Lecture 32: Revolutions in the Russian Empire

Professor Paul Robert Magocsi — Ukraine: A History Course.

The Ukrainian Jewish Encounter is pleased to present a lecture series by Paul Robert Magocsi titled Ukraine: A History Course. Magocsi recorded 45 lectures in 2023 at the University of Toronto, where he holds the professorial Chair of Ukrainian Studies and is a history and political science professor. He is also a Board Member of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

Magocsi, one of the world’s leading experts on Ukraine, explores this fascinating country in all its complexity, from its history, culture, geography, politics, and multi-ethnic composition. The lectures are an important counterweight to Russian propaganda and explain Ukraine’s importance to global security today.

Time stamps are available for each lecture. Auto-translate is available in Ukrainian, major European, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern languages, including Hebrew and Yiddish.

Recordings of the lecture series were made possible with the support of the Temerty Foundation.

All the lectures are available on YouTube here.

7:04 Prince Georgii Lvov with members of the Committee of Russia's State Duma, February 1917
7:43 Tsar Nicholas II arrives at the railway car to sign his abdication, 15 March 1917
9:15 Dual Power, Triune Power
16:17 Ukrainian Revolutionary Era — Three Phases
19:43 Ukrainian Central Rada, 1917–1918
20:43 Professor Mykhailo Hrushveskyi upon election as head of the Ukrainian Central Rada, March 1917
28:21 Hrushevsky welcomes delegates to the All-Ukrainian Soldiers Congress which issue the First Universal declaring Ukraine a distinct autonomous land, Kyiv, June 1917; First Universal of the Ukrainian Central Council
29:09 The First General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Central Rada, 1917 Standing (from left to right): Pavlo Hrystiuk, Mykola Stasiuk, Borys Martos Seated (from left to right): Ivan Steshenko, Khrystofor Baranovskyi, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Serhii Yefremov, Simon Petliura
30:25 Aleksander Kerenskii as Minister of War in the Provisional government and as delegate addressing the Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies, August 1917
35:21 Vladimir Ulianov, alias Lenin, photo from 1916
36:07 Lev Bronstein, alias Leon Trotsky, photo from 1917
36:49 Detachment of the Red Guards in Petrograd, 1917
37:41 Vladimir Lenin in disguise during his last exile, July–October 1917
38:07 Red Guards outside the Smolnii Palace in Petrograd, late October 1917
39:23 Council of People's Commissars: Josif Dzhugashvili, alias Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky
42:34 Third Universal of the Ukrainian Central Rada issued in four languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Yiddish
43:17 Revolutionary Ukraine 1917–1918
47:13 Reconstructed image of Bolshevik-led congress in Kharkiv proclaiming first Soviet government of the Republic of Councils of Ukraine, 25 December 1917

For further information, you may wish to consult: A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (University of Toronto Press, 2010)

Robert Paul Magocsi
Chair of Ukrainian Studies University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada, September 2023.