Ukrainian National Republic
WWI issued Diplomatic passport.
One of the RAREST travel documents a collector can put his hands on is the example featured in today’s article: 1919 Vienna issued consular DIPLOMATIC passport.
The First World War that raged for about 4 long years on the continent also led to some fundamental changes to the old world order and to states and governments forming and falling.
From the year 1917 to 1921 existed in Europe a new state, a republic that was ushered due to the violent circumstances that erupted in the former Russian Empire and that ceased to exist in the same manner, in a way, that it came to birth: via a violent struggle engulfing its people.
The young republic originally was part of the Russian Republic, a new and short lived entity that existed on what was formerly the Russian Empire. On January 25th 1918 it proclaimed it’s independence but it formerly ceased to exist as a state in 1921, following the Polish Second Republics singing of the Peace of Riga in 1921 ( the Ukrainian National Republic was also know as the Ukrainian Peoples Republic).
Following the developments that existed in the former Russian Empire, the eruption of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 that swept across the lands and resulted in the formation of the USSR at the end, which consisted also of the former young and short lived republic, the government fled west and ended up in the Polish city of Tarnow (from 1920 to 1923 Tarnow as the location of the Government-in-Exile of the UNR – first partial evacuation of the government to Poland was in late 1919 and completely by the following year). From 1921 they moved to Warsaw, Paris and Prague.
Therefore, any passport or travel document that was issued by a short-lived-entity or government is exceptionally appealing to both collectors and historians, mainly due to the logical fact that years later, examples that were issued did not survive and thus making them among the rarest and most desired for. The example here would then be considered as one of the RAREST and important specimen from the era of WWI. More important is the fact that it was not just a regular passport but a DIPLOMATIC example and also a consular issue!
Ukrainian National Republic diplomatic passport numbered 1094 was issued by the embassy in Vienna in 1919 to Stanislaw Starossolsky who was the secretary of the diplomatic legation at Switzerland, another fascinating and important fact that adds to this treasures importance.
The passport was used to travel then from Switzerland back to Poland, to the republics place of exile in Tarnow, we can find the government’s seal and annotation on the last page dating from February 24th 1921, its last year of existence, extending the validity of the passport.
Inside this document we can find early post-WWI diplomatic visas issued by Czechoslovakia, Poland and even the short-lived Republic of German-Austria issued endorsement by its Foreign Ministry.
Additional documents are official certificates and appointments of the above mentioned secretary hand signed by the republic’s Foreign Minister Vladimir Temnitsky, dating from 1919 and 1920.
Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.
