Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Encyclopedia
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) ( or ОУН) is a Ukrainian
political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine
(at the time interwar Poland
). The OUN accepted violence
as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland
and Russia
. The OUN's stated immediate goal was to protect the Ukrainian
population from repression and exploitation by Polish governing authorities in particular; its ultimate goal was an independent and unified Ukrainian state that would include territories inhabited primarily by ethnic Ukrainians but whch were under the rule of the Polish, Soviet, Romanian, and Czechoslovak states. In 1940, the OUN split into two parts, with the older more moderate members supporting Andriy Melnyk
(OUN-M) while the younger and more radical members supporting Stepan Bandera
(OUN-B). The latter group came to control the nationalist movement in western Ukraine including the OUN's military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which was the major Ukrainian armed resistance movement
.
was taken over by Poland. One year later, exiled Ukrainian officers created the Ukrainian Military Organization
(Ukrainian - Українська Військова Організація: Ukrayins'ka Viys'kova Orhanizatsiya, the UVO), an underground military organization composed of Ukrainian veterans whose goal was to continue the armed struggle against Poland, to destabilize the political situation, and to prepare disarmed veterans for an anti-Polish uprising. The UVO was strictly a military organization with a military command structure. Originally under the authority of the exiled government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, in 1925 following a power struggle all the supporters of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic's exiled president Yevhen Petrushevych
were expelled.
UVO's leader was Yevhen Konovalets
, the former commander of the elite Sich Riflemen
unit of the Ukrainian military, and was secretly funded by West Ukrainian political parties. Although it engaged in acts of sabotage, including the attempted assassination in 1921 of Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, it was more of a military protective group than a terrorist underground. When in 1923 the Allies recognized Polish rule over western Ukraine, many members left the organization, and the Ukrainian legal parties turned against its militant actions preferring to work within the Polish political system. As a result, the UVO turned to Germany and Lithuania for political and financial support, and established contact with militant anti-Polish student organizations, such as the Group of Ukrainian National Youth, the League of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth. After preliminary meetings in Berlin in 1927 and Prague
in 1928, at the founding congress in Vienna
in 1929 the veterans of the UVO and the student militants met in Vienna
and united to form the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Although most of its members were Galician youths, its first leader was Yevhen Konovalets
and its leadership council, the Provid, was composed mostly of veterans and was based abroad.
(UNDO). This party promoted constitutional democracy and sought to achieve independence through peaceful means. UNDO was supported by the Ukrainian clergy, intelligentsia, and the traditional establishment and published the main western Ukrainian newspaper, Dilo.
In contrast, the OUN accepted violence as a political tool against foreign and domestic enemies of their cause. Most of its activity was directed against Polish
politicians and government representatives. Under the command of the Western Ukrainian Territorial Executive (established February 1929), the OUN carried out hundreds of acts of sabotage
in Galicia and Volhynia
, including a campaign of arson
against Polish landowners (which helped provoke the 1930 Pacification
), boycotts of state schools and Polish tobacco and liquor monopolies, dozens of expropriation
attacks on government institutions to obtain funds for its activities, and some sixty assassination
s. Some of the OUN's victims included Tadeusz Hołówko, a Polish promoter of Ukrainian/Polish compromise, Emilian Czechowski, Lviv
's Polish police commissioner, Alexei Mailov, a Soviet consular official killed in retaliation for the Holodomor
, and most notably Bronisław Pieracki, the Polish interior minister. The OUN also killed moderate Ukrainian figures such as the respected teacher (and former officer of the military
of the West Ukrainian People's Republic) Ivan Babii, and in 1930 assaulted the head of the Shevchenko Scientific Society
Kyryl Studynsky
in his office. Such acts were condemned by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
, Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky, who was particularly critical of the OUN's leadership in exile who inspired acts of youthful violence, writing that they were "using our children to kill their parents" and that "whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of the people."
As Polish persecution of Ukrainians during the interwar period increased, many Ukrainians (particularly the youth, many of whom felt they had no future) lost faith in traditional legal approaches, in their elders, and in the western democracies who were seen as turning their backs on Ukraine. This period of disillusionment coincided with the increase in support for the OUN. By the beginning of the Second World War, the OUN was estimated to have 20,000 active members and many times that number in sympathizers. Many bright students, such as the talented young poets Bohdan Kravtsiv and Olena Teliha
(executed by the Nazis at Babi Yar
) were attracted to the OUN's revolutionary message.
In 1936 and 1937, the Poles used claims of OUN involvement to justify mass arrests of Ukrainians, particularly youths.
In carrying out the tactics to destroy the Polish-Ukrainian agreement, the OUN also organized attacks on those Ukrainians who have called for peaceful coexistence of Poles and Ukrainians. From 1921 to 1939 UVO and OUN carried out 63 assassinations: 36 Ukrainians (among them one communist), 25 Poles, 1 Russian and 1 Jew.
As a means to gain independence from Polish and Soviet oppression, before World War II the OUN accepted material and moral support from Nazi Germany
. The Germans, needing Ukrainian assistance against the Soviet Union, were expected by the OUN to further the goal of Ukrainian independence. Although some elements of the German military were inclined to do so, they were ultimately overruled by Adolf Hitler
and his political organization, whose racial prejudice against the Ukrainians precluded cooperation.
There had always been some tension within the OUN between the young radical Galician students and the older military veteran leadership based abroad. The older generation has the experience of growing up in a stable society and of having fought for Ukraine in regular armies; the younger generation had only known Polish repression and an underground struggle. The leadership abroad, or Provid, thought of itself as an unapproachable elite. Most of the Provid, such as general Mykola Kapustiansky
, referred to themselves using their military titles acquired during the war (which the youthful members could never attain). They were also more politically moderate, and adhered to an officer's code of honor and standards of military discipline that prevented them from fully following the belief that any means could be used to achieve the goal. In contrast, the youths were more impulsive, violent, and ruthless. The older leaders living in exile admired aspects of Benito Mussolini
's fascism
but condemned Nazism while the younger more radical members based within Ukraine admired fascist ideas and methods as practiced by the Nazis. Despite such differences, the OUN's leader Yevhen Konovalets
through his considerable political skill and reputation was able to command enough respect to maintain unity between both groups within the organization. This unity was, however, shattered when Konovalets was assassinated by Soviet agent Pavel Sudoplatov
in Rotterdam
in May, 1938. Andriy Melnyk
, a 48 year old former colonel
in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic
and one of the founders of the Ukrainian Military Organization was chosen to lead the OUN despite not having been involved in political or terrorist activities throughout the 1930s. Calm and dignified, Melnyk was more friendly to the Church than were any of his associates (the OUN was generally anti-clerical), and had even became the chairman of a Ukrainian Catholic
youth organization that was regarded as anti-Nationalist by many OUN members. His choice was seen as an attempt by the leadership to repair ties with the Church and to become more pragmatic and moderate. However, this direction was opposite to the trend within western Ukraine itself.
The Galician youths formed the majority of the membership. Due to their presence in western Ukraine rather than in exile abroad, they faced the danger of arrest and imprisonment. Yet, they were shut out of the leadership. After failing to come to an agreement with their elder leaders in the Provid, in August 1940 they held their own leadership conference, choosing Stepan Bandera
, who as an iron-willed, extremist conspirator was in many ways the opposite of the cautious, moderate and dignified Melnyk. On the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union
, the OUN was thus divided into two competing and hostile factions: the "legitimate" OUN-M headed by Andrii Melnyk and the OUN-B (or OUN-R for "revolutionary") headed by Stepan Bandera
. Each group had its strengths. The OUN-M retained the loyalty of some youths in Galicia as well as a majority of the youths in the regions of Bukovyna and Trancarpathia
, whose political leader monsignor Avgustyn Voloshyn praised Melnyk as a Christian of European culture, in contrast to many nationalists who placed the nation above God. The OUN-M's leadership was more experienced and had some limited contacts in Eastern Ukraine; it also maintained contact with German intelligence
and the Germany army. The OUN-B, on the other hand, enjoyed the support of the majority of the nationalistic Galician youth, who formed the backbone of the underground Ukrainian nationalist movement. It had a strong network of devoted followers and was powerfully aided by Mykola Lebed
, who began to organize the feared Sluzhba Bezpeky or SB, a secret police force modelled on the Cheka
with a reputation for ruthlessness.
Within the Bandera group but somewhat apart from its political leaders such as Stepan Bandera
or Mykola Lebed were a number of young Galicians who were less concerned with ideology and whose interests were primarily pragmatic and military. The most prominent among them was Roman Shukhevych
. This group was not yet very significant, although their importance would increase rapidly later, during the period of OUN war-time resistance.
in September 1939, both factions of the OUN collaborated with the Germans and used the opportunity of the invasion to send their activists into Soviet-controlled territory. OUN-B leader Stepan Bandera
held meetings with the heads of Germany's intelligence, regarding the formation of "Nachtigall
" and "Roland
" Battalions. On February 25, 1941 head of the Abwehr
Wilhelm Franz Canaris sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command. The unit would have had 800 persons. OUN-R expected that the unit would become the core of the future Ukrainian army. In the spring the OUN received 2.5 million marks for subversive activities against the USSR. In the spring of 1941 the Legion was reorganized. One of the units became known as Nachtigall Battalion
, a second became the Roland Battalion
, a remained personnel was inmmidiately dispatched into Soviet Union for sabotage of Red Army's rear.
Eight days after Germany's invasion of the USSR
, on June 30, 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of Ukrainian State
in Lviv
, with Yaroslav Stetsko
as premier
.
In response to the declaration, OUN-B leaders and associates were soon arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo
(ca.1500 persons). Many OUN-B members were killed outright, or perished in jails and concentration camps. Both of Bandera's brothers were murdered at Auschwitz. On September 18, 1941 Bandera
and Stetsko
were sent to Sachsenhausen
concentration camp in "Zellenbau Bunker". With Bandera were all the most important prisoners of the third Reich, such as the ex-prime minister of France Léon Blum
and ex-chancellor of Austria, Kurt Schuschnigg
. Prisoners of Zellenbau received help from the Red Cross unlike common concentration camp prisoners and were able to send and receive parcels from their relatives. Bandera also received help from the OUN-B including financial assistance. The Germans permitted the Ukrainian nationalists to leave the bunker for important meeting with OUN representatives in Fridental Castle which was 200 meters from Sachsenhausen., where they were kept until September 1944.
As a result of the German crackdown on the OUN-B, the faction controlled by Melnyk enjoyed an advantage over its rival and was able to occupy many positions in the civil administration of former Soviet Ukraine during the first months of German occupation. The first city which it administered was Zhitomir, the first major city across the old Soviet-Polish border. Here, the OUN-M helped stimulate the development of Prosvita
societies, the appearance of local artists on Ukrainian-language broadcasts, the opening of two new secondary schools and a pedagogical institute, and the establishment of a school administration. Many locals were recruited into the OUN-M. The OUN-M also organized police forces, recruited from Soviet prisoners of war. Two members senior members of its leadership, or Provid, even came to Zhitomir. At the end of August 1941, however, they were both gunned down, allegedly by the OUN-B which had justified the assassination in their literature and had issued a secret directive (referred to by Andriy Melnyk
as a "death sentence") not to allow OUN-M leaders to reach Kiev. In retaliation, the German authorities, often tipped off by OUN-M members, began mass arrests and executions of OUN-B members, to a large extent eliminating it in much of central and eastern Ukraine.
As the Wehrmacht
moved East, the OUN-M established control of Kiev
's civil administration; that city's mayor from October 1941 until January 1942, Volodymyr Bahaziy
, belonged to the OUN-M and used his position to funnel money into it and to help the OUN-M take control over Kiev's police. The OUN-M also initiated the creation of the Ukrainian National Council in Kiev, which was to become the basis for a future Ukrainian government. At this time, the OUN-M also came to control Kiev's largest newspaper and was able to attract many supporters from among the central and eastern Ukrainian intelligentsia
. Alarmed by the OUN-M's growing strength in central and eastern Ukraine, the German Nazi authorities swiftly and brutally cracked down on it, arresting and executing many of its members in early 1942, including Volodymyr Bahaziy
, and the writer Olena Teliha
who had organized led the League of Ukrainian Writers in Kiev. Although during this time elements within the Wehrmacht
tried in vain to protect OUN-M members, the organization was largely wiped out within central and eastern Ukraine.
the OUN-B, with easy access from its base in Galicia, began to establish and consolidate its control over the nationalist movement and much of the countryside. Unwilling and unable to openly resist the Germans in early 1942, it methodically set about creating a clandestine organization, engaging in propaganda work, and building weapons stockpiles. A major aspect of its programme was the infiltration of the local police; the OUN-B was able to establish control over the police academy in Rivne
. By doing so the OUN-B hoped to eventually overwhelm the German occupation authorities ("If there were fifty policemen to five Germans, who would hold power then?"). In their role within the police, Bandera's forces were involved in the extermination of Jewish civilians and the clearing of Jewish ghettos, actions that contributed to the OUN-B's weapon stockpiles. In addition, blackmailing Jews served as a source of added finances. During the time that the OUN-B in Volhynia was avoiding conflict with the German authorities and working with them, resistance to the Germans was limited to Soviet partisans on the extreme northern edge of the region, to small bands of OUN-M fighters, and to a group of guerillas knowns as the UPA or the Polessian Sich
, unaffiliated with the OUN-B and led by Taras Bulba-Borovets
of the exiled Ukrainian People's Republic
.
By late 1942, the status quo for the OUN-B was proving to be increasingly difficult. The German authorities were becoming increasingly repressive towards the Ukrainian population, and the Ukrainian police were reluctant to take part in such actions. Furthermore, Soviet partisan activity threatened to become the major outlet for anti-German resistance among western Ukrainians. By March 1943, the OUN-B leadership issued secret instructions ordering their members who had joined the German police in 1941-1942, numbering between 4,000-5,000 trained and armed soldiers, to desert with their weapons and to join the units of the OUN-B in Volyn. Borovets attempted to unite his UPA, the smaller OUN-M and other nationalist bands, and the OUN-B underground into an all-party front. The OUN-M agreed, while the OUN-B refused, in part due to the insistence of the OUN-B that their leaders be in control of the organization. After negotiations failed, the OUN commander Dmytro Klyachkivsky coopted the name of Borovets' organization, UPA, and decided to accomplish by force what could not be accomplished through negotiation: the unification of Ukrainian nationalist forces under OUN-B control. On July 6, the large OUN-M group was surrounded and surrendered, and soon afterward most of the independent groups disappeared; they were either destroyed by the Communist partisans or the OUN-B, or joined the latter. On August 18, 1943, Taras Bulba-Borovets
and his headquarters was surrounded in a surprise attack by OUN-B force consisting of several battalions. Some of his forces, including his wife, were captured, while five of his officers were killed. Borovets escaped but refused to submit, in a letter accusing the OUN-B of among other things: banditry; of wanting to establish a one-party state; and of fighting not for the people but in order to rule the people. In retaliation, his wife was murdered after two weeks of torture at the hands of the OUN-B's SB. In October 1943 Bulba-Borovets largely disbanded his depleted force in orer to end further bloodshed. In their struggle for dominance in Volhynia, the Banderists would kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians for links to Bulba-Borovets or Melnyk.
and southwstern Polesia
. While the Germans controlled the large towns and major roads, such a large area east of Rivne
had come under the control of the OUN-B that it was able to set about creating a "state" system with military training schools, hospitals and a school system, involving tens of thousands of personnel. Its military, the UPA, which came under the command of Roman Shukhevich in August 1943, would fight against the Germans and later the Soviets until the mid-1950s. It would also play a major role in the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population
from western Ukraine. For more information about the UPA, see: Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
. The OUN-B formed, in 1943, an organization called the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
(headed by Yaroslav Stetsko). The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
it created and headed would include at various times emigre organizations from almost every eastern European country with the exception of Poland: Croatia, the Baltic countries, anti-communist emigre Cossacks, Hungary, Georgia, Czechia, and Slovakia. In the 1970s the ABN was joined by anti-communist Vietnamese and Cuban organizations.
In 1956 Bandera's OUN split into two parts, the more moderate OUN(z) led by Lev Rebet
and Zinoviy Matla, and the more conservative OUN led by Stepan Bandera
.
After the fall of Communism the both OUN factions resumed activities within Ukraine. The Melnyk faction threw its support behind the Ukrainian Republican Party
at the time that it was headed by Levko Lukyanenko
. The OUN-B reorganized itself within Ukraine as the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists
(KUN) (registered as a political party in January 1993). Its conspirational leaders within the diaspora did not want to openly enter Ukrainian politics, and attempted to create imbue this party with a democratic, moderate facade. However, within Ukraine the project attracted more primitive nationalists who took the party to the right. During the Ukrainian parliamentary election, 1998
the party was part (o.a. together with Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor") of the Election Bloc "National Front" which won 2,71% of the national votes and 6 (single-mandate constituency) seats. The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists was a member of Viktor Yushchenko
's Our Ukraine Bloc in the 2002
and 2006 parliamentary elections
. Until her death in 2003, KUN was headed by Slava Stetsko, widow of Yaroslav Stetsko, who also simultaneously headed the OUN and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.
The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists refused to join the Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc in August 2007 and did not run in the 2007 parliamentary elections
.
On March 9, 2010 the OUN rejected Yulia Tymoshenko
's calls to unite "all of the national patriotic forces" led Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko against President
Victor Yanukovych. OUN did demand that Yanukovych should reject the idea of cancelling the Hero of Ukraine
status given to Stepan Bandera
and Roman Shukhevych
, Yanukovych should continue the practice of recognizing fighters for Ukraine's independence, which was launched by (his predecessor) Viktor Yushchenko
, and posthumously award the Hero of Ukraine titles to Symon Petliura and Yevhen Konovalets
.
