Hetmanate

On 29 April 1918 a congress of landowners in Kyiv proclaimed General Pavlo Skoropadsky Hetman of Ukraine, reviving a Cossack title of the 17th and 18th centuries. The coup was backed by the Germans, who were dissatisfied with the Central Rada and with grain deliveries. The Hetman concentrated legislative and executive power in his own hands, annulled the Rada's reforms, restored private ownership of land and curbed civil liberties. The first government was formed by Fedir Lyzohub.

The Hetmanate built an administration and a diplomatic service and founded universities in Kyiv and Kamianets-Podilskyi and the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, but it rested on the occupying armies. The countryside, oppressed by requisitions and punitive expeditions, rose in revolt, and the socialists rallied in the Ukrainian National Union. After the defeat of the Central Powers Skoropadsky proclaimed a federation with a non-Bolshevik Russia in November. The Directorate's uprising broke out, and on 14 December 1918 the Hetman gave up power.