Chapter 445: Basil's at his Best:
Outside of the so called Russian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), the Ukrainian SSR had been the Second most important inside the Soviet Union. It consisted of 443,000 km² or 275,300 mi² and 32 ,000,000 million people. The true Ukrainian settlement region however consisted of totally 760,000 km² or 472,300 mi². Out of this outside of the Ukrainian SSR settled Ukrainian ethnic region, 144,000 km² or 89,500 mi² belonged to the Russian SSR, 132,000 km² or 82,020 mi² in Poland, 17,600 km² or 10,940mi² in Romania and 14,800 km² or 9,200mi² in Czechslowakia. The independence of the Ukrainian people that was realized in 1648 after three centuries of suppression, was quickly lost again after only one century. The attempt to regain this independence after the First Great War, to seperate themselves from Greater-Russia, did not succeed either. The Ukrainian people however never stopped to believe that some day, they would on the base of their own ethnic settled lands erect a independent Ukrainian Nation State once again. Because of that, the Ukrainian SSR was a growing threat to the Soviet Rulers in Moscow, as it refused despite all repression, starvation and terror to give up it's Ukrainian identity.
Quiet the contrary, the Ukrainian the down-home and anti-communist roots of the Ukrainians hardened inside of them, even if it was deadly to show them to the outside world. The Nationalist tendencies of the Ukrainians was a in this chase growing problem for the Soviet rule from Moscow, as the Ukrainian SSR conentrated a huge amount of the economic power of the Soviet Union inside it's borders. The Ukraine was the major breadbasket for the Soviet Union, and in the Donetz region had it's biggest industrial region inside it's borders. The coal and iron ore from there powered the heavy industry and armament centers of the Soviet Union. The development of industrial regions and the water power station Dnjeprostroi only increased the industrial importance of the Ukrainian SSR. The Ukrainian harbors at the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov were one of the most important gateways of the Soviet Union into the Oceans of the World. With the creation of industrial centers in Central Asia and Siberia, the development of a agrarian region in the North and East, Moscow tried it's best to become more independent from the Ukrainian SSR and to decrease the political independence of the Ukrainian SSR.
This might have worked, had the Axis Central Powers not esablished the Kingdom of Ukrainia under Archduke Wilhelm Franz of Austria, later Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen, also known as Basil the Embroidered (Ukrainian: Василь Вишиваний, translit. Vasyl Vyshyvani, known as King E.K.S. Vasyl I. Vyshyvanyi von Habsburg) and the Red Prince/ King. Out of the former Polish eastern provinced of Poleskie with 36,700 km² or 22,804 mi² (with a population of 1,132,200) and Volhynian with 35,700 km² or 22,182 mi² (with a population of 2,085,600) formed the new Ukrainian Kingdom. However the Ukrainian settled Polish Provinces of Tarnopol with 16,500 km² or 10,253 mi² (with a population of 1,600,400), Stanislawów with 16,900 km² or 10,501 mi² (with a populaton of 1,480,300) and Lwów with 28,400 km² or 17,647 mi² (with a population of 3,126,300) became part of the Autria-Hungarian Empire, while in their majority Ukainian, became part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, instead of another part of the King of Ukrainia under Vasyl I Vyshyvanyi.
While Basil/ Vayl was not bothered that much by this, just like his Cossack, Polish and even some Russian subects in the newly independent Ukrainian Kingdom, many Ukrainian National Monarchists were outraged, that the region was not part of a Greater Kingdom of Ukrainia. Meawhile many Goten-Deutsche (Gothic-Germans alias Ukrainian-Germans) secretly supported this move, wishing for a Germanistion of the Autria-Hungarian Empir and the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. They even proposed to resettle the Ukrainians there into the Kingdom of Ukrainia, in exhange for Germans from Austria or the Ukraine, a idea heavily supported in Vienna. Basil/ Vasil manwhile in his Kingdom of Ukrainia with it's 515,400 km² or 320,286 mi² and 22,000,000 to 29,800,000 nagotiated a deal to appease the Ukrainian Nationalists, who wished to annex parts of the other ethnic Ukrainian regions (by now Austria-Hungary, Romania and Russia), to unite them into the Greater Ukrainian Kingdom of 760,000 km² or 472,300 mi². King Basil/ Vasil's deal with Austria-Hungary allowed for Ukrainian authonomy inside of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and to even elect their own government and send these elected into the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council or parliament) of the Kingdom of Ukrainia as part of the Ukrainian constitutional monarchy.
Other ethnic and regional goals of the Ukrainian National, lik claiming and taking land from Romania Kingdom and the newly established Empire of Russia were not aimed as strong by Basil/ Vasil as by Ukrainian Nationalists. Mainly because King Basil/ Vasil knew that good relation with the Russian Empire were as important as good relations with the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Basil realized that with the Finnish Kingdom, the United Baltic Duchy , the Neo-Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus Region and the Imperial Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere (mainly the Empire of Manchuria) claiming and conquering Soviet Union and Russian Borderlands, the remaining Russian harbors at the Black Sea became much more important or them. So Basil or Vasil of the Kingdom of Ukrainia meet with the Ukrainian Nationalists and declared them that with the Austria-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire as their main allies in the Region it was best to not anger them with territorial claims.
Further more Basil/ Vasil told them, that if the Ukrainians playied their cards right, both side would protect their independence from the other, fearing ech other to gain more power and that with the German Empire also depending on their grain and iron ore, the Ukrainian Kingdom would also get it's independence granted by them and could become a major independent and influential power inside the Axis Central Powers and Europe. In further support of Ukrainian Nationalism and his own Monarchism, therefore the ruling Ukrainian National Monarhism, King Basil the Embroidered/ Vasyl Vyshyvani announced the Vyshyvanka (Ukrainian: вишива́нка or виши́ванка) Day, named after the colloquial name for the embroidered shirt in Ukrainian and Belarusian national costumes. Vyshyvankas were distinguished by local embroidery features, that Basil/ Vasil himelf wore and earned his nickname from. From this day onward, on Vyshyvanka Day, Ukrainian Culture, Tradition and Values were celebrted and it beame the second most important Ukrainian Kingdom holiday after the Ukrainian Independence Day itself.