Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

SERDIUK (GUARDS) DIVISIONS. Named after the mercenary Serdiuk regiments formed under the Ukrainian Hetman State in the late 17th century, during the civil wars (and particularly the opening stages of the Soviet–Ukrainian War) this was the archaic title granted to elite volunteer units of the Ukrainian Army that emerged during its formation in the winter of 1917–1918. From November 1917, two such units (numbering 12,000 men in total) were created around Kiev, one commanded by Colonel Yurii Kapkan and the other by General Oleksandr Hrekiv. In January 1918, four of their regiments helped defend the Ukrainian capital from the Red advance, although several others, unwilling to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the socialist-dominated Ukrainian National Republic, remained neutral in the struggle.

In January–February 1918, the Serediuk Divisions were disbanded by the Ukrainian Central Rada, although many of their men then joined the Independent Zaporozhian Detachment (forerunner of the Zaporozhian Corps). In July 1918, a reconstituted Serdiuk Regiment, chiefly consisting of volunteers from the wealthier elements of the peasantry of Left-Bank Ukraine, was attached to the Hetmanite Army of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii, although most of its elements joined the forces of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic as they overthrew the Ukrainian State in November–December 1918.

Serebrennikov, Ivan Innokent′evich (14 July 1882–1953?). One of those advocates of Siberian regionalism who initially supported the Whites but found themselves ostracized by the military, I. I. Serebrennikov was born into a well-to-do peasant family at Znamenskii-Verkhlensk, near Irkutsk. In 1901, he entered the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, but dropped out after one year to join the revolutionary movement. In 1907, he was arrested, imprisoned, and exiled as a member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries, but he really made more of an impression in this period as a frequently published statistician and geographer of Siberia (eventually becoming director of the Siberian Section of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in 1915). From 1913 to 1917, by which time his political convictions had moved to the center-right, Serebrennikov was secretary of the Irkutsk City Duma and was also active in Zemgor during the First World War.

In 1917, Serebrennikov became increasingly involved in Siberian regionalist circles, and in January 1918 he was elected, in absentia, to the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia, as minister of food and supply. He then lived and worked at Tomsk, until the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime in June 1918, when he moved to Omsk to become minister of supply in the Provisional Siberian Government. He also chaired its Administrative Council. In September 1918, as acting chairman of its Council of Ministers (in the absence of P. V. Vologodskii), he headed the Siberian government’s delegation to the Ufa State Conference. He was briefly minister of supply in the Omsk government of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, but as a Siberian oblastnik (even as one of quite conservative opinions), he was treated with suspicion by the Russian-nationalist White military, and in December 1918, he was forced out of his post (his ministry then being merged with the Ministry of Food).

Serebrennikov subsequently returned to Irkutsk, to run the Institute for the Study of Siberia, and was engaged in research into the economy of the Buriat people. In this period, he worked also as editor of the newspaper Velikaia Rus′ (“Great Russia”). In emigration from 1920, he taught for a year at the law school in Harbin and then ran the Russian Commercial School at Tientsin (1922–1924), where he also led an émigré organization, the Russian National Community. At the same time, he continued his scholarly research, publishing widely on Russian history, the economy of Manchuria, the place of religion in Chinese culture, and other subjects. After a period living in Japan, he moved to the United States at some point in the 1930s.