Name change

• General Ukrainian Unaffiliated Democratic Organization (1897 - 1904)
• Ukrainian Democratic Party (1904 - 1905)
  • Ukrainian Radical Party (1904 - 1905)
• Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party (1905 - 1908)
• Society of Ukrainian Progressionists (1908 - 1917)
• Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists (1917 - 1923)
• Ukrainian Radical Democratic Party (1923 - 1939)

ZUBDO

The party was formed out of the General Ukrainian Organization, also known as General Ukrainian Unaffiliated Democratic Organization (ZUBDO). ZUBDO was formed also in Kiev earlier in 1897 by the Ukrainized Polish political activist Volodymyr Antonovych

Volodymyr Antonovych

Volodymyr Antonovych , was a prominent Ukrainian historian and one of the leaders of the Ukrainian national awakening in the Russian Empire. As a historian, Antonovych, who was longtime Professor of History at the University of Kiev, represented a populist approach to Ukrainian history.This...

 and the Ukrainian lexicograph Oleksandr Konysky

Oleksandr Konysky

Oleksandr Yakovych Konysky — was a Ukrainian interpreter, writer, lexicograph, pedagogue, poet, and civil activist of liberal direction. He had several pen names О. Return-freedom , F. Gorovenko, V. Burkun, Perebendia, О. Khutorianyn, and others...

. That organization united all Hromadas from some 20 cities across the Ukrainian lands. The organization published the magazine Vik, organized the Shevchenko's festivals, and provided political sanctuary

Sanctuary

A sanctuary is any place of safety. They may be categorized into human and non-human .- Religious sanctuary :A religious sanctuary can be a sacred place , or a consecrated area of a church or temple around its tabernacle or altar.- Sanctuary as a sacred place :#Sanctuary as a sacred place:#:In...

 for the politically persecuted national activists.

First years and Split

The UDP was seeking liquidation of a absolutism

Absolutism

The term Absolutism may refer to:* Absolute idealism, an ontologically monistic philosophy attributed to G.W.F. Hegel. It is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole...

 in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 and the introduction of a constitutional order (similarly to the Russian Kadets). The party also was pursuing an autonomy for the Ukrainian lands with its own regional diet (sejm) and implementation of the Ukrainian language

Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

 throughout the territory. Among its early leaders were Serhiy Yefremov

Serhiy Yefremov

Serhiy Yefremov was a Ukrainian literary journalist, historian, critic, political activist, statesman, and academician. He was a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Science and Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv...

, Borys Hrinchenko

Borys Hrinchenko

Borys Dmytrovych Hrinchenko was a classical Ukrainian prose writer, political activist, historian, publicist, and ethnographer. He was instrumental in the Ukrainian cultural revival of the late 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries....

, Yevhen Chykalenko.
At the end of 1904 a left-inclined group of its party members split into another political party, the Ukrainian Radical Party. Unlike the democrats, the Ukrainian radicals were for the constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...

. Among the radicals were the above mentioned Serhiy Yefremov, Borys Hrinchenko as well as Modest Levytsky, Fedir Matushevsky, and others. The party published its periodicals in Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

 and Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. It did not manage to create much of influence on the local population in Ukraine and in the autumn of 1905 reunited back with democrats into the Ukrainian Democratic Radical Party (UDRP).

UDRP

The fundamental principals of the party were parliamentarism and federalism

Federalism

Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...

: Ukraine had to acquire under the Constitution of Russia a wide degree autonomy. UDRP also was seeking a compulsory purchase from the private owners its land and industries that eventually would be nationalized. The party was represented in the State Duma of the Russian Empire

State Duma of the Russian Empire

The State Duma of the Russian Empire was a legislative assembly in the late Russian Empire, which met in the Taurida Palace in St. Petersburg. It was convened four times between 1906 and the collapse of the Empire in 1917.-History:...

 in its first two convocations. The State Duma UDRP parliamentarians organized into the Duma's Ukrainian Hromada. During this period the party published its own press media Hromada's Thought which was a predecessor of the newspaper Rada. With early dissolution of the Second State Duma and the growing Russian nationalism on the Ukrainian territory (see Pogroms), the party reorganized into the Society of Ukrainian Progressionists (TUP) together with some members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party

Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party

The Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party was the leading party of the Ukrainian People's Republic and was also known as SDPists or Esdeky. The party was reformed in 1905 at the Second Congress of the RUP and was pursuing the Marxist ideology...

.