The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN; ) was a

Ukrainian nationalist Ukrainian nationalism (, ) is the promotion of the unity of Ukrainians as a people and the promotion of the identity of Ukraine as a nation state. The origins of modern Ukrainian nationalism emerge during the Cossack uprising against the Poli ...

organization established on February 2, 1929 in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, uniting the

Ukrainian Military Organization The Ukrainian Military Organization (), was a Ukrainian paramilitary body, engaged in terrorism (especially in Poland) during the interwar period. It was formed after the occupation of Ukraine by Soviet Russia following the Ukrainian–Soviet ...

with smaller, mainly youth, radical nationalist

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

groups. The OUN was the largest and one of the most important far-right Ukrainian organizations operating in the interwar period on the territory of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...

. The OUN was mostly active preceding, during, and immediately after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Its ideology was influenced by the writings of

Dmytro Dontsov Dmytro Ivanovych Dontsov (; – 30 March 1973) was a Ukrainian nationalist writer, publisher, journalist and political thinker whose radical ideas, known as integral nationalism, were a major influence on the Organization of Ukrainian Nati ...

, from 1929 by

Italian fascism Italian fascism (), also called classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties le ...

, and from 1930 by German

Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...

. The OUN pursued a strategy of violence,

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

, and assassinations with the goal of creating an ethnically homogeneous and

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...

Ukrainian state. During the Second World War, in 1940, the OUN split into two parts. The older, more moderate members supported Andriy Melnyk's OUN-M, while the younger and more radical members supported

Stepan Bandera Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (, ; ; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B. Bandera was born in Austria-Hungary, in Galicia (Eas ...

's OUN-B. On 30 June 1941 OUN-B declared an independent Ukrainian state in

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

, which had just come under

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

's control in the early stages of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. OUN-B pledged to work closely with Germany, which was described as freeing the Ukrainians from Soviet oppression, and OUN-B members subsequently took part in the

Lviv pogroms The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive pogroms and massacres of Jews in June and July 1941 in the city of Lwów in German-occupied Eastern Poland/Western Ukraine (now Lviv, Ukraine). The massacres were perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists (s ...

. In response to the OUN-B declaration of independence, the Nazi authorities suppressed the OUN leadership. Members of the OUN took an active part in the

Holocaust in Ukraine The Holocaust saw the systematic mass murder of Jews in the ''Reichskommissariat Ukraine'', the General Government, the Crimean General Government and some areas which were located to the east of ''Reichskommissariat Ukraine'' (all of those are ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. In October 1942, OUN-B established 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). In 1943–1944, in an effort to prevent Polish efforts to re-establish prewar borders, UPA units carried out

massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (; ) were carried out in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainians, Ukrainian popu ...

. In the course of the war, with the approaching defeat of Nazi Germany, the OUN-B changed its political image, exchanging fascism for democratic slogans. After World War II, the UPA fought Soviet and Polish government forces. In 1947, in

Operation Vistula Operation Vistula (; ) was the codename for the 1947 forced resettlement of close to 150,000 Ukrainians in Poland, Ukrainians (including Rusyns, Boykos, and Lemkos) from the southeastern provinces of People's Republic of Poland, postwar Poland to ...

, the Polish government deported 140,000 Ukrainians as part of the

population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine The population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine at the end of World War II was based on a treaty signed on 9 September 1944 by the Ukrainian SSR with the newly-formed Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN). The exchange stipul ...

. Soviet forces killed 153,000, arrested 134,000, and deported 203,000 UPA members, relatives, and supporters. During the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, Western intelligence agencies, including the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

, covertly supported the OUN. A contemporary organization that claims to be the same Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is still active in Ukraine.

History

Background and creation

In 1919, with the end of the

Polish–Ukrainian War The Polish–Ukrainian War, from November 1918 to July 1919, was a conflict between the Second Polish Republic and Ukrainian forces (both the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic). The conflict had its roots in ...

, the

took over most of the territory claimed by the

West Ukrainian People's Republic The West Ukrainian People's Republic (; West Ukrainian People's Republic#Name, see other names) was a short-lived state that controlled most of Eastern Galicia from November 1918 to July 1919. It included major cities of Lviv, Ternopil, Kolom ...

and the rest was absorbed by the Soviet Union. One year later, exiled Ukrainian officers, mostly former

Sich Riflemen The Sich Riflemen Halych-Bukovyna Kurin () was one of the first regular military units of the Ukrainian People's Army. The unit operated from 1917 to 1919 and was formed from Ukrainian soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army (Ukrainian Sich Riflem ...

, founded the

( Ukrainian: Українська Військова Організація; ''Ukrainska Viiskova Orhanizatsiia''), an underground military organization with the goals of continuing the armed struggle for independent Ukraine. The UVO was strictly a military organization with a military command structure. Originally the UVO operated under the authority of the exiled government of the

Western Ukrainian People's Republic The West Ukrainian People's Republic (; West Ukrainian People's Republic#Name, see other names) was a short-lived state that controlled most of Eastern Galicia from November 1918 to July 1919. It included major cities of Lviv, Ternopil, Kolom ...

, but in 1925 following a power struggle all the supporters of the exiled president

Yevhen Petrushevych Yevhen Omelianovych Petrushevych (; 3 June 1863 – 29 August 1940) was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian lawyer, politician, and President (government title), president of the West Ukrainian People's Republic formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hung ...

were expelled from the organization.Christopher Gilley (2006)
A Simple Question of 'Pragmatism'? Sovietophilism in the West Ukrainian Emigration in the 1920s
Working Paper: Koszalin Institute of Comparative European Studies pp. 6–13 The UVO leader was

Yevhen Konovalets Yevhen Mykhailovych Konovalets (; 14 June 1891 – 23 May 1938) was a Ukrainian military commander and political leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. A veteran of the First World War and the Ukrainian War of Independence, he is best kn ...

