25 Karbovantsiv

The Ukrainian People's Republic had existed for barely a year when this note was issued, having proclaimed independence from Russia in January 1918 and immediately signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers — the first sovereign peace treaty Ukraine ever concluded. The karbovanets itself was introduced as a deliberate break from the Russian ruble, the name revived from a historical Ukrainian monetary unit to signal discontinuity with imperial currency.

The series was designed by Heorhiy Narbut, a graphic artist whose woodcut-influenced style drew on Ukrainian baroque and folk traditions rather than the academic engraving conventions common to European state printing of the period. Narbut died of typhus in 1920, leaving this series among his most complete applied works.