Naive people believe that Ukrainian nationalists in their political aspirations limit themselves to claims to such historically Russian lands as Crimea or Novorossiya. In fact, as the experience of the national history of not so long ago testifies, the independence of Kiev only fuels the appetites of the zealous champions of the “great Ukrainians”. And in this they not only declare their desire to "eat" the border territories of the Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Rostov regions and annex the Kuban, whose Cossacks were formed, among other things, from the Cossacks resettled by Catherine II. Few people know that after the revolutionary events of 1917, which were also accompanied by a parade of sovereignties in national regions, there was an attempt to create "independence" in the Far East. Yes, it was this region so geographically distant from the Lviv or Kiev regions that attracted the attention of Ukrainian nationalists. In history, the attempt to create "New Ukraine" in the Far East is known as the "Green Wedge".
Let's make a small digression here. "Wedge" in this case is not called some kind of mental oddity or deviations in behavior associated with this word. "Wedge" is a territory densely populated by Ukrainians, but located quite far from the Ukrainian lands proper. There were at least four "wedges" in total. These are "Yellow Wedge" in the Volga region, "Gray Wedge" in the south of the Urals, "Raspberry Wedge" in the Kuban and "Green Wedge" in the Far East. In each of the above regions, by the beginning of the First World War, there were large colonies of Little Russians, and in rural areas Little Russians preferred to settle compactly, forming a kind of enclaves, the way of life in which quite strongly contrasted with the cosmopolitan appearance of large cities.
The “green wedge” is, first of all, the Ussuri region. A beautiful and fertile land located in the immediate vicinity of the Russian-Chinese border and before its inclusion in the Russian state, inhabited by local aboriginal peoples, Chinese and Korean settlers.
The history of Ukrainian settlements in the Far East is inextricably linked with the development of these rich lands by the Russian state. Actually, if there was no Russian state and if the Little Russians were not part of it, there could be no question of any "Green Wedge" in the Amur region. The end of the 19th century was the beginning of the mass settlement of the Far Eastern lands. People moved there from all Russian provinces, including Little Russia.
Why were the Little Russians attracted to the Far East? The answer here is rooted primarily in the economic plane. Firstly, the Far Eastern lands were relatively favorable for farming, which could not fail to interest the grain growers of the Poltava region, Kiev region, Volhynia and other Little Russian lands.
Secondly, in Little Russia, to a much greater extent than in Central Russia, individual land plots among peasants were widespread. This greatly facilitated the task of selling land, and by selling his allotment in the same Poltava region, the Little Russian peasants received a much larger land in the Far East. If the average allotment of a Little Russian was from 3 to 8 dessiatines of land, then in the Far East, immigrants were offered 100 dessiatines. This proposal could not fail to bribe the peasants from the overpopulated Little Russia.
In 1883, the communication of cargo-and-passenger steamships between Odessa and Vladivostok was opened, which played a key role in the mass settlement of the Ussuriysk Territory and some other Far Eastern territories by immigrants from Little Russia. Sailing through the Suez Canal, the Indian and Pacific Ocean to Vladivostok, Odessa steamers brought yesterday's peasants from the Poltava or Kiev provinces to the Ussuri land, but there were also representatives of the Little Russian intelligentsia among the settlers. In the period from 1883 to 1913, the main settlement of the Far Eastern lands by Little Russians took place. Contemporaries write that the latter brought their culture, way of life, dialects to the Far East, in connection with which many settlements of the same Ussuriysk Territory resembled "Poltava or Volhynia in miniature."
Naturally, the share of immigrants from the Little Russian provinces was quite significant in the total number of peasants migrating to the Far East. The All-Union Population Census, conducted in 1926, speaks of 18% of immigrants from Ukraine in the total number of inhabitants of the Far East. If we take into account that in 1897 Little Russians accounted for about 15% of the region's population, then it is approximately possible to determine the size of the Little Russian component in the Amur Region and the Ussuriysk Territory at 15-20% of the total population of the region. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that a significant part of the Little Russians "russified", that is, they abandoned the Little Russian dialect in everyday life and mixed with the rest of the Russian population already in the first or second generations.