, the former commander of the

. West Ukrainian political parties secretly funded the organization. The UVO organized a wave of sabotage actions in the second half of 1922, when Polish settlers were attacked, police stations, railroad stations, telegraph poles and railroad tracks were destroyed. An attempt to assassinate Poland's Chief of State

Józef Piłsudski Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (Poland), Chief of State (1918–1922) and first Marshal of Poland (from 1920). In the aftermath of World War I, he beca ...

was made in 1921. In 1922, they organized 17 attacks on Polish officials, 5 of whom were killed, and 15 attacks on Ukrainians, 9 of whom died, among them

Sydir Tverdokhlib Sydir Tverdokhlib (; 9 May 1886, Berezhany - 15 October 1922, Kamianka-Buzka, Kamionka Strumiłowa) was a Ukrainian poet, translator and politician. He studied at the University of Lviv and the University of Vienna, later he worked as a teacher ...

. UVO continued this type of activity, albeit on a smaller scale later. When the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

recognized Polish rule over western Ukraine in 1923, many members left the UVO. The Ukrainian legal parties turned against the UVO's 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. It 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 ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

in 1928, at the founding congress in

in 1929 the veterans of the UVO and the student militants met and united to form the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Although the members consisted mostly of Galician youths,

served as its first leader and its

leadership Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

council, the ''Provid'', comprised mostly veterans and was based abroad.

Orest Subtelny Orest Subtelny (, 17 May 1941 – 24 July 2016) was a Ukrainian-Canadian historian. Born in Kraków, Poland, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1973. From 1982 to 2015, he was a Professor in the Departments of History and Polit ...

. (1988). ''Ukraine: A History.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 441–446.

Pre-war activities

Prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the OUN was smaller and less influential among the Ukrainians minority in Poland than the moderate

Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance The Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance (UNDO) (, ) was the largest Ukrainian political party in the Second Polish Republic, active in Western Ukraine. It dominated the mainstream political life of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, OUN ideology was influenced by several political theorists, "The ideology of the organization was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Dmytro Dontsov, Italian Fascism, Nietzsche, and German National Socialism, combining extreme nationalism with terrorism, corporatism, and the Führerprinzip." such as

, whose political thought was characterised by totalitarianism, national chauvinism, and

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

, as well as Mykola Stsiborskyi and , and

and German

. OUN nationalists were trained by

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

jointly with the Ustase, they also maintained offices in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

. Before the war, the OUN regarded the

as an immediate target, but viewed the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, although not operating on its territory, as the main enemy and greatest oppressor of the Ukrainian people. Even before the war, impressed by the successes of fascism, OUN radicalised its stance, and it saw

as its main ally in the fight for independence. In contrast to UNDO, the OUN accepted violence as a political tool against foreign and domestic enemies of their cause. Most of its activity was directed against

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

politicians and government representatives. Under the command of the Western Ukrainian Territorial Executive (established in February 1929), the OUN carried out hundreds of acts of sabotage in Galicia and

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 ...

, including a campaign of arson against Polish landowners (which helped provoke the 1930

Pacification Pacification may refer to: The restoration of peace through a declaration or peace treaty: *Pacification of Ghent, an alliance of several provinces of the Netherlands signed on November 8, 1576 *Treaty of Berwick (1639), or ''Pacification of Berwi ...

), boycotts of state schools and Polish tobacco and liquor monopolies, dozens of expropriation attacks on government institutions to obtain funds for its activities, and assassinations. From 1921 to 1939 UVO and OUN carried out 63 known assassinations: 36 Ukrainians (among them one communist), 25 Poles, 1 Russian and 1 Jew. This number is likely an underestimate because there were likely unrecorded killings in rural regions. The OUN's victims during this period included

Tadeusz Hołówko Tadeusz Ludwik Hołówko (September 17, 1889 – August 29, 1931), codename ''Kirgiz'', was an interwar Polish politician, diplomat and author of many articles and books. He was most notable for his moderate stance on the "Ukrainian problem" fac ...

, a Polish promoter of Ukrainian-Polish compromise, Emilian Czechowski,

Lwow Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

's Polish police commissioner, Alexei Mailov, a Soviet consular official killed in retaliation for the

Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...

, and most notably

Bronisław Pieracki Bronisław Wilhelm Pieracki (28 May 1895 – 15 June 1934) was a Polish military officer and politician. Life As a member of the Polish Legions in World War I, Pieracki took part in the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–1919). He later supported J� ...

, the Polish interior minister. The OUN also killed moderate Ukrainian figures such as the respected teacher (and former officer of the

Ukrainian Galician Army The Ukrainian Galician Army ( UGA; ), was the combined military of the West Ukrainian People's Republic during and after the Polish-Ukrainian War. It was called the "Galician army" initially. Dissatisfied with the alliance of Ukraine and Polan ...

) Ivan Babii. Most of these killings were organized locally and occurred without the authorization or knowledge of the OUN's emigre leaders abroad. In 1930 OUN members assaulted the head of the

Shevchenko Scientific Society The Shevchenko Scientific Society (), founded in 1873, is a Ukrainian scientific society devoted to the promotion of scholarly research and publication. Unlike the government-funded National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the society is a pu ...

Kyryl Studynsky Kyrylo Studynsky, also known as Kyrylo Studynskyi (; 4 October 1868 – 1941), 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 Uk ...

in his office. Such acts were condemned by the head of the

Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is a Major archiepiscopal church, major archiepiscopal ''sui iuris'' ("autonomous") Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholic church that is based in Ukraine. As a particular church of the Cathol ...

, Metropolitan

Andriy Sheptytsky Andrey Sheptytsky, OSBM (; ; 29 July 1865 – 1 November 1944) was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Galicia and Archbishop of Lviv from 1901 until his death in 1944. His tenure in office spanned two world wars and six political reg ...

, 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." OUN's terrorist methods, fascination with fascism, rejection of parliamentary democracy and acting against Poland on behalf of Germany did not find support among many other Ukrainian organizations, especially among the Petlurites, i.e. former activists of the

Ukrainian People's Republic The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) was a short-lived state in Eastern Europe. Prior to its proclamation, the Central Council of Ukraine was elected in March 1917 Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, as a result of the February Revolution, ...

