page_title: Prometheism
section_title: First period (1918–21)
hierarchical_section_title: Prometheism / First period (1918–21)
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Simon Petljura
context_page_description: Prometheism or Prometheanism was a political project initiated by Józef Piłsudski, statesman of the Second Polish Republic from 1918 to 1935. Its aim was to weaken the Russian Empire and its successor states, including the Soviet Union, by supporting nationalist independence movements among the major non-Russian peoples that lived within the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union.
  Between the World Wars, Prometheism and Piłsudski's other concept, of an "Intermarium federation", constituted two complementary geopolitical strategies for him and for some of his political heirs.
context_section_description: In the first period (1918–21), Poland established her new eastern boundaries in wars with Soviet Russia and Ukraine; her borders with Germany, in the Poznań and Silesian uprisings, and in plebiscite operations in Warmia and Mazury; and her southern borders in plebiscite operations and a brief war with Czechoslovakia over disputed areas of Cieszyn Silesia, Spisz and Orawa.
  In the Baltic basin, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia emerged as independent states. Poland was among the first countries to extend them recognition, although Polish-Lithuanian relations were strained following the Polish-Lithuanian War.
  In the Black and Caspian Sea basins, this period saw the emancipation of Ukraine, Crimea, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Don, Kuban and Northern Caucasus. Signs of national renaissance also appeared in Idel-Ural and Turkestan; there, however,  it was limited to the calling of "National Assemblies."
  Poland's role in the Promethean process was marked by the conclusion of a Polish–Ukrainian political and military alliance (the Warsaw Agreement, April 1920) with Symon Petlura's Ukrainian People's Republic, Piłsudski's expedition to Kiev (begun April 25, 1920), the designation (February 1919) of Bohdan Kutylowski as Polish minister to the Ukrainian People's Republic, the accreditation of a Polish minister to Caucasus, the naming of a military mission to Caucasus, and the Crimean Republic's motion at the League of Nations (May 17, 1920) that Crimea be made a protectorate of Poland.
  Marshal Piłsudski's immediate collaborators in this period included Witold Jodko, Tytus Filipowicz, Gen. Julian Stachiewicz, Col. Walery Sławek, Col. Tadeusz Schaetzel, a Maj. Czarnecki, August Zaleski, Leon Wasilewski, Henryk Józewski, Juliusz Łukasiewicz, Tadeusz Hołówko, Marian Szumlakowski, Jan Dąbski, Mirosław Arciszewski, Maj. Wacław Jędrzejewicz and Roman Knoll.
caption: Symon Petliura
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