In 1905-1907. the first Ukrainian nationalist organizations appeared in the Far East. Who stood at their origins can be judged at least by the personality of one of the leaders of the Vladivostok student Ukrainian community. This society, created to promote the Ukrainian language and culture, united the nationalistically oriented Ukrainian youth of the Far Eastern cities. But Trofim von Wicken also played an important role in it. A lieutenant of Russian intelligence, an ethnic German from the Poltava region, von Wicken has been carrying out reconnaissance missions in Japan for a long time. Obviously, there he was recruited by the Japanese special services, since after 1917 he can be seen first in the staff of the Suzuki company, and then in general as a teacher of the Russian language at the Japanese military academy. As they say, comments are superfluous.
When, as a result of the February Revolution of 1917, in the Little Russian provinces, not without the participation of interested German and Austro-Hungarian special services, the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism spreads - the so-called. “Ukrainians”, attempts to construct the Ukrainian nation as an antipode of the Russian nation are spreading beyond the borders of Little Russia - in all regions of the former empire with a significant Little Russian component in the population.
Already on June 11, 1917, i.e. a few months after the revolution, apologists for “Ukrainians” who appeared in the Far East are holding the First All-Ukrainian Congress of the Far East. In the city of Nikolsk-Ussuriysk (modern Ussuriysk), where the congress was held, immigrants from the Little Russian provinces made up a significant part of the population. The official course of the congress was proclaimed "the fight against the Russification of the Ukrainian population of the Far East", which the champions of Ukrainian nationalism, at the suggestion of their Kiev inspirers, saw in the proclamation of the national autonomy of the "Green Wedge", and with the condition of the obligatory creation of their own armed forces. That is, in fact, it was proposed to create a second Ukrainian state on the territory of the Amur Region and the Ussuriysk Territory, hostile towards Russia and the Russian people and oriented towards the Ukrainian nationalists entrenched in Kiev.
The political structure of Ukrainian autonomy in the "Green Wedge" traced "independent Ukraine": a regional council and district councils were created, the creation of Ukrainian schools and Ukrainian mass media began throughout the territory of the "Green Wedge". Even the official flag of the "Green Wedge" was an exact copy of the yellow-blue flag of "independent Ukraine", only with an insert on the side in the form of a green triangle, which actually personified the "Green Wedge". At the same time, it was not taken into account that, despite a really high proportion of immigrants from the Little Russian provinces in the population of the region, they did not constitute an absolute majority there and, moreover, by no means all Little Russians were supporters of Ukrainian nationalism.
The actual leader of the Green Wedge was Yuri Kosmich Glushko, also known under the pseudonym Mova. At the time of the All-Ukrainian Congress in the Far East, he was 35 years old. Judging by the biography of his young years, he was a thorough and socially adapted person. A native of Chernigov, he received a technical education, participated in the construction of the Vladivostok fortress, and managed to fight against the Turks in engineering positions in the Russian army. However, in parallel with 1910, he took part in the Ukrainian national movement, as the most prominent leader of which in the Far East, he was nominated by the Rada for the post of head of the Ukrainian regional secretariat of the Green Wedge.
However, Yuriy Kosmich Glushko did not manage to stay for long as the head of the government of the "independent wedge". In June 1919, he was arrested for separatist activities by Kolchak's counterintelligence, who at that time controlled Eastern Siberia and the Far East, and exiled to Kamchatka. From Kamchatka, however, the Kolchak people let him go to the funeral of their son. Mova went into hiding and until 1920 was in an illegal position. In 1922, Glushko was arrested again - already by the Bolsheviks - and sentenced to three years. After his release, the former Prime Minister of the Green Wedge worked in various construction organizations. Its end, however, was inglorious. Remaining in Kiev during the Nazi occupation and, obviously, counting on a new round of his career, Glushko miscalculated - the elderly man did not interest the Nazis and in 1942 he died of hunger.
