By the end of the First World War, grain and foodstuffs were vital to military economies, physical survival, and political order. This paper examines how colonial visions of Ukraine as a “breadbasket” and the violent extraction of resources provoked armed resistance by local Ukrainian peasants. It focuses on the period from the Central Powers’ occupation of Ukraine in 1918 to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. Under the pressure of violent requisitions, the peasantry developed their own concepts of grain sovereignty, creating “peasant bread republics.” These republics, typically born from rebellions against occupying forces, often did not see themselves as part of either the Ukrainian nation-state or the Bolshevik socialist polity. However, they developed in violent dialogue with both. This paper traces the mishmash of influences and ideologies that shaped these republics—nationalist, Bolshevik, anarchist, or even criminal—highlighting the diverse and contested notions of sovereignty and self-determination that emerged in Ukraine following the collapse of the Romanov Empire.
