Metadata: Main Military Court Administration of the Ukrainian People’s Republic
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Central State Archives of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine
- Holding institution (official language):
- Центральний державний архів вищих органів влади і управління України
- Postal address:
- 03110, м. Київ-110, вул. Солом’янська, 24
- Phone number:
- 380 (044) 275-36-66
- Web address:
- http://tsdavo.gov.ua/
- Email:
- tsdavo@archives.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 2432
- Title:
- Main Military Court Administration of the Ukrainian People’s Republic
- Title (official language):
- Главное военное судебное управление УНР
- Creator/accumulator:
- Main Military Court Administration of the Ukrainian People’s Republic
- Date(s):
- 1918/1923
- Language:
- Ukrainian
- Russian
- Extent:
- 123 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Included are documents reflecting attempts by the highest Ukrainian authorities to halt the pogrom movement in Ukraine. These include a Council of People’s Ministers law (29 January 1919) establishing emergency military courts and entitling them to apply capital punishment with regard to persons found guilty of treason, armed robbery, murder, looting, armed assaults on the civilian population, etc.; logs of sessions of the UNR Council of People’s Ministers which took up issues pertaining to the struggle against anarchy both in the rear and on the frontline (in particular, information on the Council of People’s Ministers’ hearing [16 June 1919] of a report of the minister of Jewish affairs on the scope of anti-Jewish pogroms; decisions to recommend that the Justice Ministry increase the severity of existing laws regarding punishment for the incitement of pogroms, accelerate the organising of the local-level gendarmerie, impress upon the rear command and Army field forces inspectorates the need to prevent pogroms, and assess the penalty of the editorial offices of the newspaper Kazak [Cossack] for publishing anti-Semitic articles); reports of the UNR Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Department of Political Information on mass instances of criminal activity on the part of “bandit elements in the Army,” on how this was exacerbating tensions between the Ukrainian authorities and the population, and on UNR Army Command orders demanding an end to looting and stipulating punishment for servicemen who discredit the UNR Army; documents on UNR superior military courts’ opening of investigations on servicemen accused of perpetrating violence against Jews in Ukrainian territory (primarily in Galicia); a copy of an order of Chief Ataman S. Petliura of 7 October 1921 to the UNR War Ministry that information be gathered and summarised on the Ukrainian authorities’ anti-pogrom measures, and that information on the course and results of anti-pogrom inquests be used to counteract the campaign spreading abroad that portrayed the UNR Army as anti-Semitic and involved in pogroms; an abstract titled “The Truth about Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine,” and secret reports on specific acts of anti-Jewish violence perpetrated by Ukrainian Army servicemen; inquest materials of UNR superior military courts on servicemen accused of instigating pogroms, including the case of Cossacks of the Black Zaporozhians’ [Chorni Zaporozhtsi] Mounted Regiment (G. Boruliak, M. Grib, and the regiment’s commander P. D’iachenko) accused of plundering the Jewish population (11 October 1920 – 31 August 1921); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Ukrainian military court system began to form upon the Ukrainian State’s [Ukrains’ka derzhava] Council of People’s Ministers’ adoption of the law (21 June 1918) “On organizing military court institutions, and on their competency,” as well as the Ukrainian People’s Republic’s (UNR) Council of People’s Ministers law (21 April 1920) “On changes and addenda to the Law of 21 June 1918.” Per the UNR war minister’s Order № 16 (16 March 1921), the military courts of the 1st Zaporozh’e, 3rd Iron, and Machine-Gun Divisions of the UNR Army were reorganized as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Superior Military Courts respectively; and the military court of the city of Kamenets-Podol’skii outpost became the 4th Superior Military Court. The same order confirmed a list of military formations, units, and institutions under the jurisdiction of the superior military courts: subject to the 1st were the Army Field Forces HQ, the Zaporozh’e Infantry Division, and the Mounted Division; to the 2nd, the 2nd Volhynia, 3rd Iron, 4th Kiev, and 6th Infantry Divisions, the Iron Company, the city of Kamenets-Podol’skii Commandant’s Office, and the Security Company of the Chief Ataman of the UNR Army; to the 3rd, the Border Guards’ Corps, the gendarmerie, the rear commandant’s office, the 5th Kherson and Machine-Gun Divisions, the Junior School, reserve units, and the Mogilev Border Guard Brigade; and to the 4th, institutions of the UNR War Ministry. Superior military courts’ duties included conducting court cases involving crimes committed by servicemen on active duty. Pursuant to a law of the Council of People’s Ministers of 29 January 1919 and amendments thereto of 4 August 1920, the UNR Army also established emergency military courts, whose authority included inquests regarding UNR Army servicemen and civilians accused of committing major crimes (treason, looting, murder, etc.) in territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.
- Access points: locations:
- Galicia
- Access points: persons/families:
- Boruliak, G.
- D’iachenko, P.
- Grib, M.
- Petliura, S.
- System of arrangement:
- Files in the fond are systematised mainly chronologically.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary