Ukrainian resistance movement

The literature on post-World War II Galicia consists of works dealing with two subjects: the Ukrainian resistance movement led by the UPA and the transformation of Galician society under Soviet auspices.

The views expressed in almost all works on these subjects reflect an absolute polarization. Consequently, members of the UPA either represent the last in a long line of military heroes fighting for the freedom of the Ukraine, or are considered fascist cutthroats trying to reverse the progressive course of Soviet history. Similarly, the transformation to a Soviet society is considered either as the highest stage in the history of Ukrainian Galicia, or as an inhumane imposition of an alien system upon a people that continues to suffer under totalitarian rule imposed by Moscow.

There is perhaps only one study of this period that has risen above the level of polemics. This is Yaroslav Bilinsky’s history of the Soviet Ukraine after 1945, which includes two excellent chapters on the Soviet transformations in Galicia and the struggle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.¹

Favorable views of the UPA’s postwar military actions are found in general histories of that army by Petro Mirchuk, lurii Tys-Krokhmaliuk, and Lev Shan- kovs’kyi.² There are also three volumes of documents on the postwar activity of the UPA and its political wing, the UHVR (the Ukrainian Supreme Revolutionary Council),³ several memoirs,⁴ a biography of UPA commander General Taras Chuprynka (Roman Shukhevych),⁵ and a bibliography of the UPA underground press.⁶ The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, from which the UPA and UHVR developed, continues its political activity in the West, as revealed in several collections of documents and other materials.⁷

Immediately after the war, the UPA was particularly well entrenched in the Lemkian region under Polish control, and it tried to stop the deportation of the local populace.

The Ukrainian interpretation of these devastations and massacres is found in several articles published by the World Lemkos’ Federation.⁸ The Polish explanation for these “population transfers” is outlined in a monograph on

1 Yaroslav Bilinsky, The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine after World War II (New

Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 1964).

2 See chapter 8, n. 36.

3 Ukrains’ka Povstans’ka Armiia: zbirka dokumentiv za 1942-1950 rr., 2 vols (n.p.: Vydannia Zakordonnykh Chastyn OUN 1957-60); Ukrains’ka Holovna Vyzvol’na Rada: zbirka dokumentiv za 1944-1950 rr. (n.p.: Vydannia Zakordonnykh Chastyn OUN 1956).

4 Petro Mirchuk and V. Davydenko, eds, V riadakh UPA: zbirka spomyniv buv. voiakiv

Ukrains'koiPovstans’koi Arrnii (New York: Tovarystvo b. Voiakiv UPAv ZDA i Kanadi 1957). See also Stepan Khrin, Zymoiu v bunkri, 1947-48: spohady-khronika (Augsburg: Do zbroi 1950).

5 Petro Mirchuk, Roman Shukhevych (Gen. Taras Chuprynka): komandyr arrnii bezsmertnykh (New York, Toronto, and London: Tovarystvo Kolyshnikh Voiakiv UPA v ZSA, Kanadi i Evropi 1970).

6 Lev Shankovs’kyi, U.P.A. ta it pidpil’na literatura (Philadelphia: Ameryka 1952).

7 OUN v svitli postanov velykykh zboriv, konferentsii ta inshykh dokumentiv z borot'by 19291955 rr.: zbirka dokumentiv (n.p.: Zakordonni chastyny OUN 1955); Chetvertyi velykyi zbir Orhanizatsil Ukrains’kykh Natsionalistiv, 2 vols (n.p.: Vydannia OUN 1969); Ukraina spil'ne dobro vsikh ii hromadian: materiialy VII velykoho zboru Ukrains’kykh Natsionalistiv (VZUN) (Paris and Baltimore: Smoloskyp 1971); Petro Mirchuk, Za chystotu ukrains’koho vyzvol'noho rukhu (Munich and London 1955); Roman Krychevs’kyi, Orhanizatsiia Ukrains’kykh Natsionalistiv v Ukraini-Orhanizatsiia Ukrains’kykh Natsionalistiv Zakordonom i ZChOUN (New York and Toronto 1962); Orhanizatsiia Ukrains’kykh Natsionalistiv 1929-1954 (Paris: OUN 1955).

8 See the articles by Walter Dushnyck, Ivan F. Evseev, Andrzej Kwilecki, John Hvosda, Bohdan Czajkowski, and levhen Vrets’ona in Annaly Svitovoi Federatsii Lemkiv, II (Camillus, NY 1975), pp.

