Documents About Military and Political Activity Symon Petliura During the Period of the Directory of the UNR in the Fonds of the State Archives of Kyiv Region

The article is devoted to the personality of Symon Petliura (1879–1926) as a state-political and military actor of the Directory of the UkrainianPeople's Republic (1918–1920). The activity of one of the leaders of the UPR in thefi eld of building of Ukrainian statehood (in particular, at the stages of preparationand implementation of the anti-Hetman uprising, approval and realization of powerby the Directory, resistance to Bolshevik aggression, etc.) is analyzed through thedocuments stored in the State Archives of Kyiv Region. The aim of the researchis to introduce into scientifi c circulation and popularize a set of little-studieddocuments on the activities of one of the leaders of the Ukrainian national liberationstruggle of 1917–1921. The research methodology includes general scientifi cmethods (analysis, synthesis, comparison, descriptive, detailing, generalization,objective-factual). In the course of searching and processing archival documents,studying the military-political activity of S. Petliura, the author used fi rst of all themethodology used in archival heuristics, as well as special-historical methodology,in particular, historical-chronological, historical-comparative, historical-genetic,reconstructive, historical-typological, historical-systemic and biographical methods,method of historical-source analysis. The chosen methodology allowed to identifyand analyze archival documents, identify key research objectives and implementthem consistently. The scientifi c novelty of the article is that for the fi rst time theinformation potential of the State Archives of Kyiv Region documents for studyingthe political and military activity of S. Petliura is analised. Special attention is paidto sources from the environment of the political opponents of the Chief Otaman ofthe Republican Military Forces – Hetmans and Bolsheviks. The conclusions statethat the documents stored in the State Archives of Kyiv Region allow us to tracethe evolution of the popularity of S. Petliura as a military-political personality andto detail the signifi cant moments of his struggle for Ukrainian statehood as well asto reconstruct the regional aspect of the key events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921.