Father, Andrei Bandera, a Greek Catholic priest, was at that time the rector of Ugrinov Stary. Came from Stryi.
Mother, Miroslava Bandera (* 1890, Stary Ugrinov - † 1921), came from an old priestly family (she was the daughter of a Greek Catholic priest from Ugryniv Stary).
A detailed autobiography of Stepan Bandera has been preserved.
Childhood
House of the Bandera family in Stary Ugrinov. Stepan spent his childhood in Stary Ugrinov, in the house of his parents and grandfathers, growing up in an atmosphere of Ukrainian patriotism and living national-cultural, political and social interests. The fronts of the First World War moved through his native village four times in 1914-1915 and 1917. In the summer of 1917, residents of Galicia witnessed manifestations of national revolutionary shifts and revolution in the army Tsarist Russia. In his autobiography, Stepan Bandera also mentions “ big difference between Ukrainian and Moscow military units"
Since childhood, S. Bandera witnessed the revival and construction of the Ukrainian state. From November 1918, his father was ambassador to the parliament of the Western Ukrainian Ukrainian People's Republic– Ukrainian National Rada in Stanislav and took an active part in the formation state life in Kalushchina.
In September or October 1919, Stepan Bandera entered the Ukrainian gymnasium in Stryi, where he studied until 1927. In third grade (from 1922) he becomes a member of Plast; in Stryi I was in the 5th plastun hut named after Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl, and after graduating from high school - in the 2nd hut of the senior plastuns “Detachment Red Kalina”.
In the spring of 1922, his mother died of tuberculosis of the throat.
Early life
In 1927-1928, Stepan Bandera was engaged in cultural, educational and economic activity in his native village (he worked in the reading room “Prosvita”, led an amateur theater group and choir, founded the sports society “Lug” and in the organization of a cooperative). At the same time, he led organizational and educational work through the underground educational institution in neighboring villages.
In September 1928, he moved to Lvov and here he enrolled in the agronomic department of the Higher Polytechnic School, where he studied until 1933. Before his diploma exam, through political activity, he was arrested and imprisoned.
During his student years he took an active part in organized Ukrainian national life. He was a member of the Ukrainian society of polytechnic students “Osnova” and a member of the board of the Circle of Field Science Students. Worked for some time in the company's bureau Farmer, who was involved in the development of agriculture in the Western Ukrainian lands. With the Prosvita society, he traveled on Sundays and holidays to nearby villages in the Lviv region with reports and to help organize other events. In the field of youth and sports organizations he was active primarily in Plast, as a member of the 2nd kuren of senior plastuns “Team Red Kalina”, in the Ukrainian Student Sports Club (USSC), and for some time also in the societies “Falcon-Father” and "meadow" in Lvov. I was engaged in running, swimming, skiing, and traveling. free time I enjoyed playing chess, and also sang in the choir and played the guitar and mandolin. Didn't smoke or drink alcohol.
Activities in the OUN 1932-33
In 1932-1933 he served as deputy regional conductor, and in mid-1933 he was appointed regional conductor of the OUN and regional commandant of the UVO at the ZUZ. In July 1932, Bandera, with several other delegates from the OUN Committee in Western Ukraine, participated in the OUN Conference in Prague (the so-called Vienna Conference, which was the most important gathering of the OUN after the founding congress). In 1933 he participated in conferences in Berlin and Gdansk.
Under the leadership of Bandera, the OUN moves away from expropriation actions and begins a series of punitive actions against representatives of the Polish occupation authorities. During this period, OUN members committed three political murders that received significant resonance - the school curator Gadomsky, accused of the destruction of Ukrainian schools and Polonization by the Poles, the worker was carried out by the Russian Bolsheviks as a protest against the Holodomor in Ukraine and the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs Peratsky, for whom the Polish authorities carried out bloody actions of “pacification” (Pacification) Ukrainian. Stepan Bandera was in charge of the assassination attempts on Mailov and Peratsky.
Conclusions
In June 1934 he was imprisoned by the Polish police and was under investigation in prisons in Lvov, Krakow and Warsaw until the end of 1935. At the end of 1935 and the beginning of 1936, a trial took place before the district court in Warsaw, in which Bandera, along with 11 other defendants, was tried for belonging to the OUN and for organizing the murder of Polish Interior Minister Bronislaw Peratsky. Bandera was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment. After that, he was imprisoned in the "wity Krzy" ("Holy Cross") prisons in the Kielce circle, in the Wronki circle of Poznań and in Berestia nad Bug until September 1939. On September 13, when the situation of the Polish troops in that section became critical, the prison administration and guards hastily evacuated and the prisoners were released.
