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  5. Implementation of the right of the Ukrainian people to national and state self-determination during the First World War and the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921

Almanac of law. Issue 17 (2026), pages 533–539.

DOI: 10.33663/2524-017X-2026-17-533-539

Khudoyar L. V.
Implementation of the right of the Ukrainian people to national and state self-determination during the First World War and the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921

The article examines one of the important stages of the process of realizing the right of the Ukrainian people to national-state self-determination in the Ukrainian state formations of the period of the First World War and the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921. The legal affirmation of sovereignty in the process of realizing the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination in the Ukrainian states of the UNR, the ZUNR, and the Hetmanate of P. Skoropadsky is highlighted. The period of the First World War and the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921.

At the beginning of the 20th century. the self-determination of the Ukrainian people acquires legal form in the form of a relatively independent integrated structure — an array of regulatory legal acts that determine the form of its state existence on the Ukrainian ethnic territory. The concepts of the principle of self-determination of peoples (nations) of leading Ukrainian scientists of that time — O. Eichelman, S. Dnistryansky, O. Bochkovsky, Starоsolsky are considered. Ukrainian scientists considered the formation of a national independent state as a natural completion of the process of realizing the right to self-determination of peoples on the territories of former empires.

As the study showed, the creation of a national sovereign state as the realization of the people’s right to self-determination is an objective law. The right of peoples to self-determination was realized in the process of the people’s sovereignization. The process realization of the Ukrainian people’s sovereignization ended with the creation of national states on the Ukrainian ethnic territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire — the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic and the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which united into one Soborna Ukrainian State. This process was reflected in an array of regulatory acts — a relatively independent integrated structure, which, through its informational and regulatory influence, gave theoretical and practical legal significance to the national-state self-determination of the Ukrainian people.

Keywords: Ukraine, national-state self-determination, the right of the people to self-determination, sovereignty, UNR, Directory, ZUNR, Ukrainian State (Hetmanate) of Pavlo Skoropadsky, juridification of the sovereignty of Ukraine, regulatory and legal component, historical significance.

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Дата першого надходження рукопису до видання: 16.02.2026
Дата прийнятого до друку рукопису після рецензування: 09.04.2026
Дата публікації: 30.04.2026

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