After the defeat of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Vienna became one of the main centers of Ukrainian political emigration. Between 1920 and 1921, the Vorwärts printing house published works by leading figures of the Ukrainian Revolution, which helped preserve the Ukrainian state idea, culture, and political thought. One such work was Pavlo Chyzhevsky’s unique 1921 publication, Osnovy ukrainskoi derzhavnosti (Fundamentals of Ukrainian Statehood).
The author was a prominent Ukrainian political and public figure, inventor, Minister of Finance, and an active propagandist for the Ukrainian People’s Republic worldwide who dedicated his life to the struggle for an independent and strong Ukraine. Pavlo Chyzhevsky’s ideas on economics and state-building were far ahead of his time. He dreamed of a united, successful Ukraine and dedicated his organizational skills, knowledge, and energy to this goal.
The book Osnovy ukrainskoi derzhavnosti is one of the first thorough drafts of the Constitution of the Ukrainian State. The work consists of three chapters in which the author defines Ukraine as a democratic republic where the people are the source of power, and human rights and freedoms hold the highest value. Chyzhevsky paid considerable attention to local self-government, drawing on the historical traditions of the Ukrainian zemstvo, and established the basic principles of state power organization.
The publication contains 64 pages of typeset text in Ukrainian and was printed by the Vienna-based printing house Vorwärts (German for "Forward"). It features a soft cover, and the title page includes the title, author, year, place of publication, and the publisher’s name.