. As the Polish state's repressive policies with respect to 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. The young were much more radical, calling for the use of terror in political struggle, but both groups were united by national radicalism and advocacy of a totalitarian system. The leader of the "old" group Andriy Melnyk claimed in a letter sent to the German minister of foreign affairs

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician and diplomat who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. ...

on 2 May 1938 that the OUN was "ideologically akin to similar movements in Europe, especially to National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Italy". 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 of sympathizers. Many bright students, such as the talented young poets and

Olena Teliha Olena Ivanivna Teliha (; July 21, 1906 – February 21, 1942) was a Ukrainian poet and activist of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity. Biography Olena Chovgeniva was born in the village of , ne ...

(executed by the Nazis at

Babi Yar Babi Yar () or Babyn Yar () is a ravine in the Ukraine, Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during Eastern Front (World War II), its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and ...

) were attracted to the OUN's revolutionary message. As a means to gain independence from Poland and the Soviet Union the OUN accepted material and moral support from

before World War II. 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 (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

, whose racial prejudice against the Ukrainians and desires for economic exploitation of Ukraine precluded formal cooperation. The interwar Lithuanian government had particularly close ties with the OUN.

During World War II

Split in the OUN

In September 1939 Poland was

invaded An invasion is a military offensive of combatants of one geopolitical entity, usually in large numbers, entering territory controlled by another similar entity, often involving acts of aggression. Generally, invasions have objectives of co ...

and split by Germany and the Soviet Union. On 1 November 1939,

Polish territories annexed by the Soviet Union Seventeen days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Poland (known as the ) and annexed territories totalling with a population of 13,299, ...

(i.e.

and

Eastern Galicia Eastern Galicia (; ; ) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv Oblast, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil Oblast, Ternopil), having also essential historic importance in Poland. Galicia ( ...

) were incorporated into the

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

. Initially, the Soviet occupation of

eastern Poland Eastern Poland () is a macroregion in Poland comprising the Lublin Voivodeship, Lublin, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Subcarpathian, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Podlaskie, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Świętokrzyskie, and Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Wa ...

was met with limited support from the ethnic Ukrainian population. Repression was directed mainly against the ethnic Poles, and the Ukrainisation of education, land reform, and other changes were popular among the Ukrainians. The situation changed in the middle of 1940 when

collectivisation Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-o ...

began and repressions hit the Ukrainian population. There were 2,779 Ukrainians arrested in 1939, 15,024 in 1940 and 5,500 in 1941, until the German invasion of the

. The situation for ethnic Ukrainians under German occupation was much better. About 550,000 Ukrainians lived in the

General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...

in the German-occupied portion of Poland, and they were favoured at the expense of Poles. Approximately 20 thousand Ukrainian activists escaped from the Soviet occupation to

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

. In late 1939,

accommodated OUN leaders in the city of

, the capital of the

and provided a financial support for the OUN. The headquarters of the Ukrainian Central Committee headed by

Volodymyr Kubiyovych Volodymyr (, ; ) is a Ukrainian given name of Old East Slavic origin. The related Ancient Slavic, such as Czech, Russian, Serbian, Croatian, etc. form of the name is Володимѣръ ''Volodiměr'', which in other Slavic languages became Vladim ...

, the legal representation of the Ukrainian community in the Nazi zone, were also located in Kraków. Despite the differences, the OUN's leader

was able to maintain unity within the organization. Konovalets was assassinated by a Soviet agent,

Pavel Sudoplatov Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov (; ; July 7, 1907 – September 24, 1996) was a senior Soviet official in the intelligence services of the former Soviet Union whose career spanned over 34 years in the different intelligence branches of the Soviet A ...

, in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

in May 1938. He was succeeded by Andriy Melnyk, a 48-year-old former

colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

in the army of the

and one of the founders of the UVO. He was chosen to lead the OUN despite not having been involved in activities throughout the 1930s. Melnyk was more friendly to the Church than any of his associates (the OUN was generally anti-clerical), and had even become 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. IIcongr1941

In Kraków on 10 February 1940 a revolutionary faction of the OUN emerged, called the OUN-R or, after its leader

, the OUN-B (

Banderites A Banderite or Banderovite (; ; ; ) is a name for the members of the OUN-B, a faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The term, used from late 1940 onward, derives from the name of Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), the ultranational ...

). This was opposed by the current leadership of the organization, so it split, and the old group was called OUN-M after the leader Andriy Melnyk (Melnykites). The OUN-M dominated Ukrainian emigration and the

Bukovina Bukovina or ; ; ; ; , ; see also other languages. is a historical region at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. It is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided betwe ...

, but in Ukraine itself, the Banderists gained a decisive advantage (60% of the agent network in Volhynia and 80% in Eastern Galicia). Political leader Transcarpathian Ukrainians

Avgustyn Voloshyn The Rt Rev. Avgustyn Ivanovych Monsignor Voloshyn (, , 17 March 1874 – 19 July 1945), also known as Augustin Voloshyn, was a Carpatho-Ukrainian politician, teacher, essayist, and Greek Catholic priest of the Mukacheve eparchy in Czechoslova ...

praised Melnyk as a Christian of European culture, in contrast to many nationalists who placed the nation above God. OUN-M leadership was more experienced and had some limited contacts in Eastern Ukraine; it also maintained contact with German intelligence and the Germany army.

Early years of the war and activities in central and eastern Ukraine

On 25 February 1941, the head of

Abwehr The (German language, German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', though the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context) ) was the German military intelligence , military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the ...

Wilhelm Franz Canaris sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion". Ukrainian Nachtigall and Roland battalions were formed under German command and numbered about 800 men. OUN-B expected that it would become the core of the future Ukrainian army. The OUN-B already in 1940 began preparations for an anti-Soviet uprising. However, Soviet repression delayed these plans and more serious fighting did not occur until after the German invasion of the USSR in July 1941. According to OUN-B reports, they then had about 20,000 men grouped in 3,300 locations in Western Ukraine. The NKVD was determined to liquidate the Ukrainian underground, according to Soviet reports 4435 members were arrested between October 1939 and December 1940. There were public trials and death sentences were carried out. In the first half of 1941, 3073 families (11329 people) of members of the Polish and Ukrainian underground were deported from Eastern Galicia and Volhynia. Soviet repression forced about a thousand members of the Ukrainian underground to take up partisan activities even before the German invasion. After Germany's invasion of the USSR, on 30 June 1941, OUN seized about 213 villages and organized diversion in the rear of the Red Army. In the process, it lost 2,100 soldiers and 900 were wounded. The OUN-B formed Ukrainian militias that, displaying exceptional cruelty, carried out antisemitic

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s and massacres of Jews. The largest pogroms in which Ukrainian nationalists were complicit took place in Lviv in two waves in June–July 1941, involving OUN-B activists, German military and paramilitary personnel, Ukrainian, and to a lesser extent Polish urban residents and peasants from the nearby countryside, and in the later wave the

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (; ) was the official title of the local police formation (a type of hilfspolizei) set up by Nazi Germany during World War II in Eastern Galicia and '' Reichskommissariat Ukraine'', shortly after the German occupati ...

