Ivan Litvinchuk (pseudonym: ''Dubovyi''; van Samiilovych Lytvynchuk ; 21 August 1920 - 19 January 1951) was a commander of the military district of the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 14 October 1942. The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the S ...

(UPA), a member of the

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN; ) was a Ukrainian nationalist organization established on February 2, 1929 in Vienna, uniting the Ukrainian Military Organization with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist right-wing groups. ...

(OUN), a war criminal, and a

Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

. He is believed to have been one of the organizers and initiators of the

Volhynian massacre The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (; ) were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population, against the Polish minority in Volhynia ...

, recognized as a

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

. His units were among the first in Volhynia to begin the extermination of Poles.

Biography

He was born in 1920 in Derman Druha,

Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...

, into a family of an

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

priest (according to other researchers, he was born in Biskupice Ruskie). He studied at the Volhynian Orthodox Theological Academy in

Kremenets Kremenets (, ; ; ) is a city in Ternopil Oblast, western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kremenets Raion, and lies north-east of the Pochaiv Lavra. The city is situated in the historic region of Volhynia and features the 12th-c ...

. Between 1937 and 1939, he was imprisoned by Polish authorities for underground activities in the OUN. In 1943, he organized UPA units in northeastern Volhynia and became the commander of the Military District (WO) UPA "Zahrawa". Prosecutor Piotr Zając and historian

Grzegorz Motyka Grzegorz Motyka (born 1967) is a Polish historian and author specializing in the history of Poland–Ukraine relations. Since 1992 he served at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Institute of National ...

suggest his possible involvement (together with

Dmytro Klyachkivsky Dmytro Semenovych Klyachkivsky (; 4 November 1911 – 12 February 1945), also known by the pseudonyms of Klym Savur, Okhrim, and Bilash, was a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the first head-commander of UPA-North. He was ...

and Vasyl Ivakhiv) in the decision to carry out the

.According to Ukrainian historians, there is no confirmation of this fact in OUN-UPA documents, to which Grzegorz Motyka responds by citing the analogous example of the lack of a written order from Stalin regarding the initiation of the Holodomor. See
''Причини'' in ''Волинська трагедія: що сталося 70 років тому, і чого хоче польська сторона''
/ref> Units under Lytvynchuk's command were among the first in Volhynia to begin the

extermination Extermination or exterminate may refer to: * Pest control, elimination of insects or vermin * Extermination (crime), the killing of human on a large scale * Genocide, at least one of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in par ...

of Poles. Lytvynchuk directly participated in the destruction of the Janowa Dolina settlement, where his units murdered approximately 600 Poles, Lytvynchuk was particularly zealous in carrying out the murders of Poles, which he often boasted about. He died in 1952 by blowing himself up in a bunker attacked by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

Horokhiv Raion Horokhiv Raion () was a raion in Volyn Oblast in western Ukraine. Its administrative center was the town of Horokhiv. The raion was abolished and its territory was merged into Lutsk Raion Lutsk Raion () is a raion (district) in Volyn Oblast in ...

Volyn Oblast Volyn Oblast () or simply Volyn (), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. It borders Rivne Oblast to the east, Lviv Oblast to the south, Poland to the west and Belarus to the north. Its Capital city ...

Commemoration

A Memorial Cross was erected at the site of Ivan Lytvynchuk's death, and a school in the village of

Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast Zolochiv (, ; ; ; ) is a small city in Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine, and the administrative center of Zolochiv Raion. It hosts the administration of Zolochiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The city is located east of Lviv along ...

was named after him.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * V. Zavedniuk, ''Lytvynchuk Ivan'' �. Заведнюк, Литвинчук Іван [wТернопільський енциклопедичний словник. редкол.: Г. Яворський та ін.. T. 2: К—О. Тернопіль : Видавничо-поліграфічний комбінат «Збруч», 2005, s. 368. ISBN 966-528-199-2.] {{DEFAULTSORT:Lytvynchuk, Ivan 1920 births 1951 deaths Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists members Commanders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Perpetrators of massacres in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia Ukrainian people imprisoned in Poland Suicides by firearm in Ukraine