In the first half of January 1940, Bandera arrived in Italy. I was in Rome, where the OUN village was led by prof. E. Onatsky. There he met his brother Alexander, who lived in Rome from 1933-1934, studied there and did a doctorate in political-economic sciences, got married and worked in our local village.
Tragic fate Stepan Bandera's relatives
Temple in Krakow, where Bandera got married Church of St. Norbert in Krakow, where Bandera got married With the beginning of the occupation of Ukraine by Nazi troops, one of the resistance units was led by Stepan’s younger brother, Bogdan. He died in 1942 or 1943.
On July 5, 1941, Stepan Bandera was arrested in Krakow. Yaroslav’s wife and three-month-old daughter Natasha followed him to Berlin to be close to her husband. Bandera was kept first in prison, then in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was kept until 1944. The brothers Alexander (Doctor of Political Economy) and Vasily (graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy of Lvov University) were killed by Polish capos in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942.
Andrei Mikhailovich Bandera, Stefan's father, was killed by the Soviet authorities. Sisters Oksana and Martha-Maria were arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1941 ( Krasnoyarsk region). The leadership of the USSR did not allow them to return to Ukraine for decades - Martha-Maria Bandera died in a foreign land in 1982, and the year-old Oksana Bandera returned to her homeland only in 1989 after almost 50 years of living in Siberia. She died on December 24, 2008.
Another sister, Vladimir, was in Soviet forced labor camps from 1946 to 1956.
OUN Bandera
After the death of Yevgeny Konovalets, according to the will, the OUN Wires were headed by Colonel Andrei Melnyk, Konovalets’s comrade-in-arms from the time of the struggle between the UPR and collaboration in the ranks of the UVO. In August 1939, the second Great Gathering of Ukrainian Nationalists took place in Rome, which officially approved Andrei Melnik as head of the OUN. However, a group of young nationalists led by Stepan Bandera, who, after the occupation of Poland by Germany, returned from prison and was cut off from the activities of the Organization, in the form of an ultimatum began to seek from the OUN and its chairman, Colonel Andrei Melnik, a change in the tactics of the OUN, as well as the removal from the PUN of several of its members . The conflict took on acute forms and led to a split. A cell of Bandera departed from the OUN, which in February 1940 created the “Revolutionary Wire of the OUN” and took the name OUN-R (later OUN-B; OUN-SD).
A year later, the Revolutionary Provod convened the Second Great Meeting of the OUN, at which Stepan Bandera was unanimously elected chairman of the Provod. Under his leadership, the OUN-B becomes ebullient revolutionary organization. She develops an organizational network in her native lands, creates OUN-B marching groups from the membership that was abroad, and, in agreement with German military circles committed to the Ukrainian cause, creates a Ukrainian legion and organizes the liberation struggle, together with other peoples enslaved by Moscow.
Before the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, Bandera initiated the creation of the Ukrainian National Committee to consolidate Ukrainian political forces in the fight for statehood.
The decision of the Organization Wire on June 30, 1941 proclaimed the restoration of the Ukrainian State in Lviv. However, Hitler instructed his police to immediately liquidate this “conspiracy of Ukrainian independentists”; the Germans arrested Bandera just a few days after the act of proclaiming the revival of the Ukrainian State - July 5, 1941. Stepan Bandera was a German prisoner in December 1944. Then he and several other leading members of the OUN were released from conclusions, trying to join the OUN-B and UPA to their forces as an ally against Moscow. Now Stepan Bandera rejected the German proposal.
At the Regional Broad Meeting of the OUN-B Wire on Ukrainian lands in February 1945, which was interpreted as part of the Great Gathering of the OUN-B, a new Bureau of the OUN-B Wire was elected in the following composition: Bandera, Shukhevych, Stetsko. This choice was confirmed by the Conference of the OUN-B in 1947 and then Stepan Bandera again became the Chairman of the Wire of the entire OUN-B. As a conductor of the OUN-B, Bandera post-war period decides to continue the armed struggle against Moscow. He intensively organizes regional communications and OUN-B combat groups, which maintain contact with the Territory constantly until his death.
In 1948, an opposition was formed in the Foreign parts of the OUN-B, which Stepan Bandera overthrew on the ideological, organizational and political plane.
In December 1950, Bandera resigned from the post of Chairman of the OUN-B ZCH Wire. On August 22, 1952, he also resigned from the post of head of the wire of the entire OUN-B. But this decision of his was not, however, accepted by any competent institution of the OUN-B, and Bandera subsequently remained the Guide of the OUN-B until his death in 1959.