. Estimates of Jewish deaths in these events range between 4,000 (

Dieter Pohl Dieter Pohl (born 1964) is a German historian and author who specialises in the Eastern European history and the history of mass violence in the 20th century. Education and career Dieter Pohl studied history and political science at the Ludwig ...

), 5,000 (

Richard Breitman Richard David Breitman (born 1947) is an American historian best known for his study of The Holocaust. Richard Breitman is an American historian who has written extensively on modern German history, the Holocaust, American immigration and refug ...

), and 6,000 (

Peter Longerich Heinz Peter Longerich (born 1955) is a German professor of history and historian. He is regarded by Ian Kershaw, Richard Evans, Timothy Snyder, Mark Roseman and Richard Overy, as one of the leading German authorities on the Holocaust. Career ...

). The involvement of OUN-B is unclear, but certainly OUN-B propaganda fuelled antisemitism. The vast majority of pogroms carried out by the

occurred in Eastern Galicia and

. Eight days after Germany's invasion of the USSR, on 30 June 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of Ukrainian State in

, with

Yaroslav Stetsko Yaroslav Semenovych Stetsko (; 19 January 1912 – 5 July 1986) was a Ukrainian politician, writer and ideologist who served as the leader of Stepan Bandera's faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the OUN-B, from 1941 until his ...

premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of govern ...

. In response to the declaration, OUN-B leaders and associates were arrested and imprisoned by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

(circa 1500 persons). Many OUN-B members were killed outright or perished in jails and

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

s (both of Bandera's brothers were eventually murdered at Auschwitz). On 18 September 1941, Bandera and Stetsko were sent to

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

in "Zellenbau Bunker", where they were kept until September 1944. While imprisoned, Bandera received help from the financial assistance from the OUN-B. The Germans permitted the Ukrainian nationalists to leave the bunker for an important meeting with OUN representatives in Fridental Castle which was 200 meters from Sachsenhausen. 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 Zhytomyr ( ; see #Names, below for other names) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, administrative center of Zhytomyr Oblast (Oblast, province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding ...

, the first major city across the old Soviet-Polish border. Here, the OUN-M helped stimulate the development of

Prosvita Prosvita (), since 1991 officially known as All-Ukrainian Prosvita Society named after Taras Shevchenko () is an enlightenment society aimed to preserve and develop Ukrainian culture, education and science, that was created in the nineteenth cen ...

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 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

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

's capital Kiev (now

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

). 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. According to the

Nuremberg Trials #REDIRECT Nuremberg trials {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from move ...

documents, on 25 November 1941,

Einsatzkommando During World War II, the Nazi German ' were a sub-group of the ' (mobile killing squads) – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellect ...

5 received an order to "quietly liquidate" members of "Bandera-Movement" as it was confirmed that they were preparing a rebellion in the Reichskomissariat with the goal of establishing independent Ukraine. As the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

moved East, the OUN-M established control of Kiev's civil administration; that city's mayor from October 1941 until January 1942,

Volodymyr Bahaziy Volodymyr Panteleimonovych Bahaziy (; 1902 – 21 February 1942) was a Ukrainian nationalist affiliated with Andriy Melnyk who was head of Kyiv City Administration under German occupation from October 1941 to February 1942. Biography Born i ...

, 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 the central and eastern Ukrainian

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

. 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

, and the writer

who had organized and led the League of Ukrainian Writers in Kiev. Although during this time elements within the

tried in vain to protect OUN-M members, the organization was largely wiped out within central and eastern Ukraine. A declassified 2007 CIA note summarised the situation as follows:

OUN-B's fight 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

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 ( ; , ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) 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.Ukrainian Collaboration in the Extermination of the Jews during the Second World War: Sorting Out the Long-Term and Conjunctural Factors
by John-Paul Himka, University of Alberta. Taken from ''The Fate of the European Jews, 1939–1945: Continuity or Contingency'', ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), Studies in Contemporary Jewry 13 (1997): 170–189. 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 guerrillas knowns as the UPA or the Polessian Sich, unaffiliated with the OUN-B and led by

Taras Bulba-Borovets Taras Dmytrovych Borovets (; March 9, 1908 – May 15, 1981) was a Ukrainian leader and Nazi collaborator of the Ukrainian National Army during World War II. He is better known as Taras Bulba-Borovets after his ''nom de guerre'' ''Taras Bulba'' ...

of the exiled

. 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 and 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, OUN commander

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 ...

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 6 July, 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 18 August 1943,

and his headquarters were surrounded in a surprise attack by an 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 order 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 near the end of World War II

26 high-ranking members of the OUN-B (alongside Greek Catholic priest

Ivan Hrynokh Ivan Hrynokh (; 28 December 1907 – 14 October 1994) was a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic priest and Ukrainian community activist. Born in the village of Pavliv, Lviv Oblast, Pavliv near Lviv to Mykhailo and Anastiya Hrynokh on 28 December 1907, his ...