; after his assassination he was succeeded by Andriy Melnyk
resulting in a split where the Galician youths followed their own Vozhd, Stepan Bandera
. Underneath the Vozhd were the Provid, or directorate. At the start of the second world war the OUN's leadership consisted of the Vozhd, Andrii Melnyk, and eight members of the Provid. The Provid members were: Generals Kurmanovych and Kapustiansky (both generals from the times of Ukraine's revolution in 1918-1920); Yaroslav Baranovsky, a law student; Dmytro Andriievsky, a politically moderate former diplomat of the revolutionary government from eastern Ukraine; Richard Yary
, a former officer of the Austrian and Galician militaries who served as a liaison with the German Abwehr; colonel Roman Sushko, another former Austrian and Galician officer; Mykola Stsyborsky
, the son of a tsarist military officer from Zhytomir, who served as the OUN's official theorist; and Omelian Senyk, a party organizer and veteran of the Austrian and Galician armies who by the 1940s was considered too moderate and too conservative by the youngest generation of Galician youths. Yary would be the only member of the original Provid to join Bandera after the OUN split.
, an émigré from Eastern Ukraine.
of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been largely liberal or socialist, combining Ukrainian national consciousness with patriotism and humanist values. In contrast, the nationalists who emerged in Galicia following the First World War, much as in the rest of Europe, adopted the form of nationalism known as Integral nationalism
. According to this ideology, the nation was held to be of the highest absolute value, more important than social class, regions, the individual, religion, etc. To this end, OUN members were urged to "force their way into all areas of national life" such as institutions, societies, villages and families. Politics was seen as a Darwinian struggle between nations for survival, rendering conflict unavoidable and justifying any means that would lead to the victory of one's nation over that of others. In this context willpower was seen as more important than reason, and warfare was glorified as an expression of national vitality. Integral nationalism
became a powerful force in much of Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. The OUN's conceptualization of this idea was particular in several ways. Because Ukraine was stateless and surrounded by more powerful neighbors, the emphasis on force and warfare was to be expressed in acts of terrorism rather than open warfare, and illegality was glorified. Because Ukrainians did not have a state to glorify or serve, the emphasise was placed on a "pure" national language and culture rahter than a State. There was a strain of fantastic romanticism
, in which the unsophisticated Ukrainian rejection of reason was more spontaneous and genuine than the cynical rejection of reason by German or Italian integral nationalists.
claimed that the 20th century would witness the "twilight of the gods to whom the nineteenth century prayed" and that a new man must be created, with the "fire of fanatical commitment" and the "iron force of enthusiasm", and that the only way forward was through "the organization of a new violence." This new doctrine was the chynnyi natsionalizm – the "nationalism of the deed". To dramatize and spread such views, OUN literature mythologized the cult of struggle, sacrifice, and emphasized national heroes.
The OUN, particularly Bandera, held a romantic view of the Ukrainian peasantry, glorified the peasants as carriers of Ukrainian culture and linked them with the deeds and exploits of the Ukrainian Cossacks from previous centuries. The OUN believed that a goal of professional revolutionaries was, through revolutionary acts, to awaken the masses. In this aspect the OUN had much in common with 19th century Russian Narodnik
s.
, and similar groups in Slovakia and Poland. There were, however, significant differences within the OUN regarding the extent of its totalitarianism. The more moderate leaders living in exile admired some facets of Benito Mussolini
's fascism
but condemned Nazism while the younger more radical members based within Ukraine admired the fascist ideas and methods as practiced by the Nazis. The faction based abroad supported rapprochement with the Ukrainian Catholic Church
while the younger radicals were anti-clerical and felt that not considering the Nation to be the Absolute was a sign of weakness.
The two factions of the OUN each had their own understanding of the nature of the leader. The Melnyk faction considered the leader to be the director of the Provid and in its writings emphasized a military subordination to the hierarchical superiors of the Provid. It was more autocratic than totalitarian. The Bandera faction, in contrast, emphasized complete submission to the will of the supreme leader.
At a party congress in August 1943, the OUN-B rejected much of its fascistic ideology in favor of a social democratic model, while maintaining its hierarchical structure. This change could be attributed in part to the influence of the leadership of Roman Shukhevych
, the new leader of UPA, who was more focused on military matters rather than on ideology and was more receptive to different ideological themes than were the fanatical OUN-B political leaders, and was interested in gaining and maintaining the support of deserters or others from Eastern Ukraine. During this party congress, the OUN-B backed off its commitment to private ownership of land, increased worker participation in management of industry, equality for women, free health services and pensions for the elderly, and free education. Some points in the program referred to the rights of national minorities and guaranteed freedom of speech, religion, and the press and rejected the official status of any doctrine. Nevertheless, the authoritarian elements were not discarded completely and were reflected in continued insistence on the "heroic spirit" and "social solidarity, friendship and discipline."
In exile, the OUN's ideology was focused on opposition to communism.
, Rico Yary
(himself of Hungarian-Jewish descent), and Mykola Stsyborsky
(the OUN's chief theorist ), were married to Jewish women and Jews belonged to the OUN's underground movement.
According to the OUN, Ukraine's primary enemies were considered to be Poles and Russians, with Jews playing a secondary role. The OUN attitude towards the Jews was initially supportive in the early 1930s but grew more negative towards the end of that decade. An article published in 1930 by OUN leader Mykola Stsyborsky
denounced the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1918, stating that most of its victims were innocent rather than Bolsheviks. Stsyborsky wrote that Jewish rights should be respected, that the OUN ought to convince Jews that their organization was no threat to them, and that Ukrainians ought to maintain close contacts with Jews nationally and internationally. Three years later, an article in the OUN journal Rozbudova Natsii ("Development of the Nation"), despite focused on the alleged exploitation of Ukrainian peasants by Jews, also showed that Jews as well as Ukrainians were victims of Soviet policies. By the late 1930s, however, in OUN publications Jews were described as parasites who ought to be segregated from Ukrainians. For example, an article titled "The Jewish Problem in Ukraine" published in 1938 called for Jews' complete cultural, economic and political isolation from Ukrainians while also rejecting forced assimilation of Jews and stating that Jews ought to enjoy the same rights as Ukrainians. Despite the increasingly negative portrayal of Jews, for all of its glorification of violence Ukrainian nationalist literature generally showed little interest in Nazi-like antisemitism during the 1930s. Evhen Onatsky, writing in the OUN's official journal in 1934, condemned German National Socialism as imperialist, racist and anti-Christian.
German documents from the early 1940s lead to the impression that extreme Ukrainian nationalists were indifferent to the plight of the Jews; they were willing to either kill them or help them, whichever was more appropriate, for their political goals. The OUN-B's ambivalent wartime attitude towards the Jews was highlighted during the Second General Congress of OUN-B (April, 1941, Kraków)in which the OUN-B condemned anti-Jewish pogroms. and specifically warned against the pogromist mindset as useful only to Muscovite propaganda. At that conference the OUN-B declared "The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine. The Muscovite-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses to divert their attention from the true cause of their misfortune and to channel them in a time of frustration into pogroms on Jews. The OUN combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously it renders the masses conscious of the fact that the principal foe is Moscow."
On the other hand, the OUN was willing to support Nazi antisemitic policies if doing so would help their cause. The OUN sought German recognition for an independent Ukrainian state. Despite its declared condemnation of pogroms in April 1941, when German official Reinhard Heydrich
requested "self-cleansing actions" in June of that year the OUN organized militias who killed several thousand Jews in western Ukraine soon afterward that year. Some historians, such as Yad Vashem
, have claimed that militas under the OUN's command were involved in the massacre of 6,000 Jews in Lviv soon after that city's fall to German forces,. although this claim is controversial and disputed by other historians (see The Lviv pogroms controversy (1941)). OUN members spread propaganda urging people to engage in pogroms. A slogan put forth by the Bandera
group and recorded in the July 16, 1941 Einsatzgruppen
report stated: "Long live Ukraine without Jews, Poles and Germans; Poles behind the river San, Germans to Berlin, and Jews to the gallows". In instructions to its members concerning how the OUN should behave during the war, it declared that "in times of chaos ... one can allow oneself to liquidate Polish, Russian and Jewish figures, particularly the servants of Bolshevik-Muscovite imperialism" and further, when speaking of Russians, Poles, and Jews, to "destroy, in the struggle, especially those who defend the [Soviet] regime: send them to their lands, destroy them - especially the intelligentsia...assimilation of the Jews is ruled out." OUN members who infiltrated the German police were involved in clearing ghettos and helping the Germans to implement the Final Solution
. Although most Jews were actually killed by Germans, the OUN police working for them played a crucial supporting role in the liquidation of 200,000 Jews in Volyn in the beginning of the war (although in isolated cases Ukrainian policemen also helped Jews to escape ) The OUN also helped some Jews to escape. According to a report to the Chief of the Security Police in Berlin, dated March 30, 1942, "...it has been clearly established that the Bandera movement provided forged passports not only for its own members, but also for Jews.". OUN bands also killed Jews who had fled into the forests from the Germans.
