He began to preach boldly, that the only way to gain state independence was through armed conflict and that this was the only path for the Ukrainian people.

As a freshman at the Kyiv University, Mikhnovsky joined the Ukrainian national movement and became a member of the "Young community".

The first Ukrainian national organization with a clearly political purpose was founded by a group of students from Kharkiv and Kyiv Universities, which in summer 1891 took the oath of allegiance to Ukraine, and founded a secret political society, named the "Taras Fraternity" in honour of Ukrainian national leader Taras Shevchenko.

The Taras Fraternity declared its goal to fight for "an independent sovereign Ukraine, united, whole and undivided, from the San to the Kuban rivers, from the Carpathians to the Caucasus, between the free-free, with no master and no boor, without the class struggle within the federation".

Yet, throughout Ukraine isolated supporters appeared who shared their views, not only among students, but also including peasants, petty bourgeoisie, and intelligentsia.

In 1897, he travelled to the city, which had established close relationships with western leaders and purchased a large number of illegal publications, including works by Mykhailo Drahomanov and Ivan Franko.

[2] After the 1905 Revolution, Mikhnovsky founded a few Ukrainian newspapers and, in 1909, helped to create a mutual credit society in Kharkiv.

[2] After the Central Council refused to support the club, its members started a coup attempt, which ended in a failure.

[2] Mikhnovsky was detained by the gendarmerie and sent for military service to the Romanian Front (without direct evidence of his involvement in the coup, nor an official investigation).

[2] After the October Revolution in Russia, he returned to Ukraine and entered the Ukrainian Democratic Peasant Party (UDKhP), founded by Vyacheslav Lypynsky.

[2] Mikhnovsky considered the new government to be extremist and incompetent, and his party plotted to replace its leadership either with colonel Petro Bolbochan or Sich Riflemen leader Yevhen Konovalets.

[2] On 3 May 1924, Mikhnovsky was found hanged in a garden belonging to his long-time political ally Volodymyr Shemet.

[2] During the era of Soviet rule in Ukraine, public mention of Mikhnovsky was forbidden, as he was considered a Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist.