This week in history

Jan. 16 1918. The Small Rada of the Ukrainian National Republic enacts a law creating a volunteer army.

1919. Ukraine’s temporary workers’-peasants’ government issues an edict on the nationalization of sugar refineries.

Jan. 17 1919. The Donbas Central Military-Revolutionary Committee is created.

1921. The Ukrainian Free University opens in Vienna. Later it is transferred to Prague, and after the end of the Second World War, to Munich.

Jan. 18 1919. Ukraine’s temporary workers’-peasants’ government issues an edict on the separation of the church from the state.

1944. The first significant armed conflict between the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and NKVD troops takes place in Volyn.

Jan. 19 1906. The first issue of the weekly magazine Shershen, the first satirical revolutionary-oriented publication in the history of Ukrainian journalism, appears.

1992. Reserve officers — citizens of Ukraine — solemnly swear the oath of allegiance in Kyiv, on the initiative of the URP and Rukh.

Jan. 20 1661. Lviv’s Jesuit Collegium is granted the “status of an academy and the title of a university” by a royal privilege.

1943. The first issue of Ukrainske Slovo (Ukrainian Word) is published in Winnipeg (Canada).

Jan. 21 1919. The All-People’s assembly in Khust resolves to annex Transcarpathia to the Ukrainian National Republic.

1934. At the XII Congress of the CP(B)U a decision is passed to transfer the capital of Ukraine from Kharkiv to Kyiv.

Jan. 22 Ukrainian Unification Day

1919. On St. Sophia’s Square the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic proclaims the reunification of the Ukrainian National Republic and the Western Ukrainian National Republic into a single Ukraine.

1992. The First Ukrainian World Congress takes place in Kyiv.