Once the OUN was at war with Germany, such instances lessened and finally stopped. An underground OUN publication in 1943 condemned "German racism, which carried anthropological nonsense to the absurd." In the official organ of the OUN-B's leadership, instructions to OUN groups urged those groups to "liquidate the manifestations of harmful foreign influence, particularly the German racist concepts and practices." There were many cases of Jews having been sheltered from the Nazis by the OUN-B's military wing UPA and Jews fought in the ranks of UPA . Finally, the 3rd OUN Congress held in August 1943 proclaimed equal rights to all minorities inhabiting Ukraine
The OUN position concerning the Jews was disseminated through its IDEIA I CHYN clandestine journal, and it specifically asked for resistance to manifestations of Antisemitism.
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
(at the time interwar Poland
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
). The OUN accepted violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. The OUN's stated immediate goal was to protect the Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
population from repression and exploitation by Polish governing authorities in particular; its ultimate goal was an independent and unified Ukrainian state that would include territories inhabited primarily by ethnic Ukrainians but whch were under the rule of the Polish, Soviet, Romanian, and Czechoslovak states. In 1940, the OUN split into two parts, with the older more moderate members supporting Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk , Ukrainian military and political leader.-Life:Born near Drohobych, Galicia into a peasant family. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna...
(OUN-M) while the younger and more radical members supporting Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
(OUN-B). The latter group came to control the nationalist movement in western Ukraine including the OUN's military wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which was the major Ukrainian armed resistance movement
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
.
Background and creation
In 1919, the West Ukrainian National RepublicWest Ukrainian National Republic
The West Ukrainian People's Republic was a short-lived republic that existed in late 1918 and early 1919 in eastern Galicia, that claimed parts of Bukovina and Carpathian Ruthenia and included the cities of Lviv , Przemyśl , Kolomyia , and Stanislaviv...
was taken over by Poland. One year later, exiled Ukrainian officers created the Ukrainian Military Organization
Ukrainian Military Organization
The Ukrainian Military Organization was a Ukrainian resistance and sabotage movement active in Poland's Eastern Lesser Poland during the years between the world wars...
(Ukrainian - Українська Військова Організація: Ukrayins'ka Viys'kova Orhanizatsiya, the UVO), an underground military organization composed of Ukrainian veterans whose goal was to continue the armed struggle against Poland, to destabilize the political situation, and to prepare disarmed veterans for an anti-Polish uprising. The UVO was strictly a military organization with a military command structure. Originally under the authority of the exiled government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, in 1925 following a power struggle all the supporters of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic's exiled president Yevhen Petrushevych
Yevhen Petrushevych
Yevhen Petrushevych was a Ukrainian lawyer, politician, and president of the Western Ukrainian National Republic formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918.-Biography:He was born on June 3, 1863, in the town of Busk, of Galicia in the clerical...
were expelled.
UVO's leader was Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets was a military commander of the UNR army and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement...
, the former commander of the elite Sich Riflemen
Sich Riflemen
The Sich Riflemen Halych-Bukovyna Kurin were one of the first regular military units of the Army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The unit operated from 1917 to 1919 and was formed from Ukrainian soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, local population and former commanders of the Ukrainian Sich...
unit of the Ukrainian military, and was secretly funded by West Ukrainian political parties. Although it engaged in acts of sabotage, including the attempted assassination in 1921 of Polish leader Józef Piłsudski, it was more of a military protective group than a terrorist underground. When in 1923 the Allies recognized Polish rule over western Ukraine, many members left the organization, and the Ukrainian legal parties turned against its militant actions preferring to work within the Polish political system. As a result, the UVO turned to Germany and Lithuania for political and financial support, and established contact with militant anti-Polish student organizations, such as the Group of Ukrainian National Youth, the League of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth. After preliminary meetings in Berlin in 1927 and Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
in 1928, at the founding congress in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1929 the veterans of the UVO and the student militants met in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and united to form the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Although most of its members were Galician youths, its first leader was Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets was a military commander of the UNR army and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement...
and its leadership council, the Provid, was composed mostly of veterans and was based abroad.
Pre-war activities
At the time of its founding, the OUN was originally a fringe movement in western Ukraine, where the political scene was dominated by the mainstream and moderate Ukrainian National Democratic AllianceUkrainian National Democratic Alliance
The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, was the largest Ukrainian political party in the Second Polish Republic, active in territory that is currently Western Ukraine. It dominated the mainstream political life of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, which with almost 14% of Poland's population...
(UNDO). This party promoted constitutional democracy and sought to achieve independence through peaceful means. UNDO was supported by the Ukrainian clergy, intelligentsia, and the traditional establishment and published the main western Ukrainian newspaper, Dilo.
In contrast, the OUN accepted violence as a political tool against foreign and domestic enemies of their cause. Most of its activity was directed against Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
politicians and government representatives. Under the command of the Western Ukrainian Territorial Executive (established February 1929), the OUN carried out hundreds of acts of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
in Galicia and Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
, including a campaign of arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
against Polish landowners (which helped provoke the 1930 Pacification
Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia (1930)
Pacification of Ukrainians refers to the punitive action by police and military of the Second Polish Republic against the Ukrainian minority in Poland in September–November 1930 in response to a wave of more than 2,200 acts of sabotage against Polish property in the region...
), boycotts of state schools and Polish tobacco and liquor monopolies, dozens of expropriation
Confiscation
Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury' is a legal seizure without compensation by a government or other public authority...
attacks on government institutions to obtain funds for its activities, and some sixty assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s. Some of the OUN's victims included Tadeusz Hołówko, a Polish promoter of Ukrainian/Polish compromise, Emilian Czechowski, Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
's Polish police commissioner, Alexei Mailov, a Soviet consular official killed in retaliation for the Holodomor
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
, and most notably Bronisław Pieracki, the Polish interior minister. The OUN also killed moderate Ukrainian figures such as the respected teacher (and former officer of the military
Ukrainian Galician Army
Ukrainian Galician Army , was the Ukrainian military of the West Ukrainian National Republic during and after the Polish-Ukrainian War. -Military equipment:...
of the West Ukrainian People's Republic) Ivan Babii, and in 1930 assaulted the head of the Shevchenko Scientific Society
Shevchenko Scientific Society
The Shevchenko Scientific Society is a Ukrainian scientific society devoted to the promotion of scholarly research and publication. Unlike the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine the society is a public organization that was reestablished in Ukraine in 1989 after almost 50 years of exile...
Kyryl Studynsky
Kyryl Studynsky
Kyryl Studynsky , was a western Ukrainian political and cultural figure from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. One of the principal figures within the Christian Social Movement in Ukraine, in 1939 Studynsky became head of the People's Assembly of Western Ukraine following the Soviet...
in his office. Such acts were condemned by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...
, Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky, who was particularly critical of the OUN's leadership in exile who inspired acts of youthful violence, writing that they were "using our children to kill their parents" and that "whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of the people."
As Polish persecution of Ukrainians during the interwar period increased, many Ukrainians (particularly the youth, many of whom felt they had no future) lost faith in traditional legal approaches, in their elders, and in the western democracies who were seen as turning their backs on Ukraine. This period of disillusionment coincided with the increase in support for the OUN. By the beginning of the Second World War, the OUN was estimated to have 20,000 active members and many times that number in sympathizers. Many bright students, such as the talented young poets Bohdan Kravtsiv and Olena Teliha
Olena Teliha
Olena Ivanivna Teliha was a Ukrainian poet and Ukrainian activist of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity.-Biography:Olena Teliha was born Elena Ivanovna Shovgeneva in the village of Ilyinskoe, near Moscow in Russia where her parents spent summer vacations. There are a several villages by this name...
(executed by the Nazis at Babi Yar
Babi Yar
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of a series of massacres carried out by the Nazis during their campaign against the Soviet Union. The most notorious and the best documented of these massacres took place on September 29–30, 1941, wherein 33,771 Jews were killed in a...
) were attracted to the OUN's revolutionary message.
In 1936 and 1937, the Poles used claims of OUN involvement to justify mass arrests of Ukrainians, particularly youths.
In carrying out the tactics to destroy the Polish-Ukrainian agreement, the OUN also organized attacks on those Ukrainians who have called for peaceful coexistence of Poles and Ukrainians. From 1921 to 1939 UVO and OUN carried out 63 assassinations: 36 Ukrainians (among them one communist), 25 Poles, 1 Russian and 1 Jew.
As a means to gain independence from Polish and Soviet oppression, before World War II the OUN accepted material and moral support from Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. The Germans, needing Ukrainian assistance against the Soviet Union, were expected by the OUN to further the goal of Ukrainian independence. Although some elements of the German military were inclined to do so, they were ultimately overruled by Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and his political organization, whose racial prejudice against the Ukrainians precluded cooperation.
Split in the OUN
Mykola Kapustiansky
Mykola Kapustiansky was a General in the army of the Ukrainian National Republic and one of the founders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.-Biography:...
