The project re-examines one of the most crucial periods of modern Ukrainian history – the revolutionary transformation of 1917-1921 – by synthesising the diverse experiences of people who did not consider themselves or were not considered as ethnic Ukrainians. They made up approximately one quarter of the entire population. While the existing historiography has focused primarily on the state-building efforts of Ukrainian national elites, the lives and activities of non-Ukrainians have been largely overlooked. Yet, Ukraine was a multicultural space where linguistically and confessionally heterogeneous people lived side by side. We argue that no sincere history of revolutionary Ukraine can be written without incorporating the non-Ukrainians into the narrative.

This Opus-Weave project receives funding from the Polish National Science Center (NCN) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).