends, of 1905 with 1909.

Its newspaper being interdict in 1909, it left for Moscow, where it Maria in 1912 with an Ukrainian young person, Olha Bilska of whom was born an only daughter, and worked as journalist with the newspaper Ukrainskaya Zhyzn ( Ukrainian Life ) until the Russian Révolution of 1917.

During Ukrainian independence

In May 1917, it took the head of the general Committee Ukrainian. With the proclamation of the Ukrainian central Council the June 28th 1917, he became the first secretary with the military businesses. In dissension with the policy of the head of the general secretary Volodymyr Vynnytchenko he resigned of the government to organize the " regiment Sloboda Ukraina" who pushed back the Red Army in February 1918 with Kiev.

After the coup d'etat of the general Pavlo Skoropadski of the April 28th 1918 helped by the German Empire, Petlioura was stopped and imprisoned with Bila Tserkva. He escaped four months after, reversed the junta and took the head of the army, and created the Directory, replacing the government of the Hetmanat (name of the government of Skoropadski). Its rival Volodymyr Vynnytchenko was thus elected president of the Ukrainian national République by the Directory the November 13rd 1918.

With the Polish assistance of the Marshal Józef Piłsudski, Simon Petlioura, chief of the armies, the aggression of the Red Army pushed back, but also of the white Armée with Dénikine. It had to also fight against the Anarchist-Communist S of Nestor Makhno, initially allied with the Red Army.

Disabled vis-a-vis the Russian aggression, Volodymyr Vynnytchenko resigned, and the Directory elects Simon Petlioura unanimously the February 19th 1919.

Vis-a-vis the width of the Anti-semitism reigning in Ukraine (close to: 120000 Jews assassinated at the time of 55 pogroms in 1918-19, according to a report/ratio of the the Red Cross of the time), Simon Petlioura made vote the law of the July 30th 1919, returning the organization of pogroms prohibited, and the punished organizers of capital punishment by the law of August 18th, 1919.

To alleviate tried them intercommunity, it names several Jews in his government, such as Solomon Goldman (СоломонГольдельман), Ministers for the minorities, or Abraham Revutsky (АврамРевуцький), Ministers for the Jewish Businesses.

Towards the end of 1919, during the Russo-Polish War, the Red Army occupied the Ukraine completely, and Petlioura was to oblige to leave to Tarnów, in Poland.

After the Operation Kiev carried out jointly with Józef Piłsudski, it yielded to Poland, by the Traité of Rīga, the towns of Ternopil and Przemyśl.

In October 1920, Petlioura definitively left the Ukraine, the Ukrainian Soviet socialist République having been proclaimed, but still directed the Ukrainian government in exile.

It takes refuge with Paris since 1924.

The assassination

Petlioura was assassinated the May 25th 1926 with Paris by Samuel Schwartzbard, a Jewish anarchist of Belorusse origin, which justified its act while affirming to want to avenge death for his/her parents, assassinated at the time of Pogrom S launched against the Jewish populations of Ukraine and Moldavie, according to him, by Simon Petlioura.

The mediatization of the lawsuit of Samuel Schwartzbard in 1927 was at the origin of the foundation of the Ligue against the pogroms, which will become LICRA thereafter, by Bernard Lecache. It was defended by Me Henry Torrès (lawyer close to the Communist party). The lawsuit was for the French Action or Le Figaro the occasion to start again one “second Affaire Dreyfus”. The court, “unquestionable” from the anti-semitism of Petlioura, discharged Samuel Schwartzbard the October 26th 1927.

According to the former director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, Samuel Schwartzbard were an agent with the service of the Soviets.

Simon Petlioura was buried Cimetière of Montparnasse. In 1928, his/her 2 sisters, nuns in an orthodoxe convent, were assassinated by the Guépéou. In Ukraine, he is regarded today as a national hero.

Polemics

When the Ukraine reaches independence in 1991, Simon Petlioura is rehabilitated is celebrated as Ukrainian national hero. Monuments are set up in its memory in several cities, like Kiev or Potlava (where it was born).

May 25th, 2006 with Paris was held in front of the Tombe of the Unknown soldier a commemoration in the honor of Simon Petlioura, assassinated 80 years before, in the presence of the ambassador of Ukraine in France, Yuriy Sergeyev. The LICRA protested in an official statement: “How such a demonstration can take place in full heart of Paris, which more is under the Triumphal arch, our Triumphal arch? We are quite simply attending a rape of the memory, with a refusal of history, with a second assassination, posthumous that one, Jewish victims”.