1955, the 5th Conference of the OUN-B AF was held, which re-elected Stepan Bandera as the Chairman of the OUN-B AF Conduct, and since then the work of the Organization has been intensively carried out again.
Post-war years
The post-war years were tense for the family, because the Soviet secret services were hunting not only for the conductor national movement, but also for his children. For example, before 1948, the family changed their place of residence six times: Berlin, Innsbruck, Seefeld, Munich, Hildesheim, Starnberg. Finally, due to the need to give their daughter a good education, the family finally moved to german city Munich (Bavaria). Parents tried to hide the importance of her father's person from Natalya, so as not to expose the girl to danger. Memories of Natalya, daughter of Stepan Bandera, about that time:
It was in Munich that Stepan Bandera spent recent years life, living under a passport in the name Stefan Popel. According to one version, the passport was left to him from Lvov chess player Stefan Popel, who left Ukraine in 1944, at the beginning. In the 1950s he lived in Paris, and in 1956 he moved to the USA.
Murder
The grave of Stepan Bandera in Munich on October 15, 1959 in the entrance of the house on Kreitmayr street, 7 (Kreittmayrstrae), in Munich at 13:05 they found Stepan Bandera, still alive and covered in blood. A medical examination showed that the cause of death was poison. Bogdan Stashinsky shot a stream of solution in the face of Stepan Bandera from a special pistol potassium cyanide. Two years later, on November 17, 1961, the German judiciary announced that Bogdan Stashinsky was the killer of Stepan Bandera on the orders of Shelepin and Khrushchev.
After a detailed investigation against the killer, the so-called. “Stashinsky's trial” from October 8 to October 15, 1962 The verdict was announced on October 19 - the killer was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
German Supreme Court in Karlsruhe confirmed that the main accused in the murder of Bandera was the Soviet government in Moscow. In an interview with the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, published in the issue of December 6, 2005, former chairman of the USSR KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov admitted that “The murder of Stepan Bandera was one of the last to eliminate undesirable elements by the KGB through violent methods.”
On October 20, 1959, Stepan Bandera was buried at the Munich Waldfriedhof cemetery on field 43.
Announcement in the newspaper "Svoboda" about the death of S. Bandera Postage stamp for the 100th anniversary of his birth The surname "Bandera" has become one of the symbols of the Ukrainian national- liberation movement XX century. After the declaration of independence, many youth, political and public organizations were named in his honor. One of the informal names of Lviv is "Banderstadt" those. "City of Bandera" A music festival is held in Volyn "Bandershtat".
In 1995, director Oles Yanchuk made the film “Atentat – Autumn Murder in Munich” about the post-war fate of Stepan Bandera and the UPA units.
In the “Great Ukrainians” project, the conductor of the Ukrainian liberation movement took third place. The project ended in a loud scandal: Bandera, represented by Vakhtang Kipiani, was among the voting leaders, but became third, while in support of the future winner Yaroslav the Wise, represented by Dmitry Tabachnik, according to some reports, on the last day of voting more than 100 SMS were received from 80 numbers every minute. The project's editor-in-chief, Vakhtang Kipiani, said that the voting results were falsified, but the project's producer, Yegor Benkendorf, disputed this. The presenter of the project, Anna Gomonai, expressed her conviction that an official investigation into this case should be conducted:
On January 1, 2009, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian State Postal Enterprise Ukrposhta issued a commemorative envelope, as well as postage stamp, the author of which is Vasily Vasilenko. On the front side of the envelope there is an image of Stepan Bandera, under which is the logo of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (topped with the state flag of Ukraine). Below the image there is the inscription “100 years since birth” and a facsimile of the personal signature of the OUN conductor.
2009 was proclaimed in Ternopil region as the “Year of Stepan Bandera”.
Monuments
Monument to Stepan Bandera in Ternopil. Monument to Stepan Bandera in Berezhany.
There are monuments to Stepan Bandera in Lviv (see Monument to Stepan Bandera in Lviv), Ternopil (see Monument to Stepan Bandera in Ternopil), Ivano-Frankivsk, Drohobych, Terebovlya, Berezhany, Buchach, Dublyany, Mykytyntsi, Sambir, Stryi, Boryslav, Zalishchyky, Chervonograd, Mostyski, the villages of Kozovka, Verbov, Grabovka and Sredniy Berezov. In the city of Turka in 2009, a pedestal was laid for the monument to Stepan Bandera.
Museums
There are 5 Stepan Bandera museums in the world:
Streets
An avenue in Ternopil and streets in Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chervonograd, Drohobych, Stryi, Dolyna, Kalush, Kovel, Vladimir-Volynsky, Horodenka and other settlements are named in honor of Stepan Bandera.