, referred to themselves using their military titles acquired during the war (which the youthful members could never attain). They were also more politically moderate, and adhered to an officer's code of honor and standards of military discipline that prevented them from fully following the belief that any means could be used to achieve the goal. In contrast, the youths were more impulsive, violent, and ruthless. The older leaders living in exile admired aspects of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
but condemned Nazism while the younger more radical members based within Ukraine admired fascist ideas and methods as practiced by the Nazis. Despite such differences, the OUN's leader Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets was a military commander of the UNR army and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement...
through his considerable political skill and reputation was able to command enough respect to maintain unity between both groups within the organization. This unity was, however, shattered when Konovalets was assassinated by Soviet agent Pavel Sudoplatov
Pavel Sudoplatov
Lieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general...
in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
in May, 1938. Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk , Ukrainian military and political leader.-Life:Born near Drohobych, Galicia into a peasant family. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna...
, a 48 year old former colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...
and one of the founders of the Ukrainian Military Organization was chosen to lead the OUN despite not having been involved in political or terrorist activities throughout the 1930s. Calm and dignified, Melnyk was more friendly to the Church than were any of his associates (the OUN was generally anti-clerical), and had even became the chairman of a Ukrainian Catholic
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...
youth organization that was regarded as anti-Nationalist by many OUN members. His choice was seen as an attempt by the leadership to repair ties with the Church and to become more pragmatic and moderate. However, this direction was opposite to the trend within western Ukraine itself.
The Galician youths formed the majority of the membership. Due to their presence in western Ukraine rather than in exile abroad, they faced the danger of arrest and imprisonment. Yet, they were shut out of the leadership. After failing to come to an agreement with their elder leaders in the Provid, in August 1940 they held their own leadership conference, choosing Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
, who as an iron-willed, extremist conspirator was in many ways the opposite of the cautious, moderate and dignified Melnyk. On the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, the OUN was thus divided into two competing and hostile factions: the "legitimate" OUN-M headed by Andrii Melnyk and the OUN-B (or OUN-R for "revolutionary") headed by Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
. Each group had its strengths. The OUN-M retained the loyalty of some youths in Galicia as well as a majority of the youths in the regions of Bukovyna and Trancarpathia
Carpathian Ruthenia
Carpathian Ruthenia is a region in Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast , with smaller parts in easternmost Slovakia , Poland's Lemkovyna and Romanian Maramureş.It is...
, whose political leader monsignor Avgustyn Voloshyn praised Melnyk as a Christian of European culture, in contrast to many nationalists who placed the nation above God. The OUN-M's leadership was more experienced and had some limited contacts in Eastern Ukraine; it also maintained contact with German intelligence
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
and the Germany army. The OUN-B, on the other hand, enjoyed the support of the majority of the nationalistic Galician youth, who formed the backbone of the underground Ukrainian nationalist movement. It had a strong network of devoted followers and was powerfully aided by Mykola Lebed
Mykola Lebed
Mykola Lebed , also known as Maksym Ruban, Marko or Yevhen Skyrba, was a Ukrainian political activist, Ukrainian nationalist and guerrilla fighter. He was among those tried, convicted, and imprisoned for the murder, in 1936, of Polish Interior Minister Bronislaw Pieracki. The court sentenced him to...
, who began to organize the feared Sluzhba Bezpeky or SB, a secret police force modelled on the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
with a reputation for ruthlessness.
Within the Bandera group but somewhat apart from its political leaders such as Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
or Mykola Lebed were a number of young Galicians who were less concerned with ideology and whose interests were primarily pragmatic and military. The most prominent among them was Roman Shukhevych
Roman Shukhevych
Roman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was a Ukrainian politician and military leader, the general of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.-Childhood:Roman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was born in the city of Krakovets, Jaworow powiat, in Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria which is located today between Lviv and...
. This group was not yet very significant, although their importance would increase rapidly later, during the period of OUN war-time resistance.
Early years of the war and activities in Central and Eastern Ukraine
After the invasion of PolandInvasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
in September 1939, both factions of the OUN collaborated with the Germans and used the opportunity of the invasion to send their activists into Soviet-controlled territory. OUN-B leader Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
held meetings with the heads of Germany's intelligence, regarding the formation of "Nachtigall
Nachtigall Battalion
The Nachtigall Battalion , officially known as Special Group Nachtigall, was the subunit under command of the Abwehr special operation unit Lehrregiment "Brandenburg" z.b.V. 800...
" and "Roland
Roland Battalion
The Roland Battalion , officially known as Special Group Roland, was the subunit under command of the Abwehr special operation unit Lehrregiment "Brandenburg" z.b.V. 800...
" Battalions. On February 25, 1941 head of the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
Wilhelm Franz Canaris sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command. The unit would have had 800 persons. OUN-R expected that the unit would become the core of the future Ukrainian army. In the spring the OUN received 2.5 million marks for subversive activities against the USSR. In the spring of 1941 the Legion was reorganized. One of the units became known as Nachtigall Battalion
Nachtigall Battalion
The Nachtigall Battalion , officially known as Special Group Nachtigall, was the subunit under command of the Abwehr special operation unit Lehrregiment "Brandenburg" z.b.V. 800...
, a second became the Roland Battalion
Roland Battalion
The Roland Battalion , officially known as Special Group Roland, was the subunit under command of the Abwehr special operation unit Lehrregiment "Brandenburg" z.b.V. 800...
, a remained personnel was inmmidiately dispatched into Soviet Union for sabotage of Red Army's rear.
Eight days after Germany's invasion of the USSR
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, on June 30, 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of Ukrainian State
Proclamation of Ukrainian Independence
The Declaration of Ukrainian Independence of June 30, 1941 was announced by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists under the leadership of Stepan Bandera, who declared an independent Ukrainian State in Lviv...
in Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
, with Yaroslav Stetsko
Yaroslav Stetsko
Yaroslav Stetsko was the leader of the Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists , from 1968 until death. In 1941, during Nazi Germany invasion into the Soviet Union he was self-proclaimed temporary head of the self-proclaimed Ukrainian statehood...
as premier
Premier
Premier is a title for the head of government in some countries and states.-Examples by country:In many nations, "premier" is used interchangeably with "prime minister"...
.
In response to the declaration, OUN-B leaders and associates were soon arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
(ca.1500 persons). Many OUN-B members were killed outright, or perished in jails and concentration camps. Both of Bandera's brothers were murdered at Auschwitz. On September 18, 1941 Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
and Stetsko
Yaroslav Stetsko
Yaroslav Stetsko was the leader of the Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists , from 1968 until death. In 1941, during Nazi Germany invasion into the Soviet Union he was self-proclaimed temporary head of the self-proclaimed Ukrainian statehood...
were sent to Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
concentration camp in "Zellenbau Bunker". With Bandera were all the most important prisoners of the third Reich, such as the ex-prime minister of France Léon Blum
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...
and ex-chancellor of Austria, Kurt Schuschnigg
Kurt Schuschnigg
Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schuschnigg was Chancellor of the First Austrian Republic, following the assassination of his predecessor, Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss, in July 1934, until Germany’s invasion of Austria, , in March 1938...
. Prisoners of Zellenbau received help from the Red Cross unlike common concentration camp prisoners and were able to send and receive parcels from their relatives. Bandera also received help from the OUN-B including financial assistance. The Germans permitted the Ukrainian nationalists to leave the bunker for important meeting with OUN representatives in Fridental Castle which was 200 meters from Sachsenhausen., where they were kept until September 1944.
As a result of the German crackdown on the OUN-B, the faction controlled by Melnyk enjoyed an advantage over its rival and was able to occupy many positions in the civil administration of former Soviet Ukraine during the first months of German occupation. The first city which it administered was Zhitomir, the first major city across the old Soviet-Polish border. Here, the OUN-M helped stimulate the development of Prosvita
Prosvita
Prosvita is a society created in the nineteenth century in Ukrainian Galicia for preserving and developing Ukrainian culture and education among population....
societies, the appearance of local artists on Ukrainian-language broadcasts, the opening of two new secondary schools and a pedagogical institute, and the establishment of a school administration. Many locals were recruited into the OUN-M. The OUN-M also organized police forces, recruited from Soviet prisoners of war. Two members senior members of its leadership, or Provid, even came to Zhitomir. At the end of August 1941, however, they were both gunned down, allegedly by the OUN-B which had justified the assassination in their literature and had issued a secret directive (referred to by Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk , Ukrainian military and political leader.-Life:Born near Drohobych, Galicia into a peasant family. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna...
as a "death sentence") not to allow OUN-M leaders to reach Kiev. In retaliation, the German authorities, often tipped off by OUN-M members, began mass arrests and executions of OUN-B members, to a large extent eliminating it in much of central and eastern Ukraine.
As the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
moved East, the OUN-M established control of Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
's civil administration; that city's mayor from October 1941 until January 1942, Volodymyr Bahaziy
Volodymyr Bahaziy
Volodymyr Panteleimonovych Bahasiy , was a Ukrainian nationalist affiliated with the Andriy Melnyk's faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and head of Kiev City Administration under German occupation in October 1941 - January 1942.He was a professional...