) gathered in the village of Zolota Sloboda between 21 and 25 August, holding a Third Supreme Assembly. Termed "extraordinary" (; also read as "emergency") by the organisers, the meeting rejected the policies of integral nationalism in Bandera's absence in favour of pro-democratic and pro-peasantry positions. This was combined with the beginning of an insurgency against the Germans simultaneously with fighting

Soviet partisans Soviet partisans were members of Resistance during World War II, resistance movements that fought a Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla war against Axis powers, Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Territories of Poland an ...

and Polish civilians in an effort to secure the existence of a Ukrainian state. The policies adopted at the Third Supreme Assembly had been spurred by the German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad, as well as a desire to appeal to people in central and eastern Ukraine who were reluctant to support the OUN-B due to its authoritarian policy. While this resistance to Germany was strongly opposed by the OUN-B's older members, who were reluctant to reform, it was welcomed by younger members who viewed Ukraine's independence as their primary aim. Local western Ukrainians also positively assessed the OUN-B's anti-German activities, though the Soviets' Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive shortly after the insurgency began led to the expulsion of German forces from western Ukraine. Marples has argued that the anti-German activities of the UPA were primarily interested in preventing the Germans from totally assuming control over Volhynia and Polesia, which were the primary strongholds of the UPA at the time. Besides armed struggle, according to International Court of Justice, ICJ documents, OUN-B (referred as "Banderagruppe") was spreading anti-German propaganda comparing German policy towards Ukrainians with

. By the fall of 1943, the OUN-B forces had established their control over substantial portions of rural areas in

and southwestern Polesia. While the Germans controlled the large towns and major roads, such a large area east of

Rivne Rivne ( ; , ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) 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. Beginning in 1944, the OUN began to ally with the Germans in exchange for arms and control of territory. In a top-secret memorandum, General-Major Brigadeführer Brenner wrote in mid-1944 to SS-Obergruppenführer General Hans-Adolf Prützmann, the highest ranking German SS officer in Ukraine, that "The UPA has halted all attacks on units of the German army. The UPA systematically sends agents, mainly young women, into the enemy-occupied territory, and the results of the intelligence are communicated to Department 1c of the [German] Army Group" on the southern front. By the autumn of 1944, the German press was full of praise for the UPA for their anti-Bolshevik successes, referring to the UPA fighters as "Ukrainian fighters for freedom" In the latter half of 1944, Germans were supplying the OUN/UPA with arms and equipment in exchange for the end of attacks on German positions, along with further UPA attacks on the Soviets. In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, there even existed a small landing strip for German transport planes. Some German personnel trained in terrorist and intelligence activities behind Soviet lines, as well as some OUN-B leaders, were also transported through this channel. Adopting a strategy analogous to that of the Chetnik leader General Draža Mihailović,''Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army'', Chapter 3 and Chapter 4
pp. 174–180 the UPA limited its actions against the Germans in order to better prepare itself for and engage in the struggle against the Communists. Because of this, although the UPA managed to limit German activities to a certain extent, it failed to prevent the Germans from deporting approximately 500,000 people from Western Ukraine and from economically exploiting Western Ukraine. Due to its focus on the Soviets as the principal threat, the UPA's anti-German struggle did not contribute significantly to the recapture of Ukrainian territories by Soviet forces. The OUN-B was actively involved in the

, through the formally independent but heavily connected UPA. The majority of delegates at the Third Supreme Assembly expressed their formal approval the anti-Polish violence led by Dmytro Klyachkivsky.

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 diaspora. The OUN-B formed the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, a group headed by Yaroslav Stetsko, in 1943. 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 of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, anti-communist émigré Cossacks, Hungary, Georgia, Bohemia-Moravia (today the Czech Republic), and Slovakia. In the 1970s, the ABN was joined by anti-communist Vietnamese and Cuban organizations. The Lithuanian partisans had particularly close ties with the OUN. In 1956, Bandera's OUN split into two parts,Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Chapter 8 pp. 462–463 http://www.history.org.ua/LiberUA/Book/Upa/30.pdf the more moderate OUN(z) led by Lev Rebet and Zinoviy Matla, and the more ethno-nationalist OUN led by Bandera. Euromaidan Kyiv 1-12-13 by Gnatoush 004

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, 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 1993Конгресс Українських Націоналістів
Database DATA). Its conspiratorial leaders within the diaspora did not want to openly enter Ukrainian politics and attempted to imbue this party with a democratic, moderate facade. However, within Ukraine, the project attracted more nationalists who took the party to the right. 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. On 9 March 2010, the ''Kyiv Post'' reported that the OUN political party rejected Yulia Tymoshenko's calls to unite "all of the national patriotic forces" led by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc against Viktor Yanukovych. The OUN did demand that Yanukovych should reject the idea of cancelling the Hero of Ukraine status given to

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

. On 19 November 2018, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, as well as the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian nationalist groups Right Sector and C14 (Ukrainian group), C14, endorsed Ruslan Koshulynskyi's candidacy in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. In the election Koshulynskyi received 1.6% of the votes.

Organization

The OUN was led by a ''Vozhd'' or Supreme Leader. Originally the Vozhd was

; after his assassination he was succeeded by Andriy Melnyk resulting in a split where the Galician youths followed their own ''Vozhd'',

. 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 intelligence services, the

; colonel Roman Sushko, another former Austrian and Galician officer; Mykola Stsiborsky, 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 primary goal of OUN was to establish an independent and ethnically pure Ukrainian state. The OUN's leadership felt that past attempts at securing independence failed due to democratic values in society, poor party discipline and a conciliatory attitude towards Ukraine's traditional enemies. 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

, an émigré from Eastern Ukraine. The OUN was formed from the UVO and several extreme right-wing organizations, including the Ukrainian National Association, the Union of Ukrainian Fascists and the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine. Initially, it was led by war veterans who failed to establish a Ukrainian state in 1917–1920. According to Per Anders Rudling, the ideology of the organization was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche, German Nazism, and Italian fascism, combining extreme nationalism with terrorism, corporatism, and antisemitism. Heorhii Kasyanov wrote that it manifested typical anti-democratic features.

Nationalism

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 emphasis was placed on a "pure" national language and culture rather 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. The OUN viewed the

as a rival and condemned Catholic leaders as police informers or potential informers; the Church rejected integral nationalism as incompatible with Christian ethics. The conflict between the OUN and the Church eased in the late 1930s.

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 Zaporozhian Cossacks, 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 Narodniks.Bandera – romantyczny terrorysta
"Bandera – Romantic Terrorist, interview with Jaroslaw Hrycak. Gazeta Wyborcza, 10 May 2008.

