Huliaipole is a small city in Zaporizhia
Oblast, Ukraine.
The name of the city means a walk-about field.
Prior to the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire the area
was mostly settled by Cossacks and the nomad people of the Nogai Horde Minor.
Later in the history as an illustration of the amount of political and military
chaos in the region, Huliaipole changed hands no less than 16 times from
1917–1921, including being held by Austrian troops, the Red Army, Ukrainian
nationalists, the Hetmanate, the White Army, and anarchist Makhnovist forces
It is known as a birthplace of Nestor Makhno.
He was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist revolutionary and the commander of an
independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War.
As commander of the Revolutionary
Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, more commonly referred to as the
Makhnovshchina, Makhno led a guerrilla campaign during the Russian Civil War.
Makhno fought all factions that sought to impose any external authority over
southern Ukraine, battling in succession the Ukrainian Nationalists, the
Imperial German and Austro-Hungarian occupation, the Hetmanate Republic, the
White Army, the Red Army, and other smaller forces led by Ukrainian atamans.
Makhno and his movement repeatedly attempted to reorganize life in the
Gulai-Polye region along anarchist-communist lines; however, the disruptions of
the civil war precluded any long term social experiments. Although Makhno
considered the Bolsheviks a threat to the development of an anarchist Free
Territory within Ukraine, he twice entered into military alliances with them to
defeat the White Army. In the aftermath of the White Army's final defeat in
November 1920, the Bolsheviks initiated a military campaign against Makhno,
which concluded with his escape across the Romanian border in August 1921. After
a series of imprisonments and escapes, Makhno finally settled in Paris with his
wife Galina and daughter Yelena. Makhno died in exile at the age of 45 from
tuberculosis-related causes.
This coin was issued to commemorate the 125th
anniversary of the birth of Nestor Makhno.