, belonged to the OUN-M and used his position to funnel money into it and to help the OUN-M take control over Kiev's police. The OUN-M also initiated the creation of the Ukrainian National Council in Kiev, which was to become the basis for a future Ukrainian government. At this time, the OUN-M also came to control Kiev's largest newspaper and was able to attract many supporters from among the central and eastern Ukrainian intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
. Alarmed by the OUN-M's growing strength in central and eastern Ukraine, the German Nazi authorities swiftly and brutally cracked down on it, arresting and executing many of its members in early 1942, including Volodymyr Bahaziy
Volodymyr Bahaziy
Volodymyr Panteleimonovych Bahasiy , was a Ukrainian nationalist affiliated with the Andriy Melnyk's faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and head of Kiev City Administration under German occupation in October 1941 - January 1942.He was a professional...
, and the writer Olena Teliha
Olena Teliha
Olena Ivanivna Teliha was a Ukrainian poet and Ukrainian activist of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity.-Biography:Olena Teliha was born Elena Ivanovna Shovgeneva in the village of Ilyinskoe, near Moscow in Russia where her parents spent summer vacations. There are a several villages by this name...
who had organized led the League of Ukrainian Writers in Kiev. Although during this time elements within the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
tried in vain to protect OUN-M members, the organization was largely wiped out within central and eastern Ukraine.
OUN-B's struggle for dominance in western Ukraine
As the OUN-M was being wiped out in the regions of central and western Ukraine that had been east of the old Polish-Soviet border, in VolhyniaVolhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
the OUN-B, with easy access from its base in Galicia, began to establish and consolidate its control over the nationalist movement and much of the countryside. Unwilling and unable to openly resist the Germans in early 1942, it methodically set about creating a clandestine organization, engaging in propaganda work, and building weapons stockpiles. A major aspect of its programme was the infiltration of the local police; the OUN-B was able to establish control over the police academy in Rivne
Rivne
Rivne or Rovno is a historic city in western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Rivne Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Rivne Raion within the oblast...
. By doing so the OUN-B hoped to eventually overwhelm the German occupation authorities ("If there were fifty policemen to five Germans, who would hold power then?"). In their role within the police, Bandera's forces were involved in the extermination of Jewish civilians and the clearing of Jewish ghettos, actions that contributed to the OUN-B's weapon stockpiles. In addition, blackmailing Jews served as a source of added finances. During the time that the OUN-B in Volhynia was avoiding conflict with the German authorities and working with them, resistance to the Germans was limited to Soviet partisans on the extreme northern edge of the region, to small bands of OUN-M fighters, and to a group of guerillas knowns as the UPA or the Polessian Sich
Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army
Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army was a paramilitary formation of Ukrainian nationalists, nominally proclaimed in Olevsk region in December 1941 by Taras Bulba-Borovets by renaming an existing military unit known from July 1941 as the UPA-Polissian Sich...
, unaffiliated with the OUN-B and led by Taras Bulba-Borovets
Taras Bulba-Borovets
Taras Dmytrovych Borovets’ , pseudonym Taras Bulba was a Ukrainian nationalist political activist.-Biography:...
of the exiled Ukrainian People's Republic
Ukrainian People's Republic
The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...
.
By late 1942, the status quo for the OUN-B was proving to be increasingly difficult. The German authorities were becoming increasingly repressive towards the Ukrainian population, and the Ukrainian police were reluctant to take part in such actions. Furthermore, Soviet partisan activity threatened to become the major outlet for anti-German resistance among western Ukrainians. By March 1943, the OUN-B leadership issued secret instructions ordering their members who had joined the German police in 1941-1942, numbering between 4,000-5,000 trained and armed soldiers, to desert with their weapons and to join the units of the OUN-B in Volyn. Borovets attempted to unite his UPA, the smaller OUN-M and other nationalist bands, and the OUN-B underground into an all-party front. The OUN-M agreed, while the OUN-B refused, in part due to the insistence of the OUN-B that their leaders be in control of the organization. After negotiations failed, the OUN commander Dmytro Klyachkivsky coopted the name of Borovets' organization, UPA, and decided to accomplish by force what could not be accomplished through negotiation: the unification of Ukrainian nationalist forces under OUN-B control. On July 6, the large OUN-M group was surrounded and surrendered, and soon afterward most of the independent groups disappeared; they were either destroyed by the Communist partisans or the OUN-B, or joined the latter. On August 18, 1943, Taras Bulba-Borovets
Taras Bulba-Borovets
Taras Dmytrovych Borovets’ , pseudonym Taras Bulba was a Ukrainian nationalist political activist.-Biography:...
and his headquarters was surrounded in a surprise attack by OUN-B force consisting of several battalions. Some of his forces, including his wife, were captured, while five of his officers were killed. Borovets escaped but refused to submit, in a letter accusing the OUN-B of among other things: banditry; of wanting to establish a one-party state; and of fighting not for the people but in order to rule the people. In retaliation, his wife was murdered after two weeks of torture at the hands of the OUN-B's SB. In October 1943 Bulba-Borovets largely disbanded his depleted force in orer to end further bloodshed. In their struggle for dominance in Volhynia, the Banderists would kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians for links to Bulba-Borovets or Melnyk.
OUN-B's struggle against Germany and the Soviet Union
By the fall of 1943 the OUN-B forces had established their control over substantial portions of rural areas in VolhyniaVolhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
and southwstern Polesia
Polesia
Polesia is one of the largest European swampy areas, located in the south-western part of the Eastern-European Lowland, mainly within Belarus and Ukraine but also partly within Poland and Russia...
. While the Germans controlled the large towns and major roads, such a large area east of Rivne
Rivne
Rivne or Rovno is a historic city in western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Rivne Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Rivne Raion within the oblast...
had come under the control of the OUN-B that it was able to set about creating a "state" system with military training schools, hospitals and a school system, involving tens of thousands of personnel. Its military, the UPA, which came under the command of Roman Shukhevich in August 1943, would fight against the Germans and later the Soviets until the mid-1950s. It would also play a major role in the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia
The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army West in the Nazi occupied regions of the Eastern Galicia , and UPA North in Volhynia , beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of...
from western Ukraine. For more information about the UPA, see: Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
After the Second World War
After the war, the OUN in eastern and southern Ukraine continued to struggle against the Soviets; 1958 marked the last year when an OUN member was arrested in Donetsk. Both branches of the OUN continued to be quite influential within the Ukrainian diasporaUkrainian diaspora
The Ukrainian diaspora is the global community of ethnic Ukrainians, especially those who maintain some kind of connection, even if ephemeral, to the land of their ancestors and maintain their feeling of Ukrainian national identity within their own local community.-1608 To 1880:After the loss...
. The OUN-B formed, in 1943, an organization called the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations was a co-ordinating center for anti-Communist émigré political organizations from Soviet and other socialist countries. The A.B.N. formation dates back to an underground conference of representatives of non-Russian peoples that took place on November 1943, near...
(headed by Yaroslav Stetsko). The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations was a co-ordinating center for anti-Communist émigré political organizations from Soviet and other socialist countries. The A.B.N. formation dates back to an underground conference of representatives of non-Russian peoples that took place on November 1943, near...
it created and headed would include at various times emigre organizations from almost every eastern European country with the exception of Poland: Croatia, the Baltic countries, anti-communist emigre Cossacks, Hungary, Georgia, Czechia, and Slovakia. In the 1970s the ABN was joined by anti-communist Vietnamese and Cuban organizations.
In 1956 Bandera's OUN split into two parts, the more moderate OUN(z) led by Lev Rebet
Lev Rebet
Lev Rebet was a Ukrainian political writer and anti-communist during World War II. He was a key cabinet member in the Ukrainian government which proclaimed independence on June 30, 1941...
and Zinoviy Matla, and the more conservative OUN led by Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
.
After the fall of Communism the both OUN factions resumed activities within Ukraine. The Melnyk faction threw its support behind the Ukrainian Republican Party
Ukrainian Republican Party
The Ukrainian Republican Party is the first registered political party in Ukraine created on November 5, 1990 by the Ministry of Justice of UkrSSR. URP was founded earlier that year in place of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in April 1990.-History:...
at the time that it was headed by Levko Lukyanenko
Levko Lukyanenko
Levko Lukyanenko ; is a Ukrainian politician, and Soviet dissident and Hero of Ukraine.-Biography:Lukyanenko was born on 24 August 1928 in the Khrypivka village of Chernihiv Oblast, in the USSR...
. The OUN-B reorganized itself within Ukraine as the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists
Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists is a right-wing political party in Ukraine. It was founded on October 18, 1992 and registered with the Ministry of Justice on January 26, 1993. The party leader from its formation and until her death in 2003 was Yaroslava Stetsko .-History:During the 1998...
(KUN) (registered as a political party in January 1993). Its conspirational leaders within the diaspora did not want to openly enter Ukrainian politics, and attempted to create imbue this party with a democratic, moderate facade. However, within Ukraine the project attracted more primitive nationalists who took the party to the right. During the Ukrainian parliamentary election, 1998
Ukrainian parliamentary election, 1998
The second Ukrainian parliamentary election after the collapse of the Soviet Union took place on 29 March 1998. In comparison to the first parliamentary election, this time half of 450 parliament seats were filled by single-seat majority winners in 225 electoral regions , and the other half were...
the party was part (o.a. together with Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor") of the Election Bloc "National Front" which won 2,71% of the national votes and 6 (single-mandate constituency) seats. The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists was a member of Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
's Our Ukraine Bloc in the 2002
Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2002
Ukrainian parliamentary election of 2002 took place on March 31. Half of the deputies to Verkhovna Rada were elected on proportional basis, while the other half were elected by popular vote in single-mandate constituencies...
and 2006 parliamentary elections
Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2006
The Ukrainian parliamentary election took place on March 26, 2006. Election campaigning officially began on July 7, 2005. Between November 26 and December 31, 2005 party lists of candidates were formed....