5-133.

the Lemkians by Andrzej Kwilecki;⁹ the changes that have taken place in the Lemkian region since that time are analyzed in a solid sociological study by Maria Biernacka.¹⁰ As for the immediate postwar years, several other works by former Polish officers describe in detail what they consider the heroic efforts of the Polish People’s Republic’s army to liquidate the “roaming bands” of the UPA, especially after they killed General Karol Swierczewski (1897-1947) in March 1947.¹¹ Czechoslovak Marxist authors have also compiled polemical studies and a collection of documents in an attempt to reveal the “dastardly” work of the UPA (often in supposed cooperation with the local Greek Catholic church) on Czechoslovak territory, where, nonetheless, some units did meet with sympathy from the Rusyn/ Ukrainian population and other anti-Communist elements in Slovakia.¹²

9 Andrzej Kwilecki, Lemkowie: zagadnienie migracji i asymilacji (Warsaw: PWN 1974).

10 Maria Biernacka, Ksztahowanie siq nowej spolecznosci wiejskiej w Bieszczadach, Biblioteka Etnografii Polskiej, no. 29 (Wroclaw, Warsaw, Cracow, and Gdansk: ZNIO-PAN 1974).

11 The most comprehensive Polish history of postwar UPA military activity is in Antoni B. Szcz^sniak and Wieslaw Z. Szota, Droga do nikqd: dzialalnosc Organizacji Ukrainskich Nacjonalistow i jej likwidacja w Polsce (Warsaw: Wojskowy Instytut Historyczny 1973), especially pp. 207-468.

See also W. Szota, “Ukrainskie nacjonalistyczne podziemie zbrojne: zarys powstania i dzialalnosci,” in Wladystaw Gora, ed., 1944-1947 w walce o utrwalenie wladzy ludowej w Polsce (Warsaw: Ksijzka i Wiedza 1947), pp. 106-134; Ignacy Blum, “Udzial Wojska Polskiego w obronie narodowych i spolecznych interesow ludu polskiego oraz w umacnianiu wladzy ludowej w latach 1945-1948,” in Sesja naukowa poswiqcona wojnie wyzwolenczej narodu polskiego 1939-45: materialy (Warsaw: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej 1959), pp. 241-265; idem, ‘‘Udzial Wojska Polskiego w walce o utrwalenie wladzy ludowej: walki z bandami UPA,” Wojskowy Przeglqd Historyczny, IV, 1 (Warsaw 1959), pp.

3-29, reprinted in chapter 3 of his Z dziejdw wojska polskiego w latach 1945-1948 (Warsaw: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej 1960); Jan Gerhard, “Dalsze szczegoly walk z bandami UPA i WIN na poludniowo-wschodnim obszarze Polski,” Wojskowy Przeglqd Historyczny, IV, 4 (Warsaw 1959), pp. 304-335; Jan Borkowski, “Miejsce Polskiego Stronnictwa Ludowego w obozie reakcji (1945-1947),” ZPola Walki, II, 2 (Warsaw 1959), pp. 56-79; Ryszard Halaba and Boleslaw Szwejgiert, “Jeszcze o walkach ludowego Wojska Polskiego z reakcyjnym podziemiem,” Wojskowy Przeglqd Historyczny, V, 3 (Warsaw 1960), pp. 323-333; Tadeusz Pljskowski, “B6j pod Jablonkj 28 marca 1947 r.: smierc generaia Karola Swierczewskiego,” Malopolskie Studia Historyczne, VII, 1-2 (Cracow 1964), pp. 79-95; Jan Czapla, “Walka z OUN-UPA w latach 1944-1947 (kuren ‘Zelezhiaka’),” in Maria Turlejska, ed., Z walk przeciwko zbrojnemu podziemiu, 1944-1947 (Warsaw: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej 1966), pp. 359-424; Stanislaw Walach, Byl w Polsce czas (Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie 1969); Stanislaw Rzepski, “Udzial 8. Dywizji Piechoty w walce z bandami UPA w latach 1945-1947,” Wojskowy Przeglqd Historyczny, XIV, 2 (Warsaw 1969), pp. 113-157; and the extensive studies by Mieczyslaw Redziriski, Wieslaw Piatkowski, Mikolaj Tyliszczak, and Stanislaw Janicki in Maria Turlejska, ed., W walce ze zbrojnym podziemiem 1945-1947 (Warsaw: Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej 1972), pp. 34-257.

12 Among the earliest examples of this genre of writing were Vaclav Slavik, Prava tvdf

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Source: Magocsi P.R.. The roots of Ukrainian nationalism. Galicia as Ukraine's Piedmont. University of Toronto Press,2002. — 214 p.. 2002

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