Writings on other OUN Leaders

Though the figure of Bandera has monopolized discourse on nationalist thinkers, other leaders have also been the subject of media focus. In the past, two obvious targets for Soviet vitriol were Yaroslav Stets'ko, Bandera's subordinate, and Stets'ko's wife Yaroslava, who later became a well-known politician in Ukraine.⁴⁴ Yaroslava Stets'ko provided an interview to Za vil’nu Ukrainu in 1994 that represented the OUN as the voice of the Ukrainian nation.

She stressed its spiritual values, high morality, honesty, heroism, and the bravery of its members. It was linked directly with the people: “they relied on the people and on their own strength.” When OUN members appeared in the villages, it signified that there would be order and an end to thievery. What were the nationalists struggling for six decades later in an independent Ukraine? “To fill the Ukrainian state with Ukrainian content, and make it a truly national state.”⁴⁵ The same link between past and present is made in the memorial about the late Yaroslav Stets'ko by his former secretary, the then deputy of the Supreme Soviet Roman Zvarych, who became Justice Minister in the first year of the Yushchenko presidency (he lost his position in the governmental upheaval of September 2005 but was recalled to office in August 2006). Stets'ko, he recalls, was an extremely optimistic person who never lost faith, even in the darkest times, that Ukraine would soon become independent. Such optimism derived from his belief “in the invincibility of the human thirst for freedom.” To Stets'ko the Soviet Union was always called the Russian or Moscow Empire because a real union can only be based on free will. The nationalist leader emerges from this biographical account as a prophet of the Ukrainian people who anticipated independence as early as 1986, the time of the dramatic nuclear disaster at Chernobyl (Chornobyl) in Northern Ukraine.

Once when Zvarych informed Stets'ko that Ukraine was experiencing bad weather, the latter replied that the inclement weather was the fault of Muscovites who had cut down Ukrainian forests, which generally dispersed the clouds, bringing fair weather.⁴⁶

In 1991, historian Vasyl' Marochkin visited the United States, ostensibly to offer a series of lectures on Ivan Mazepa. However, the article he wrote upon his return spends far more time on his encounters with his host, Mykola Lebed', a controversial figure within the OUN for his alleged role within the security service. Marochkin presents Lebed' as an outstanding leader of the Ukrainian liberation movement and the prime organizer of a number of successful terrorist attacks, including those that accounted for the deaths of Pier- acki and Mailov. These actions are depicted as justifiable and laudable deeds. In the next section of the article, Marochkin sets himself the task of debunking the notion that Lebed' was the head of the SB. Rather, he asserts, after the arrest of Bandera, Lebed' became the head of the OUN-B. Moreover, the emergence subsequently of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was a result of the labors and organizational work of Lebed'. He maintains that the security service was not as bad as the image conveyed in Communist writings, which depict it eliminating enemies and unreliable Ukrainians with impunity. Its main task was to protect the leaders of the OUN-B. Though Lebed' has been accused in a number of sources of carrying out war crimes, Marochkin dismisses the notion and perceives his actions as revenge against an outside and alien impostor who has broken into one's home at night and killed one's wife and children. He wonders how one could be blamed for committing a violent act under such circumstances.⁴⁷

More details about Lebed' (or Lebid') emerged from an interview he gave to the newspaper Za vil’nu Ukrainu in 1992, a year after Ukraine's independence. He recalled that he had joined a circle of nationalists at L'viv gymnasium in 1927, which formed the basis of the future Union of Nationalist Youth.

After the OUN was created in 1929, he was instructed to organize an OUN cell in the gymnasium and other places. In turn, the group denounced traditional Polish national holidays, such as the birthday of Jozef Pilsudski. One Polish professor had spoken disrespectfully about the Ukrainian trident symbol and “had to be taught a lesson.” When a Polish eagle was hung in the classroom, the young Ukrainians painted it with ink and broke its wing. The eagle had to be removed. Lebed' maintains that Ukrainian national identity was crafted in part as a response to the Polish Pacification of the early 1930s. Although three policemen had been killed, he recalls, he felt that such retribution was inadequate because the real guilty parties were those giving the orders. Therefore the OUN regional executive decided to assassinate a member of the government, and eventually Pieracki was selected. The goal of the attack was to “tell the world” about the Ukrainian national movement. Shortly after the assassination Lebed' was arrested in Germany and escorted to Poland. An open trial took place a year later, and he served his term in the harshest of prisons, attaining his release only after German troops entered Warsaw in 1939. Once released from prison, the younger members of the OUN gathered in Krakow. Lebed' makes it plain that they were dissatisfied with the leadership of Mel'nyk. Also, “we knew Ukraine was waiting for us,” and therefore the younger nationalists resolved to get military training in Germany, fearing that some day the Germans would round them up and imprison them all.⁴⁸ The account seems far-fetched in that in the years prior to 1941, it would appear from most accounts that cooperation with the Germans was anticipated to be of mutual benefit.

The biographical accounts of Bandera, Lebed', and Stets'ko, perhaps the best known leaders of the OUN-B, all serve a purpose: to nullify the impressions provided in Soviet accounts of nationalist cut-throats in the pay of the Germans, who were about to invade the USSR in the summer of 1941.

A laudatory biography of Bandera was published in L'viv in 2001 by a professional writer from Ternopil', Halyna Hordasevych,⁴⁹ who was a member of the Democratic Party of Ukraine and also of the Popular Movement for Perestroika (Rukh). Its appearance was the culmination of an outpouring of literature, both scholarly and popular, on OUN-UPA in Western Ukraine in the independence years, some of which initially appeared in the West and mainly in English; and some that represented new scholarship on the OUN and its leaders. Bandera at least is a mythical figure in his native region, though not yet in his native land as a whole. The difficulty with such a figure is his distance from the events that took place in his name for most of his career. His legend was really made during his youth as a terrorist in Western Ukraine, and for his stance as the most implacable of nationalists after the death of Kono- valets' in 1938. Thereafter, he remained in German-occupied territory during the most traumatic events in Ukraine, the invasion, the immediate aftermath (that saw the German refusal to countenance an independent Ukrainian state), and the UPA's emergence and conflict with Soviet and Polish forces (for the most part) in the late war and post-war years. Bandera's murder in Munich in 1959 by a West-Ukrainian-born Soviet agent Bohdan Stashyns'kyi (who was also responsible for the murder of his associate Lev Rebet in 1957) has added to the myth and the emergence of a modern-day hero.

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Source: Marples David R.. Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine. udapest—New York: Central European University Press,2007. — 363 p.. 2007

Writings on other OUN Leaders

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