. Until her death in 2003, KUN was headed by Slava Stetsko, widow of Yaroslav Stetsko, who also simultaneously headed the OUN and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.
The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists refused to join the Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc in August 2007 and did not run in the 2007 parliamentary elections
Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2007
Early parliamentary elections in Ukraine took place on 30 September 2007. The date of the election was determined following agreement between the President Viktor Yushchenko, the Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Moroz on 27 May 2007, in an attempt...
.
On March 9, 2010 the OUN rejected Yulia Tymoshenko
Yulia Tymoshenko
Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko , née Grigyan , born 27 November 1960, is a Ukrainian politician. She was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 24 January to 8 September 2005, and again from 18 December 2007 to 4 March 2010. She placed third in Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful...
's calls to unite "all of the national patriotic forces" led Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko against President
President of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
Victor Yanukovych. OUN did demand that Yanukovych should reject the idea of cancelling the Hero of Ukraine
Hero of Ukraine
Hero of Ukraine is the highest state decoration that can be conferred upon an individual citizen by the Government of Ukraine. The title was created in 1998 by President Leonid Kuchma and as of August 25 2011 the total number of awards is 265. The award is divided into two classes of distinction:...
status given to Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
and Roman Shukhevych
Roman Shukhevych
Roman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was a Ukrainian politician and military leader, the general of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.-Childhood:Roman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was born in the city of Krakovets, Jaworow powiat, in Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria which is located today between Lviv and...
, Yanukovych should continue the practice of recognizing fighters for Ukraine's independence, which was launched by (his predecessor) Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
, and posthumously award the Hero of Ukraine titles to Symon Petliura and Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets was a military commander of the UNR army and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement...
.
Organization
The OUN was led by a Vozhd or Supreme Leader. Originally the Vozhd was Yevhen KonovaletsYevhen Konovalets
Yevhen Konovalets was a military commander of the UNR army and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement...
; after his assassination he was succeeded by Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk
Andriy Melnyk , Ukrainian military and political leader.-Life:Born near Drohobych, Galicia into a peasant family. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna...
resulting in a split where the Galician youths followed their own Vozhd, Stepan Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
. Underneath the Vozhd were the Provid, or directorate. At the start of the second world war the OUN's leadership consisted of the Vozhd, Andrii Melnyk, and eight members of the Provid. The Provid members were: Generals Kurmanovych and Kapustiansky (both generals from the times of Ukraine's revolution in 1918-1920); Yaroslav Baranovsky, a law student; Dmytro Andriievsky, a politically moderate former diplomat of the revolutionary government from eastern Ukraine; Richard Yary
Richard Yary
Richard Franz Marian Yary was a Ukrainian nationalist journalist, politician and military figure....
, a former officer of the Austrian and Galician militaries who served as a liaison with the German Abwehr; colonel Roman Sushko, another former Austrian and Galician officer; Mykola Stsyborsky
Mykola Stsyborsky
Mykola Stsiborskyi , also may be spelled Stsiborsky, Stsyborsky, Ściborski, or Sciborski was a Ukrainian nationalist politician who served on the Provid, or central leadership council of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists , and who was its chief theorist...
, the son of a tsarist military officer from Zhytomir, who served as the OUN's official theorist; and Omelian Senyk, a party organizer and veteran of the Austrian and Galician armies who by the 1940s was considered too moderate and too conservative by the youngest generation of Galician youths. Yary would be the only member of the original Provid to join Bandera after the OUN split.
Ideology
The OUN grew from the 1917-1921 veterans, whose vision of an independent Ukrainian state had been short lived. According to its initial declaration, the primary goal of OUN was to establish an independent, united national state on ethnic Ukrainian territory. This goal was to be achieved by a national revolution, that would drive out the occupying powers and set up a government representing all regions and Ukrainian social groups. The OUN's leadership felt that past attempts at securing independence failed due to democracy, poor discipline and a conciliatory attitude towards Ukraine's traditional enemies. Accordingly, its ideology rejected the socialist ideas supported by Petliura and the compromises of Galicia's traditional elite. Instead the OUN, particularly its younger members, adopted the ideology of Dmytro DontsovDmytro Dontsov
Dmytro Ivanovych Dontsov was a Ukrainian nationalist writer, publisher, journalist and political thinker whose radical ideas were a major influence on the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.-Biography:...
, an émigré from Eastern Ukraine.
Integral nationalism
The Ukrainian nationalismUkrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism refers to the Ukrainian version of nationalism.Although the current Ukrainian state emerged fairly recently, some historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Orest Subtelny and Paul Magosci have cited the medieval state of Kievan Rus' as an early precedents of specifically...
of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been largely liberal or socialist, combining Ukrainian national consciousness with patriotism and humanist values. In contrast, the nationalists who emerged in Galicia following the First World War, much as in the rest of Europe, adopted the form of nationalism known as Integral nationalism
Integral Nationalism
Integral nationalism is one of five types of nationalism defined by Carlton Hayes in his 1928 book The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism....
. According to this ideology, the nation was held to be of the highest absolute value, more important than social class, regions, the individual, religion, etc. To this end, OUN members were urged to "force their way into all areas of national life" such as institutions, societies, villages and families. Politics was seen as a Darwinian struggle between nations for survival, rendering conflict unavoidable and justifying any means that would lead to the victory of one's nation over that of others. In this context willpower was seen as more important than reason, and warfare was glorified as an expression of national vitality. Integral nationalism
Integral Nationalism
Integral nationalism is one of five types of nationalism defined by Carlton Hayes in his 1928 book The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism....
became a powerful force in much of Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. The OUN's conceptualization of this idea was particular in several ways. Because Ukraine was stateless and surrounded by more powerful neighbors, the emphasis on force and warfare was to be expressed in acts of terrorism rather than open warfare, and illegality was glorified. Because Ukrainians did not have a state to glorify or serve, the emphasise was placed on a "pure" national language and culture rahter than a State. There was a strain of fantastic romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, in which the unsophisticated Ukrainian rejection of reason was more spontaneous and genuine than the cynical rejection of reason by German or Italian integral nationalists.
Romanticism and nationalism of the deed
Dmytro DontsovDmytro Dontsov
Dmytro Ivanovych Dontsov was a Ukrainian nationalist writer, publisher, journalist and political thinker whose radical ideas were a major influence on the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.-Biography:...
claimed that the 20th century would witness the "twilight of the gods to whom the nineteenth century prayed" and that a new man must be created, with the "fire of fanatical commitment" and the "iron force of enthusiasm", and that the only way forward was through "the organization of a new violence." This new doctrine was the chynnyi natsionalizm – the "nationalism of the deed". To dramatize and spread such views, OUN literature mythologized the cult of struggle, sacrifice, and emphasized national heroes.
The OUN, particularly Bandera, held a romantic view of the Ukrainian peasantry, glorified the peasants as carriers of Ukrainian culture and linked them with the deeds and exploits of the Ukrainian Cossacks from previous centuries. The OUN believed that a goal of professional revolutionaries was, through revolutionary acts, to awaken the masses. In this aspect the OUN had much in common with 19th century Russian Narodnik
Narodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
s.
Treatment of non-Ukrainians
According to Timothy Snyder the OUN wanted to create a Ukrainian state consisting of Ukrainian territories, but only of Ukrainian people;it's first congress in 1929 resolved that “Only the complete removal of all occupiers from Ukrainian lands will allow for the general development of the Ukrainian Nation within its own state.” OUN’s “Ten Commandments” stated: “Aspire to expand the strength, riches, and size of the Ukrainian State even by means of enslaving foreigners.”Totalitarianism
The nation was to be unified under a single party led by a hierarchy of proven fighters. At the top was to be a Supreme Leader, or Vozhd. In some respects the OUN's creed was similar to that of other eastern European, radical right-wing agrarian movements, such as Romania's Legion of the Archangel Michael, Croatia's Ustashe, Hungary's Arrow Cross PartyArrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party was a national socialist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which led in Hungary a government known as the Government of National Unity from October 15, 1944 to 28 March 1945...
, and similar groups in Slovakia and Poland. There were, however, significant differences within the OUN regarding the extent of its totalitarianism. The more moderate leaders living in exile admired some facets of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
but condemned Nazism while the younger more radical members based within Ukraine admired the fascist ideas and methods as practiced by the Nazis. The faction based abroad supported rapprochement with the Ukrainian Catholic Church
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Ukrainska Hreko-Katolytska Tserkva), is the largest Eastern Rite Catholic sui juris particular church in full communion with the Holy See, and is directly subject to the Pope...
while the younger radicals were anti-clerical and felt that not considering the Nation to be the Absolute was a sign of weakness.