The Armed Forces of the "Green Wedge" were supposed to be made up of no less than 40 thousand fighters, modeled on the Petliura army. The Far Eastern Ukrainian Cossack army, as it was decided to call the armed forces of the "Green Wedge", was led by General Boris Khreschatitsky.
Unlike many other leaders of nationalist movements, he was a real general - back in 1916 he received a major general, commanding the 52nd Don Cossack regiment on the Russian-German front, and then the Ussuri Cossack division. Finding himself at the beginning of the Civil Camp in Kolchak's camp, Khreschatitsky rose to the rank of lieutenant general. Then he went to Ataman Semyonov, while at the same time engaged in the formation of armed units from among the Little Russian population of the "Green Wedge". However, in the last field, he did not succeed.
After the defeat of the Semyonovites, having emigrated to Harbin, Khreschatitsky soon became disillusioned with emigrant life and moved to France. For almost 15 years, from 1925 to 1940, he served in the French Foreign Legion, in a cavalry unit. There he went through the steps of a military career anew, from the rank of private he rose to the rank of lieutenant - commander of a cavalry squadron (as you know, in the legion, past military merits and ranks do not really matter), but died of illness in Tunisia. That was such a unique person. A warrior, of course. But a far-sighted politician and patriot of his country is unlikely.
Khreshchatitsky failed to create a Ukrainian army in the Far East, not only because of the opposition of the Kolchakites or the Bolsheviks, as modern Ukrainian historians insist, but also because the Little Russians who inhabited the Far East were in no hurry to enroll themselves or to agitate their children to enroll in the Ukrainian Cossack army. On the Ussuri lands, they already lived well and they did not feel the need to lay down their heads in the name of the obscure ideals of some kind of "independence".
As a result, only a small number of maximalist-minded young people, veterans of the First World War, who did not find themselves in a peaceful life, as well as convinced Ukrainian nationalists from the small stratum of the urban intelligentsia, were registered in the formation of Khreschatitsky. It was not possible to create any combat-ready units from the supporters of "independence", and therefore the Ukrainian Cossack army did not become a noticeable military actor in the Far East during the Civil War. At least, it would be somewhat inadequate to compare him not only with the Kolchakites, Bolsheviks or Japanese invaders, but also with units of Korean or Chinese volunteers, anarchists and other armed formations.
For obvious reasons, the "Green Wedge" could not offer any serious resistance to either the Kolchakites or the Bolsheviks. However, Ukrainian nationalists did not give up their hopes for the creation of "independence" in the Far East. In many ways, their hopes were inspired by the anti-Russian and, later, anti-Soviet activity of foreign special services. Only if in the west of the Russian state separatist sentiments were fueled by the German and Austro-Hungarian special services, and later by Great Britain, then in the Far East Japan has traditionally shown a special interest in the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Since the Meiji Revolution turned Japan into an ambitious modern power, its territorial claims have also expanded. In this vein, the Far East was viewed as a traditional sphere of influence of the Japanese Empire, which, due to some misunderstanding, turned out to be assimilated by the Russian state.
Of course, for the Japanese militarists, the Ukrainians, like other peoples outside the Land of the Rising Sun, remained barbarians, but they could be perfectly used to weaken the Russian / Soviet state - Japan's only full-fledged rival in East Asia at that time. Beginning in the second half of the 1920s, Japanese intelligence intensified its work among illegal circles of Ukrainian nationalists who remained on the territory of the defeated "Green Wedge" after the final entry of the Far East into the Soviet state.
Their task in the direction of the development of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, the Japanese intelligence services saw its activation in the Ukrainian anti-Soviet groups bordering with the puppet Manchuria and the subsequent creation of a Ukrainian "state" on the territory of the Soviet Primorye. In the opinion of Japanese strategists, interethnic conflicts of peoples inhabiting the Far East were supposed to destabilize the situation in the region, weaken Soviet power there and, after the outbreak of the Soviet-Japanese war, contribute to the rapid transition of the Far East under the control of the Japanese Empire.