Assignment and deprivation of the title “Hero of Ukraine”
January 20, 2010 "for the invincibility of the spirit in defending national idea, demonstrated heroism and self-sacrifice in the struggle for an independent Ukrainian state,” President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko awarded S. Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine with the award of the Order of the State (posthumously). On January 22, at the celebrations on the occasion of Unity Day at the National Opera, the head of state noted that “millions of Ukrainians have been waiting for this for many years.” Those present at the celebrations greeted the award while standing. The grandson of the OUN conductor, also named Stepan Bandera, came out to receive the award.
Banner at the Karpaty – Shakhtar match in Lviv with a portrait of the figure and the inscription “Bandera is our hero” (April 2010) This decision caused a mixed reaction both in Ukraine and abroad:
Reaction to Ukraine
International reaction
Cancel
On April 2, 2010, the Donetsk District Administrative Court declared illegal and canceled the Decree of President Viktor Yushchenko awarding Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine. The court declared the said Decree illegal and subject to repeal, since such a title can only be awarded to citizens of the state; acquiring Ukrainian citizenship has been possible since 1991; persons who died before this year cannot be citizens of Ukraine; Stepan Bandera died in 1959, so he is not a citizen of Ukraine, through which he cannot be awarded the title “Hero of Ukraine”.
On April 12, 2010, Viktor Yushchenko filed an appeal against the decision of the Donetsk District Administrative Court of April 2, 2010, citing the fact that “the decision of the Donetsk District Administrative Court in the case does not meet the requirements of the current legislation of Ukraine, and therefore should be canceled.”
Appeals were also filed by other persons.
On June 23, 2010, the Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeal accepted the appeals and dismissed them; The decision of the Donetsk District Administrative Court is left unchanged. The decision of the appellate court could have been appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine within one month, but this was not done.
On January 12, 2011, the press service of the Administration of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych reported that:
On January 13, 2011, the lawyer representing the interests of Stepan Bandera (junior) in Ukraine, Roman Orekhov, said that there is now no legal basis to assert that the historical figures Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych have been finally deprived of the title of Hero of Ukraine, awarded by decree of President Yushchenko.
The lawyer also suggested that the presidential administration's message on January 12, which he called a "provocation," was of a political nature and was intended for interested circles in Russia, as well as Russian reporters who came to Ukraine to cover the progress of the court case.
These decisions caused discussions in society, including regarding the legal consequences of these court decisions.
Other honorary titles
In response to the deprivation of the title “Hero of Ukraine,” a number of cities in western Ukraine awarded Stepan Bandera the title of honorary citizen. So, on March 16, 2010 he received the title “Honorary Citizen of the City of Khust”, on April 30 - “Honorary Citizen of the City of Ternopil”, on May 6 - “Honorary Citizen of the City of Ivano-Frankivsk”, on May 7 - “Honorary Citizen of the City of Lviv”, on August 21 - “Honorary Citizen of the City of Dolina”, December 17 – “Honorary Citizen of the City of Lutsk”, December 29 – “Honorary Citizen of the City of Chervonograd”, January 13, 2011 – “Honorary Citizen of the City of Terebovlya”, January 18 – “Honorary Citizen of the City of Truskavets” and “Honorary citizen of Radekhov”, January 20 – “Honorary citizen of the city of Sokal” and “Honorary citizen of the city of Stebnik”, January 24 – “Honorary citizen of the city of Zhovkva”, February 16 – “Honorary citizen of the Yavoriv region”.
Recent events in Ukraine have given us a reason to call a number of Ukrainians Banderaites. Who was Stepan Bandera and why is he loved in western Ukraine? Well, here's some historical background for you.
Stepan Andreevich Bandera was born in 1909 in the village of Stary Ugrinov, which at the time of his birth was located on the land of the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, which, in turn, was part Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a Greek Catholic clergyman, and his mother (irony of fate) was the daughter of exactly the same priest. From a very young age, Stepan Bandera was raised by his father in the spirit of Ukrainian patriotism (his father was an ardent Ukrainian nationalist).
The First World War had a huge impact on the child - the boy was five years old in 1914. The front line, as luck would have it, passed through his native village several times; in one of the battles, Bander’s house received serious damage.
After the defeat of Austria-Hungary and the collapse of the empire, Stepan’s father took an active part in the Ukrainian national liberation movement, even becoming a chaplain in the Ukrainian Galician Army. However, the dreams of Bandera Sr. did not come true: the army was defeated, in 1919 Galicia was occupied by Poland, which, of course, promised the Entente respect for the Ukrainians and their autonomy. Of course, it goes without saying that having made such a serious promise, the Poles began to seriously engage in the rigid assimilation of Ukrainians - no status official language, leadership positions are only for Poles, a stream of Polish immigrants, whose houses the Ukrainians regularly burned. They were, accordingly, regularly arrested for this. It was under such conditions that Bandera entered the gymnasium in the city of Stryi, where he became even more deeply imbued with the ideas of nationalism.
