| Symon Petliura |
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Symon Petlyura (; also spelled Simon, Semen, Semyen Petliura or Petlura, May 10 , 1879 – May 25 , 1926 ) was a Ukrainian Socialist Politician and statesman, one of the leaders of Ukraine's unsuccessful fight for independence following the Russian Revolution Of 1917 . He was briefly the President Of Ukraine during the Russian Civil War . Petlyura was Assassinated in Paris in 1926. BIOGRAPHY Petliura was born in Poltava . He was co-founder (1905) of the Ukrainian Labor Party and editor (1905-1909) of ''Slovo'' (Word) and ''Ukrainskaya Zhyzn'' (Ukrainian Life). During World War I Petlyura served in the Tsarist Russian army. After the 1917 February Revolution he was a member of the Central Rada (a ''de facto'' parliament) which in June of 1917proclaimed Ukraine an autonomous Republic . In July he became minister of military affairs. Soon afterward, the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) occupied Ukraine and installed a puppet government, thereby ending the brief rule of the Autonomous Council. In November of 1918, after the start of withdrawal of German and Austrian-Hungarian occupation forces from Ukraine, Petlyura became one of the five members of the new government, the Directorate of the ''Rada'', and again within it took up the post of ''Holovnyi'' Ataman (chief war leader). In January1919, following the start of the war between the Soviet Russia and Ukraine, he became the leading figure within the Directorate. In the Russian Civil War , he fought against Bolshevik s, Denikin , The Germans , Ukrainians under Pavlo Skoropadsky . and the Poles . In late 1918 Ukraine was occupied by White Russian forces, but in autumn 1919 most of the Whites were defeated by the Soviet s, who became the dominant force in Ukraine. At the end of 1919, Petliura withdrew to Poland , which recognized him as the legal government of Ukraine. In March 1920, as head of the Ukrainian People's Republic , he signed an alliance in Lublin with the Polish government, agreeing to a border on the River Zbruch and recognizing Poland's right to Lviv and Galicia in exchange for Polish help in overthrowing the Communist regime. In 1920, Polish forces, reinforced by Petliura's remaining troops (some 2 divisions), Attacked Kyiv in a turning point of the Polish-Bolshevik War (1919-1921). Following temporary successes, Piłsudski 's and Petliura's forces were pushed back to the Vistula River and the Polish capital, Warsaw . The Polish Army managed to defeat the Soviet Russians, but were unable to secure independence for Ukraine, which after the Peace Of Riga was divided between Poland and Russia, the latter taking the lion's share. Petliura directed the Ukrainian Government-in-exile from Tarnów and, later, Warsaw . In 1923, with the Soviet Union increasingly pressuring the Polish government to hand over Petliura, he fled first to Budapest , then Vienna and Geneva , and eventually settled in Paris in late 1924. PETLIURA'S ROLE IN POGROMS During the rule of Petliura, a series of mass Pogrom s were perpetrated against the Jew s of Ukraine. Estimates of the number of civilian Jews murdered range from 35,000 to 100,000. Some historians have claimed that Petliura did nothing to stop the pogroms, but some have claimed that he himself was not an Anti-Semite and he tried to stop them by introducing capital punishment for the crime of pogromming, evidenced by the execution of the notorious pogromist Semesenko, and that Petliura's only crime was being the head of state of country where the pogroms happened. The controversy over Petliura's role has continued to this day. The ''Journal of Jewish Studies'', in 1969's issue 31:3, published two opposing views by scholars Taras Hunczak and Zosa Szjakowski which are still frequently cited. At the time, Ukraine was a major Jewish population centre, and during the and various nationalist and anarchist gangs, 17% by the White Army , especially forces of Anton Denikin , and 8.5% by the Red Army . These figures can be contrasted to those of Candian Researchers P. Potichnyj and H. Aster, who citing "reliable Jewish sources" claim that out of 35,000 civilians killed, 27,000 died at the hands of Whites, 6,000 were killed by nationalist and anarchist gangs, and between 1500 and 2000 died at the hands of Ukrainian military units. PETLIURA'S ASSASSINATION On May 25 , 1926, while window shopping along a Paris boulevard, he was approached by a man who asked in Ukrainian, "Are you Mr. Petliura?" When he responded in the affirmative, the man, a Ukrainian-born Jewish Anarchist named Sholom Schwartzbard , shouted (according to his later deposition) "Defend yourself, you bandit!" Petliura raised his cane and Schwartzbard pulled out a gun, shooting him three times, while exclaiming "This, for the pogroms; this for the massacres, this for the victims." When police rushed to him to make their arrest, he reportedly calmly handed over his weapon, saying, "You can arrest me, I've killed a murderer." Schwartzbald's parents were among fifteen members of his family murdered in the pogroms. The core of his defence was—as presented by noted Barrister Henri Torrès —that he was avenging the deaths of victims of the pogroms. This premise found favour with the French jury, who acquitted him. Petliura is buried in the Cimetière Du Montparnasse in Paris, France. EXTERNAL LINKS
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