The two factions of the OUN each had their own understanding of the nature of the leader. The Melnyk faction considered the leader to be the director of the Provid and in its writings emphasized a military subordination to the hierarchical superiors of the Provid. It was more autocratic than totalitarian. The Bandera faction, in contrast, emphasized complete submission to the will of the supreme leader.
At a party congress in August 1943, the OUN-B rejected much of its fascistic ideology in favor of a social democratic model, while maintaining its hierarchical structure. This change could be attributed in part to the influence of the leadership of Roman Shukhevych
Roman Shukhevych
Roman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was a Ukrainian politician and military leader, the general of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.-Childhood:Roman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was born in the city of Krakovets, Jaworow powiat, in Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria which is located today between Lviv and...
, the new leader of UPA, who was more focused on military matters rather than on ideology and was more receptive to different ideological themes than were the fanatical OUN-B political leaders, and was interested in gaining and maintaining the support of deserters or others from Eastern Ukraine. During this party congress, the OUN-B backed off its commitment to private ownership of land, increased worker participation in management of industry, equality for women, free health services and pensions for the elderly, and free education. Some points in the program referred to the rights of national minorities and guaranteed freedom of speech, religion, and the press and rejected the official status of any doctrine. Nevertheless, the authoritarian elements were not discarded completely and were reflected in continued insistence on the "heroic spirit" and "social solidarity, friendship and discipline."
In exile, the OUN's ideology was focused on opposition to communism.
OUN and antisemitism
The OUN shared many similarities with other agrarian radical right-wing Eastern European organizations such as the Croatian Ustashe or Romania's Legion of the Archangel Michael. These were virulently antisemitic. The OUN's ideology, on the other hand, did not emphasize antisemitism and racism despite the presence of some antisemitic writing. Indeed, three of its leaders, General Mykola KapustianskyMykola Kapustiansky
Mykola Kapustiansky was a General in the army of the Ukrainian National Republic and one of the founders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.-Biography:...
, Rico Yary
Richard Yary
Richard Franz Marian Yary was a Ukrainian nationalist journalist, politician and military figure....
(himself of Hungarian-Jewish descent), and Mykola Stsyborsky
Mykola Stsyborsky
Mykola Stsiborskyi , also may be spelled Stsiborsky, Stsyborsky, Ściborski, or Sciborski was a Ukrainian nationalist politician who served on the Provid, or central leadership council of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists , and who was its chief theorist...
(the OUN's chief theorist ), were married to Jewish women and Jews belonged to the OUN's underground movement.
According to the OUN, Ukraine's primary enemies were considered to be Poles and Russians, with Jews playing a secondary role. The OUN attitude towards the Jews was initially supportive in the early 1930s but grew more negative towards the end of that decade. An article published in 1930 by OUN leader Mykola Stsyborsky
Mykola Stsyborsky
Mykola Stsiborskyi , also may be spelled Stsiborsky, Stsyborsky, Ściborski, or Sciborski was a Ukrainian nationalist politician who served on the Provid, or central leadership council of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists , and who was its chief theorist...
denounced the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1918, stating that most of its victims were innocent rather than Bolsheviks. Stsyborsky wrote that Jewish rights should be respected, that the OUN ought to convince Jews that their organization was no threat to them, and that Ukrainians ought to maintain close contacts with Jews nationally and internationally. Three years later, an article in the OUN journal Rozbudova Natsii ("Development of the Nation"), despite focused on the alleged exploitation of Ukrainian peasants by Jews, also showed that Jews as well as Ukrainians were victims of Soviet policies. By the late 1930s, however, in OUN publications Jews were described as parasites who ought to be segregated from Ukrainians. For example, an article titled "The Jewish Problem in Ukraine" published in 1938 called for Jews' complete cultural, economic and political isolation from Ukrainians while also rejecting forced assimilation of Jews and stating that Jews ought to enjoy the same rights as Ukrainians. Despite the increasingly negative portrayal of Jews, for all of its glorification of violence Ukrainian nationalist literature generally showed little interest in Nazi-like antisemitism during the 1930s. Evhen Onatsky, writing in the OUN's official journal in 1934, condemned German National Socialism as imperialist, racist and anti-Christian.
German documents from the early 1940s lead to the impression that extreme Ukrainian nationalists were indifferent to the plight of the Jews; they were willing to either kill them or help them, whichever was more appropriate, for their political goals. The OUN-B's ambivalent wartime attitude towards the Jews was highlighted during the Second General Congress of OUN-B (April, 1941, Kraków)in which the OUN-B condemned anti-Jewish pogroms. and specifically warned against the pogromist mindset as useful only to Muscovite propaganda. At that conference the OUN-B declared "The Jews in the USSR constitute the most faithful support of the ruling Bolshevik regime, and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in Ukraine. The Muscovite-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses to divert their attention from the true cause of their misfortune and to channel them in a time of frustration into pogroms on Jews. The OUN combats the Jews as the prop of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime and simultaneously it renders the masses conscious of the fact that the principal foe is Moscow."
On the other hand, the OUN was willing to support Nazi antisemitic policies if doing so would help their cause. The OUN sought German recognition for an independent Ukrainian state. Despite its declared condemnation of pogroms in April 1941, when German official Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
requested "self-cleansing actions" in June of that year the OUN organized militias who killed several thousand Jews in western Ukraine soon afterward that year. Some historians, such as Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, have claimed that militas under the OUN's command were involved in the massacre of 6,000 Jews in Lviv soon after that city's fall to German forces,. although this claim is controversial and disputed by other historians (see The Lviv pogroms controversy (1941)). OUN members spread propaganda urging people to engage in pogroms. A slogan put forth by the Bandera
Stepan Bandera
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian politician and one of the leaders of Ukrainian national movement in Western Ukraine , who headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists...
group and recorded in the July 16, 1941 Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
report stated: "Long live Ukraine without Jews, Poles and Germans; Poles behind the river San, Germans to Berlin, and Jews to the gallows". In instructions to its members concerning how the OUN should behave during the war, it declared that "in times of chaos ... one can allow oneself to liquidate Polish, Russian and Jewish figures, particularly the servants of Bolshevik-Muscovite imperialism" and further, when speaking of Russians, Poles, and Jews, to "destroy, in the struggle, especially those who defend the [Soviet] regime: send them to their lands, destroy them - especially the intelligentsia...assimilation of the Jews is ruled out." OUN members who infiltrated the German police were involved in clearing ghettos and helping the Germans to implement the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
. Although most Jews were actually killed by Germans, the OUN police working for them played a crucial supporting role in the liquidation of 200,000 Jews in Volyn in the beginning of the war (although in isolated cases Ukrainian policemen also helped Jews to escape ) The OUN also helped some Jews to escape. According to a report to the Chief of the Security Police in Berlin, dated March 30, 1942, "...it has been clearly established that the Bandera movement provided forged passports not only for its own members, but also for Jews.". OUN bands also killed Jews who had fled into the forests from the Germans.
Once the OUN was at war with Germany, such instances lessened and finally stopped. An underground OUN publication in 1943 condemned "German racism, which carried anthropological nonsense to the absurd." In the official organ of the OUN-B's leadership, instructions to OUN groups urged those groups to "liquidate the manifestations of harmful foreign influence, particularly the German racist concepts and practices." There were many cases of Jews having been sheltered from the Nazis by the OUN-B's military wing UPA and Jews fought in the ranks of UPA . Finally, the 3rd OUN Congress held in August 1943 proclaimed equal rights to all minorities inhabiting Ukraine
The OUN position concerning the Jews was disseminated through its IDEIA I CHYN clandestine journal, and it specifically asked for resistance to manifestations of Antisemitism.
See also
- Operation Vistula
- Massacres of Poles in VolhyniaMassacres of Poles in VolhyniaThe Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were part of an ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army West in the Nazi occupied regions of the Eastern Galicia , and UPA North in Volhynia , beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of...
- Roman ShukhevychRoman ShukhevychRoman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was a Ukrainian politician and military leader, the general of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.-Childhood:Roman Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych was born in the city of Krakovets, Jaworow powiat, in Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria which is located today between Lviv and...
- Spilka Ukraïns'koï Molodi
- Warsaw ProcessWarsaw ProcessWarsaw Process – one of the biggest trials against the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Second Polish Republic. Took place 18 November 1935 – 13 January 1936....
External links
Notations
- Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-300-08355-6.
- Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988, ISBN 0-8020-5808-6.
- Paul Robert Magocsi, Morality and Reality: the Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytskyi, Edmonton Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1989, ISBN 0-920862-68-3. Grzegorz Motyka, Służby bezpieczeństwa Polski i Czechosłowacji wobec Ukraińców (1945–1989), Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warszawa 2005, ISBN 83-89078-86-4 Władysław Siemaszko, Ewa Siemaszko "Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939–1945, by Kancelaria Prezydenta Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, Warszawa 2000, tom I i II, 1433 pages, photos, queles, ISBN 83-87689-34-3
- The Intermarium: Wilson, Madison, & East Central European Federalism by Dr. Jonathan Levy