Poster · Ukrainian People’s Republic · 1917 · Ukrainian War of Independence
I don’t want what isn’t mine, and I won’t give up what is!
Original: «Чужого не хочу, а свого не віддам!»
This slogan is more than a hundred years old, yet it reads like a Ukrainian social-media post from 2022.
- Artist
- Bohush Shippikh
- Themes
It shows a woman in Ukrainian dress. With one arm she holds a child close; with the other she raises a blade against a double-headed eagle swooping down on her. Beside her is the inscription: «Чужого не хочу, а свого не віддам!» — “I don’t want what isn’t mine, and I won’t give up what is!” One phrase holds both a renunciation of conquest and a readiness to defend.
In 1917, after the fall of the autocracy, the Central Rada was formed in Kyiv. Its Third Universal of November 1917 proclaimed the Ukrainian People’s Republic. The leaflet appeared just then, in late 1917, when the young state first had to explain what it claimed and what it would not give up. Within weeks Bolshevik Russia marched on Kyiv, and in January 1918 the Fourth Universal declared the Republic’s independence.
The technique is a defensive formula. The poster does not call for a campaign: the woman stands on her own land and fights only because she has been attacked. Ukraine here is a mother protecting her child, not a warrior marching on someone else’s land. The enemy is named without a single word: the double-headed eagle, coat of arms of the empire Ukraine had just broken free from. Images like this speak to two audiences at once: to their own side, giving it a sense of being in the right, and to the neighbour, drawing a red line.
Semper Idem · today’s parallel
In 2022 Ukraine spoke in the same formula — we do not need anyone else’s land, but we will not give up our own. And since 1993 the double-headed eagle has again been Russia’s coat of arms. This is exactly what sets Ukraine apart from the aggressor: imperial propaganda always lays claim to what belongs to others and calls it a “return”. But the parallel has a bitter side too: in 1918 the slogan alone was not enough to hold Kyiv. Will without an army is just a leaflet.
Context
Ukrainian People’s Republic, Kyiv, 1917. Signed: “Bohush Shippikh” (identity unknown). Publisher: Vernyhora, Kyiv. Leaflet-poster.
The image: a woman in Ukrainian dress, holding a child, raises a blade against a double-headed eagle; the slogan is written beside her.
The Third Universal of the Central Rada (November 1917) proclaimed the Ukrainian People’s Republic. At the end of 1917 Bolshevik Russia launched an offensive against Ukraine; in January 1918 the Fourth Universal declared the Republic’s independence.
Sources
- Wikimedia Commons (скан: muzejunr.io.ua) (in Ukrainian)
- Енциклопедія сучасної України, «Вернигора» (in Ukrainian)
- Лозовой, Національний юридичний університет (2017) (in Ukrainian)
- Музей УНР (muzejunr.io.ua) (in Ukrainian)
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