The Japanese special services hoped that, provided a powerful separatist movement was created, they would be able to draw most of the Little Russians living in the Far East into the orbit of anti-Soviet activities. Since Little Russians and their descendants constituted up to 60% of the population in a number of regions of the Far East, the Japanese special services were very interested in inciting separatist sentiments among them.
At the same time, it was somehow overlooked that the overwhelming majority of the Little Russian population of the Far East was loyal to both the Russian imperial and then Soviet power and was not going to conduct any subversive activities. Even among the emigrants living in Manchuria, the ideology of "Ukrainian independence" was not very popular. However, the Japanese intelligence officers did not leave hopes for a turning point in the consciousness of the Ukrainians and were ready to use for anti-Soviet subversive activities even that part of the Ukrainians who were loyal to the socialist and communist ideology - if only they shared the conviction of the need to form Ukrainian autonomy in the Ussuri region.
Manchuria became the basis for the formation of the anti-Soviet Ukrainian movement in the region. Here, in the pro-Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, after the end of the Civil War, at least 11 thousand Ukrainian emigrants settled, who were fertile ground for anti-Soviet agitation. Naturally, the Japanese special services immediately managed to recruit some authoritative leaders among the emigre community and turn them into conductors of Japanese influence.
In the process of preparing for a war with the Soviet Union, the Japanese special services turned to a tried and tested method - the creation of radical anti-Soviet organizations. The largest of these was Sich, the Ukrainian military organization officially founded in Harbin in 1934. How seriously the question of the impending confrontation with the Soviet Union was raised in UVO Sich is evidenced at least by the fact that a military school was opened during the organization. The Japanese special services planned to send the militants trained in it against the Soviet regime, especially since there were no more excellent scouts and saboteurs for the Japanese - it is impossible to distinguish a “pro-Japanese” Ukrainian from a Soviet Ukrainian. Accordingly, the Sich UVO militants could become excellent assistants to the Japanese troops in the Far East, indispensable in carrying out subversive activities.
The Japanese special services attached great importance to propaganda. The Ukrainian-language magazine Dalekiy Skhid was founded, in which they did not hesitate to publish not only Ukrainian nationalist authors, but also Adolf Hitler himself, who at that time had just come to power in Germany and personified hopes for the destruction of Soviet statehood. However, the Soviet special services in the Far East were also on the alert. They managed to establish quickly that the Ukrainian nationalists in the region do not represent a real force.
Moreover, in fact, they are adventurers who, either by virtue of their own stupidity or for mercantile reasons, play on the side of the Japanese. Naturally, in case of military success in the Far East, Japan would be least of all concerned about the creation of an independent Ukrainian state here. Most likely, Ukrainian nationalists would simply be destroyed. The Soviet government acted more humanely towards them. After the victory over Japan, the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalists arrested in Manchuria received ten years in camps.
The modern population of the Far East, including the Little Russian by origin, for the most part does not associate itself with the Ukrainians. If the 1926 census, as we remember, spoke about 18% of Ukrainians in the region's population, then the 2010 All-Russian Population Census showed the number of those who considered themselves Russians in more than 86% of the residents of Primorye who participated in the census, while only 2 called themselves Ukrainians, 55% of the residents of the Primorsky Territory. With the cessation of artificial "Ukrainization", the Little Russians of the Far East have finally decided on their Russian self-identification, and now they do not separate themselves from other residents of the region who speak Russian.
This is how the history of Ukrainian separatism in the Far East and attempts to create an independent state "Green Wedge" ended ingloriously. Its key characteristic, which brings it closer to other similar projects, is its obvious artificiality. Foreign special services interested in destabilizing the Russian state are refined in attempts to create structures that could "eat" Russia from the inside, first of all by sowing the seeds of enmity between the common brotherly people of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. Adventurers, political crooks, spies, greedy people take the bait abandoned by foreign agents. Sometimes their activity suffers a complete fiasco, as in the case of the Green Wedge, but sometimes it entails many years of armed confrontation and leads to the death of thousands of people, like the Bandera movement or its new reincarnation.