The Ambassador of Ukraine in France, Yuriy Sergeyev, answered then Patrick Gaubert, president of the LICRA in a letter:

“the lawsuit of the assassin of Simon Petlioura who was held in Paris, was instrumentalisé by the Soviet authorities, via the Komintern, to compromise the idea of Ukrainian independence while giving on one of its craftsmen the responsibility for persecutions of the Jews, while they had for only cause the official policy of anti-semitism, integral part of the ideology of the Russian Empire.

In the years 1920, from aucuns benefitted from it to thwart the rebirth of the independent Ukraine and which seem to use about it today to prevent the return of the Ukraine to the democracy and Europe”.

The debate between the historians about the role of Simon Petlioura at the time of pogroms of 1919, in particular in Proskurov is still sharp: on a side, unquestionable historians, like Leon Poliakov, or the writer and journalist Isaac Babel (carried out in 1939 like " espion" and " trotskyste" by the Soviet mode) allot the organization of the pogroms to the Red Army and the anarchist Nestor Makhno. For them, the mediatization of the lawsuit is primarily due to the propaganda of the Komintern, having any interest so that Simon Petlioura is considered to be guilty for better legitimating the invasion of the Ukraine.

For the historian Tared Hunczak, professor emeritus with the Université Rutgers, Simon Petlioura cannot be responsible for the pogrom of the February 15th 1919 with Proskurov: because of the disorder caused by multiple the invasion of the Ukraine, he was not Master of the situation at this time. This vision is confirmed by Dr. Henry Abramson, specialist in the history of the Jews in Ukraine and professor with the Université Harvard, which adds that measurements of Petlioura against the pogroms voted shortly after were effective.

The other thesis, defended as of 1927 by Léo Motzkin in its book pogroms in Ukraine under the Ukrainian Governments (1917-1920) watch that of all the armies then present in Ukraine, the army of Nestor Makhno was that which behaved best towards the civilians and the Jewish population in particular. Questioned by the Anarchistic Voline, E. Tcherikover leaves room to little doubt: “Let us not speak about the pogroms, supposedly organized or supported by Makhno itself. It is a calumny or an error. Nothing of that exists. ”

According to the historian Saul S. Friedman (author of the book Pogromchik: The assassination off Simon Petlura , 1976), Petlioura is not directly guilty, but has a share of responsibility, insofar as he were chief of the armies. Friedman also rejects the verdict of French justice: “even if Petlioura had been guilty crimes against humanity, the Schwartzbard payment is completely absurd. ”.

Marius Schattner, in his book History Israeli line (1991), clearly charges the responsibility for the massacres to the troops of Petlioura, under the war cry “died to the Jews and the Bolsheviks” and evaluates the losses with 40.000 victims”. It is rather the passivity of the chief whom he criticizes: “Petlioura let make. It covered its subordinates. It ordered only one investigation of pure form after the massacre of Proskurov, perpetrated by the cossacks of the brigade of Zaporej elite. In the other cases, it closed the eyes, refusing to take account of the requests for sanction raised by the person in charge civilians of the Ukrainian directory. It is only in August 1919 that it called its men " not to waste their heroic actions by gestures déshonorants". Then only, " the man of fer" republic of Ukraine (of pieces) threatened the progromchiks to trail them in martial court, counts 382 Pogroms, and allots 120 of them to the regular forces of Petlioura, having represented 50% of the victims. The memorandum allots 2% of the victims to the Red Army (however directed by a Jew, Leon Trotsky), and the balance with other groups. The conclusions of this memorandum are however called into question, since studies of Nahum Gergel, much more recent, allot only 40% of the victims to the regular armies of Petlioura, and 8,5% to the Red Army, on a total of 887 pogroms, the others being allotted to the white armed (17%) and to the other armed forces which were controlled per none the principal belligerents (25%).

The culpability of Simon Petlioura is also supposed in the novel of Simone Signoret, Adieu Volodia .

The February 28th 1958, a legal emission of ORTF, In your heart and conscience , considers the Petlioura business, but only the point of view of the defense of Schwartzbard is retained. The same point of view was retained in an emission (very discussed) of CBS in 1994, The Ugly Face off Freedom .

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