Fascism

Historian Per Anders Rudling described the OUN as having "the fascist attributes of anti-liberalism, anti-conservatism, and anticommunism, an armed party, totalitarianism, anti-Semitism, 'Führerprinzip', and an adoption of fascist greetings. Its leaders eagerly emphasized to Hitler and Ribbentrop that they shared the Nazi 'Weltanschauung' and a commitment to a fascist New Europe." He described it as a "typical fascist movement" and wrote that it "cultivated close relations with Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the Spanish Falange and the Croatian Ustaše". According to political scientist Ivan Gomza, the "morphological structure" of the OUN's ideology in the 1930s and early 1940s could be defined as fascist because it had the following principles: (1) rebirth of the national community; (2) the search for some new form of political and economic organization, which transcends liberal democracy and collectivistic communism; and (3) the use of threats and violence during its political struggle. Gomza wrote that OUN writers rejected both Soviet communism and liberal democracy and wished to instill a single-party state, living in the unrealized glory of battles past and an economic system that aimed to avoid class conflict. He also argued that violence was an "extensive, widespread and frequent" occurrence and was central in the group's ideology and policy; the group took advantage of wartime chaos to eliminate Polish, Muscovite and Jewish activist groups. However, he wrote that after 1943 some "peripheral concepts" came to substitute the fascist core, which led to a splinter within the OUN and subsequent democratization of one of its factions. The political scientist Ivan Katchanovski described it as "a semi-totalitarian organization which combined elements of extreme nationalism and fascism". Historian Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe wrote that the OUN had "created its own form of fascism" and that it "attempted to become a mass movement and to establish an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian state. It viewed and used mass violence as a political aim and killed civilians ''en masse''." He also wrote that the members of the movement "claimed to be related to movements such as the Italian Fascists, the German Nazis, the Ustasa, and the Iron Guard". Marples has described how some writers in the OUN tradition, as well as some later Ukrainian writers, have been "self-deceptive" in emphasizing the absence of racism from OUN ideology, downplaying its connection to western European fascism, and suggesting that the Ukrainian brand of nationalism was a product of domestic development. Political scientist Alexander J. Motyl considered the OUN to have fascist inclinations, but viewed it to be a kind of nationalist movement, with differences from fascism arising from the goal of nationalists to create nations, rather than run existing nations. He compared it in its nature to other national liberation movements which had authoritarian inclinations, strong leaders, and engaged in violence and terrorism, such as the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeria), National Liberation Front or the Palestine Liberation Organization. According to historian Stanley Payne "there were elements in [the OUN] that favored fascism, but it was not so much a revolutionary movement as a composite radical nationalism". He said it was "highly authoritarian and violently antisemitic" but said that was "rather common in the East European politics of the era". According to him, it was on the "extreme end of the radical right but not fully fascist", and the ideology was comparable to Putinism, saying the only difference between them is the antisemitism. Political scientist Luboš Veselý criticises Rossoliński-Liebe as intentionally painting all Ukrainian nationalists negatively. Per Veselý, Rossoliński-Liebe "considers nationalism in general to be closely related to fascism" and fails to put Ukrainian nationalism, as well as antisemitism and fascist movements, in context of their rise in other European countries at the time. Rossoliński-Liebe does not mention arguments of other Ukrainian historians, such as :uk:Касьянов_Георгій_Володимирович, Heorhii Kasianov. Veselý rejects Rossoliński-Liebe's conclusion that Ukrainian nationalists needed the protection of Nazi Germany and therefore collaborated with them. Ukrainian historian :uk:Зайцев_Олександр_Юрійович, Oleksandr Zaitsev notes that Rossolinski-Liebe's approach ignores "the fundamental differences between ultra-nationalist movements of nations with and without a state". Zaitsev highlights that the OUN did not identify itself with fascism, but "officially objected to this identification". Zaitsev suggests that it would be more correct to see the OUN as the revolutionary ultranationalist movements of stateless nations, which were aiming not to "the reorganization of the existing state according to totalitarian principles, but to create a new state, using all available means, including terror, to this end." According to Zaitsev, Rossolinski-Liebe omits some facts, which do not fit into his "a priori scheme of 'fascism', 'racism' and 'genocidal nationalism'", and denies "the presence of liberatory and democratic elements" in Bandera movement.

Beyond World War II

Many Ukrainian historians, such as Peter Potichnyj, have argued that from 1941 and especially after the war, the OUN developed in a pro-democratic and anti-Nazi direction. After the Second World War, OUN émigrés and UPA members began to produce documents that emphasised this shift and downplayed the controversial aspects of the organization. For example, they published anti-Nazi texts by OUN activists. In some documents, they removed statements related to fascism or the Holocaust; in one case, they reprinted the April 1941 resolution in Kraków of the Second Great Congress of OUN, omitting that the organisation adopted an official salute consisting of the fascist salute while shouting "Slava Ukraini, Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes!". OUN's denials of its role in the Holocaust began in 1943 after it became obvious that Germany would lose the war. What Rossolinski describes as a whitewashing of its history continued after the war, with OUN's propaganda describing its legacy as a "heroic Ukrainian resistance against the Nazis and the Communists". In 1943, the OUN developed a new political program that focused on a "new order of a free individual. A man's free will should animate social life." The group also accepted a market economy, officially abandoned ethnic chauvinism, and accepted liberal democratic values. Although the groups realized allegiance to these edits, and whether the group could in fact remove itself from the label of fascism is debated among historians, the result of these changes led to a split, which divided the faction into two groups, the fascists, and the liberals. The infighting of these groups was limited to diasporic communities in the US, Canada, and Germany. notably, the liberal faction became more powerful due to support from the United States Government which funded multiple thinktanks including the Prolog Research and Publishing Company.

Authoritarianism

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 Kingdom of Romania, Romania's Legion of the Archangel Michael (more commonly known as the Iron Guard), Croatia's Ustashe, Hungary's Arrow Cross Party, and similar groups in Slovakia and Poland; however, there were significant differences within the OUN regarding its relationship to fascism. The more moderate leaders living in exile admired some facets of

but condemned Nazism, while the younger more radical members based within Ukraine admired the fascist ideas and methods as practised by the Nazis.Paul Robert Magocsi. (1996). ''A History of Ukraine.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 621 The faction-based abroad supported rapprochement with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, 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 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 Ukrainian Insurgent Army, 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 the 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 the continued insistence on the "heroic spirit" and "social solidarity, friendship and discipline." In exile, the OUN's ideology was focused on opposition to communism.

