The project investigates the activity, impact and identify of independent warlords in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, 1917-1921

• Applicant: Dr. Christopher Gilley
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 216374980

The objective of the application for an extension is to allow me to explore more the groups covered by the expanded concept of warlordism that I developed during the project. Initially, I used warlordism simply as an English translation of the Ukrainian word "otamanshchyna" (the regime of the otamans). However, the archival documents revealed that the phenomenon, which has always been associated with the Ukrainian state's failure to control the military commanders affiliated with it, mirrored a similar problem faced by the Bolsheviks: partizanshchina (in English, often translated as "guerrilla-ism"). The Bolsheviks used this word to refer to locally created insurgent units that they sought to incorporate into the Red Army, yet resisted central control. Above all, this means that is necessary to study further the activity of the putative anarchist Nestor Makhno, who was active in the south-eastern Ukraine from 1917 and, for the Bolsheviks, was the personification of partizanshchina. The original proposal had left open whether Makhno would be included in the study due to the apparent differences between him and the nationalist warlords and the fact that Makhno's activity had produced enough material for a monograph on him alone. In addition, I will look at the smaller bands associated with Makhno, who like him moved between opposition to and cooperation with the Bolsheviks. I will conduct this research using materials already collected in the archives. Without including Makhno and other examples of partizanshchina, an account of warlordism in the Ukraine would be incomplete.This means examining the impact Makhno and his allies had on the course of the Civil War in the Ukraine while also analysing the personae they projected to mobilise support, identify enemies and maintain internal coherence in the bands. Here, I will explore the following hypotheses: (1) that nationalism and Cossack personae were far less important to those warlords who presented themselves as anarchists than the image of belonging to an international revolutionary movement; (2) that the enemies of the putative anarchists were defined less by ethnicity and more by class.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants