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Relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Ukrainian people stretch back to the fifteenth century, though various Turkic peoples had been in close contact with the Slavic inhabitants of the lands which constitute the territory of contemporary Ukraine for at least a millennium. However, the Russian annexation of the Zaporozhian lands and other areas inhabited by the `Little Russians', as well as the collapse of the Crimean Khanate and the consequent Ottoman withdrawal from the areas north of the Black Sea in the course of almost two centuries resulted by the nineteenth century in a sharp break in these relations. It was to take a long time until the beginning of the First World War when the Ottomans would be reminded of the particular identity of the native people of these lands through the Ukrainian national movement actively working via the channels of the Central Powers. The first nationalist organization aiming at the ultimate independence of Ukraine which included the Ottoman Empire in its sphere of activities was the `Union for the Liberation of Ukraine' (Soyuz Vyzvolennya Ukrayiny).
Before the outbreak of the First World War, a number of Ukrainian revolutionaries and nationalists had taken refuge in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, particularly in the Western Ukrainian provinces of East Galicia and Bukovina. The Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (ULU) was formally founded in Lemberg (Lviv) in 4 August 1914 by the most prominent figures among these emigre politicians who cherished hopes of realizing their ideals after the eventual defeat of the Russian Empire. Though it kept close contact with the local (Western) Ukrainians, the ULU was an exclusive organization of the Ukrainians from the Russian Empire. The founders of the ULU were mostly socialists, and they included Andriy Zhuk, Oleksander SkoropysYoltukhivs'kyi, Volodymyr Kozlovs'kyi, Mariyan Basok-Melenevs'kyi, Oleksander Semeniv, Peter Bendzia, Mykola Zaliznyak (the leader of the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries; he left the Union soon after and conducted his own activities independently), Dmytro Dontsov (who signed the founding declaration, but soon turned against the Union) and others.' The ultimate aim of the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine was stated in its first declaration as follows: `In this Union all shades of political interests are represented, and these have united in the claim for the political independence...