Treatment of non-Ukrainians

The OUN intended to create a Ukrainian state with widely understood Ukrainian territories, but inhabited by Ukrainian people narrowly understood, according to Timothy Snyder. Its 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", or "Thou shalt struggle for the glory, greatness, power, and space of the Ukrainian state by enslaving the strangers". This formulation was modified by OUN's theoreticians in the 1950s and shortened to "Thou shalt struggle for the glory, greatness, power, and space of the Ukrainian state". According to Door Karel C. Berkhoff, the organization in October 1943, issued a communication (in Ukrainian only) that condemned the "Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, mutual mass murders" of Ukrainians and Poles.Berkhoff, Karel C. (2004).
Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule
', p. 298. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Antisemitism

Antisemitism was a common attribute of agrarian radical right-wing Eastern European organizations, such as the Croatian Ustashe, the Yugoslav Zbor and the Romanian Iron Guard.Subtelny, Orest. (1988) ''Ukraine: a History.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 442 The OUN's ideology, on the other hand, did not initially emphasize antisemitism - despite the presence of antisemitic writings. During the OUN's early years, there were many prominent Jewish members of the OUN, and the OUN broadly condemned antisemitic violence. In the 1930s, the OUN publicly compared Jews to parasites and called for the violent removal of Jews from Ukrainian society.Myroslav Shkandrij. (2009). 'Jews in Ukrainian Literature: Representation and Identity.' New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 152–153 When the OUN allied with Nazi Germany in 1941 - the OUN-B called for the slaughter of Ukrainian Jewry, and the OUN praised the Germany for bringing their methods of segregating and executing Jews to Ukraine. Three of its leaders, General Mykola Kapustiansky, Richard Yary, Rico Yary (himself of Hungarian-Jewish descent), and Mykola Stsyborsky, who was the OUN's chief theorist, were married to Jewish women,Kost Bondarenko, Director of the Center for Political Research, ''The History We Don't Know or Don't Care to Know'', Mirror Weekly, #12, 2002
and some Jews belonged to the OUN's underground movement. The OUN in the early 1930s considered Ukraine's primary enemies to be Poles and Russians, with Jews playing a secondary role as collaborators 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 its focus on Jews' alleged exploitation of Ukrainian peasants, also stated that Jews, as well as Ukrainians, were victims of Soviet policies. Evhen Onatsky, writing in the OUN's official journal in 1934, condemned German Nazism as imperialist, racist and anti-Christian. By the late 1930s, the OUN's attitude towards Jews changed to one of hostility. Jews were described in OUN publications as parasites who ought to be segregated from Ukrainians. For example, an article titled "The Jewish Problem in Ukraine" published in 1938 by the OUN, called for Jews' complete cultural, economic and political isolation from Ukrainians, rejecting forced assimilation of Jews but allowing that they 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. German documents from the early 1940s give 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 early 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." As the war progressed, the OUN's antisemitism descended into genocidal rhetoric and violence. Despite its official condemnation of pogroms in April 1941, when German official Reinhard Heydrich requested "self-cleansing actions" in June of that year - the OUN organized militias answered the call, murdering several thousand Jews in western Ukraine soon afterward that same year. During the Operation Barbarossa, German invasion of the USSR,

stated in a report to Bandera: "We are raising a militia that will assist in the extermination of Jews... I am of the opinion that the Jews should be annihilated by applying the German methods of extermination in Ukraine." The Ukrainian People's Militia under the OUN's command led Lviv pogroms (1941), pogroms that resulted in the massacre of 6,000 Jews in Lviv soon after that city's fall to German forces. OUN members spread propaganda urging people to engage in pogroms. A slogan put forth by the Bandera group and Einsatzgruppen reports, recorded in the 16 July 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 struggle, particularly those opposing the regime, by means of: deporting them to their own lands, eradicating their intelligentsia, which is not to be admitted to any governmental positions, and overall preventing any creation of this intelligentsia (e.g. access to education etc)... Jews are to be isolated, removed from governmental positions in order to prevent sabotage... Those who are deemed necessary may only work under strict supervision and removed from their positions for slightest misconduct... Jewish assimilation is not possible."Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
''Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army'', Chapter 2
, pp. 62–63 Ivan Klymiv, the OUN-B leader in Volhynia, wrote a directive in August 1941 calling for the OUN-B to "wipe out Poles, Jews, professors, officers, leaders, and all established enemy elements of Ukraine and Germany." 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 Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, in Volyn in the beginning of the war. OUN bands also killed Jews who had fled into the forests from the Germans. One of the UPA leaders reportedly compared the OUN's Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, massacres of Poles to the Final Solution: "When it comes to the Polish question, this is not a military but a minority question. We will solve it as Hitler solved the Jewish question." The OUN did help some Jews to escape in isolated cases. According to a report to the Chief of the Security Police in Berlin, dated 30 March 1942, "...it has been clearly established that the Bandera movement provided forged passports not only for its own members, but also for Jews." Once the OUN was at war with Germany, anti-Jewish instances lessened, but never stopped. According to documents released from the Security Service of Ukraine, the OUN not only never gave up its antisemitic ideology and always associated Jews with communists. Among the documents released was this, giving clear evidence of continued antisemitism.

Legacy

A number of contemporary far-right Ukrainian political organizations claim to be inheritors of the OUN's political traditions, including Svoboda (political party), Svoboda, Right Sector, the Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian National Self Defence, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. According to historian Per Anders Rudling, one of the reasons the role of the OUN remains contested in historiography is the fact that some of these later political inheritors developed literature justifying or denying the organization's fascist political heritage and Collaboration in German-occupied Ukraine, collaboration with Nazi Germany. On 1 October 2023, during the Defenders Day (Ukraine), Defenders Day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy handed honorary titles, insignia and battle flags to military units, including a ribbon of honorary name to the 131st separate reconnaissance battalion of the Ground Forces, named in honor of OUN founder

Symbols

The organization's symbols were established in 1932 and were published in a magazine 'Building a Nation' (, ''Rozbudova Natsii''). The author of the OUN emblem with a stylized trident (''tryzub '') was Robert Lisovskyi. The organization's anthem "''March of Ukrainian Nationalists, We were born in a great hour''" () was finalized in 1934 and also was published in the same magazine. Its lyrics were written by Oles Babiy, and it music by composer Omelian Nyzhankivsky. For a long time OUN did not officially have its own flag. However, during the Hungarian campaign against the Republic of Carpathian Ukraine in 1939, Carpathian Sich, a militarized wing of OUN, adopted its flag from the OUN's emblem – a golden trident on a blue background. The flag was finalized and officially adopted by the organization only in 1964 at the 5th Assembly of Ukrainian Nationalists. The blue and yellow colours have a strong association with Ukrainian nationalism, including the 1917

. When the organisation split in 1941, OUN-B refused to adopt the trident as a symbol and came up with its own heraldry. Lisovskyi created the organizational emblem for OUN-B as well. The central element of the new emblem was a stylized cross within a triangle. The flag and emblem consist of two colors: red and black. According to Bohdan Hoshovsky, the color combination of red and black was based on a concept of the OUN ideologue and veteran of the

Yulian Varanasi. According to some sources, the black color symbolizes the Chernozem, black earth ("Chornozem") that Ukraine is synonymous for, and the red color represents blood spilled for Ukraine. Rudling summarises this as symoblsing blood and soil. Others, such as Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (and scholar of Ukrainian folklore), say the red is traditionally synonymous with "life" rather than with violence. "Blood as life, as blossom, and not as blood lost in battles." Jars Balan, head of the Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre at the University of Alberta, says "The red is for love and the black is for sorrow and how they are intertwined", with references to those colours occurring in Slavic songs and poetry since the 12th century.

Veteran status of OUN members

In late March 2019 former OUN combatants (and other living former members of irregular

armed groups that were active during

and the first decade after the war) were officially granted the status of veterans. This meant that for the first time they could receive veteran benefits, including free public transport, subsidized medical services, annual monetary aid, and public utilities discounts (and will enjoy the same social benefits as former Ukrainian soldiers Red Army of the

).Former WWII nationalist guerrillas granted veteran status in Ukraine
Kyiv Post (26 March 2019) There had been several previous attempts to provide former Ukrainian nationalist fighters with official veteran status, especially during the 2005–2009 administration Ukrainian President, President Viktor Yushchenko, but all failed.

Leaders

Early OUN

OUN (Melnyk)

* Andriy Melnyk (1940–1964) * Oleh Shtul (1964–1977) * Denys Kvitkovskyi (1977–1979) * Mykola Plaviuk (1979–2012) * Bohdan Chervak (2012–present)

OUN (Bandera)

(1940–1959) * Stepan Lenkavskyi (1959–1968) *

(1968–1986) * Vasyl Oleskiv (1986–1991) * Slava Stetsko (1991–2001) * Andriy Haidamakha (2001–2009) * Stefan Romaniw (2009–2022) *Oleh Medunytsia (2022–present)

OUN (abroad)

* Zenon Matla (1954–1956) * Lev Rebet (1956–1957) * Roman Ilnytskyi (1957–?) * Bohdan Kordyuk (?–1979) * Daria Rebet (1979–1991) * Anatol Kaminskyi (1991–present)

References

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * * Gomza, I. (2015)
Elusive Proteus: A study in the ideological morphology of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
''Communist and Post-Communist Studies'', 48(2/3), 195–207. * * * * * Jonathan Levy,
The Intermarium: Wilson, Madison, & East Central European Federalism.
' * * Paul Robert Magocsi (1989), ''Morality and Reality: the Life and Times of Andrei Sheptytskyi'', Edmonton Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, . * * * * Grzegorz Motyka, Motyka, Grzegor (2005), ''Służby bezpieczeństwa Polski i Czechosłowacji wobec Ukraińców (1945–1989)'', Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warsaw, . * * * * * * * * Rossoliński-Liebe, Grzegorz (2019). doi:10.2307/j.ctvw04hnr.10, Inter-Fascist Conflicts in East Central Europe: The Nazis, the “Austrofascists,” the Iron Guard, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. In G. Rossoliński-Liebe & A. Bauerkämper (Eds.), ''Fascism without Borders: Transnational Connections and Cooperation between Movements and Regimes in Europe from 1918 to 1945'' (1st ed., pp. 168–191). Berghahn Books. * * * * Shkandrij, M. (2015). doi:10.2307/j.ctt13x1t2n.10, The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. In ''Ukrainian Nationalism: Politics, Ideology, and Literature, 1929–1956'' (pp. 101–132). Yale University Press. * Władysław Siemaszko, Siemaszko Władysław, Ewa Siemaszko, Siemaszko Ewa (2000), ''Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na ludności polskiej Wołynia 1939–1945'', Kancelaria Prezydenta Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej,

, tom I i II, 1,433 pages, photos, quells, . * * Subtelny Orest , ''Ukraine: A History'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988, . * Wilson Andrew, ''The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, . * Миколайович Антонюк Ярослав, "СБ ОУН на Волині." Луцьк : «Волинська книга», 2007. – 176 с. * Миколайович Антонюк Ярослав, "СБ ОУН(б) на Волині таЗахідному Поліссі (1946–1951)" : Монографія. – Луцьк: «Надстир'я-Ключі», 2013. – 228 с.

External links

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
webpage in Ukrainian
Recent research papers about OUN
on Academia.edu * War memoirs of an OUN veteran. {{DEFAULTSORT:Organization Of Ukrainian Nationalists Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Anti-communism in Ukraine Defunct political parties in Ukraine Far-right politics in Ukraine Modern history of Ukraine Political history of Ukraine Antisemitism in Ukraine Anti-Polish sentiment in Europe Anti-Hungarian sentiment Anti-Romanian sentiment Anti-Russian sentiment in Europe Ukrainian anti-Soviet resistance movement History of Ukraine (1918–1991) Politics of the Soviet Union 1929 establishments in Ukraine 1929 establishments in Poland Terrorism in the Second Polish Republic Ukrainian collaboration during World War II Ukrainian irredentism Fascist militant groups Nationalist terrorism in Europe Fascist terrorism Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Ethnic nationalism Ethnic supremacy