In 1928, Bandera became a member of the UVO - Ukrainian Military Organization, having been assigned first to the intelligence and then to the propaganda department. In 1929, the OUN - the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists - was created, and Stepan Bandera became one of the first members of it. Soon he becomes one of the leaders of the OUN.
In 1932, the OUN began a formal war against the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, and we're talking about, of course, it’s not at all about leaflets or propaganda - on Bandera’s instructions, a number of assassination attempts are made, including on the life of the Soviet consul in Lvov (the action, however, failed, and its perpetrator, Nikolai Lemik, was sentenced to life imprisonment). In 1933, Bandera was entrusted with leadership of military actions, and the UVO became the military wing of the OUN. In the same year, at the OUN conference, a decision was made to kill Bronislaw Peratsky, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland, who was considered the initiator and inspirer of the policy of pacification of Ukraine. As part of this policy, the Poles responded to the speeches of Ukrainian nationalists with mass arrests, murders, beatings and burning of houses. The murder was carried out by Grigory Matseiko, who after execution managed to escape abroad. Bandera and his comrade Pidgain were unlucky - the day before the murder they were arrested while trying to illegally cross the Polish-Czech border. The police suspected Bandera's connection with Peratsky's murder, and he spent the next year and a half in prison.
On January 13, 1936, Bandera was sentenced to death. The Ukrainians were saved from the gallows by the amnesty decree adopted during the trial. The execution was replaced with life imprisonment. During the trial in Lviv, OUN militants killed Lviv University philology professor Ivan Babiy and his student Yakov Bachinsky. Bandera was unlucky: they were shot with the same revolver as Peratsky, which gave rise to Bandera also being brought to trial in the case of the Lvov murder. Bandera’s quote owes its origin to the Lviv process: “Bolshevism is a system with the help of which Moscow enslaved the Ukrainian nation, destroying Ukrainian statehood.”
While in custody, Bandera, who was being held in a Warsaw prison, was tried to be released, but the plans became known to the authorities. Bandera was transferred to the prison of the Brest Fortress, from where he would be released on September 13, 1939 - the administration would leave the fortress and the city. Bandera and the rest of the prisoners were freed. The USSR and the Soviet government automatically become the new enemy of the OUN, and it was decided to extend the structure of the OUN to the entire territory of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1939, a split occurred in the OUN: after the assassination of Yevgeny Konovalets, the leader of the OUN, Andrei Melnik became his successor. However, some OUN members want to see Bandera as their leader, not Melnyk. As a result, the OUN splits into two factions - OUN(b) and OUN(m). Bandera and Melnikites, if anything, and not Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at all :) Bandera feels that a conflict between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union and begins to prepare his organization for war. With the support of the Germans, two battalions are created - "Nachtigall" and "Roland", consisting mainly of Ukrainian Banderaites.
On June 30, German units occupied Lviv. Following them is the Nachtigall battalion, led by Shukhevych. In Lviv, the “Act of Revival of the Ukrainian State” is read out. Bandera's supporters form the National Assembly and government. One can imagine the surprise of the Germans who discover a new state under their noses - Bandera did not particularly inform them about his plans. Germany was not delighted with such initiatives and politely asked Bandera to curtail all these strange ideas with an independent Ukraine. He did not agree to the kind offer, which extremely upset the Germans. The upset Germans, as a return courtesy, sent Bandera to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp not far from German city Oranienburg. In 1942, the Germans began to form the Ukrainian Insurgent Army - UPA. Bandera would probably be happy to participate in this formation, but the Germans are not interested in his opinion, and they are also in no hurry to release him from the concentration camp, so the UPA and OUN are headed by Shukhevych in Bandera’s absence, but Bandera’s popularity remains very high. The UPA is gradually turning into one of the most combat-ready units, so the Germans decide to stop being upset with Bandera and release him from Sachsenhausen. In Berlin, Bandera sets a condition for cooperation: German recognition of the independence of Ukraine. This time Bandera was lucky and was not returned to the concentration camp. Shukhevych, having learned about Bandera’s release, returns leadership of the OUN to him.
After the war, Bandera finds himself in exile. The USSR demands his extradition, but to no avail. As a result, Bandera settled in Munich.
On October 15, 1959, Bandera was preparing to come home for lunch. He released the bodyguards at the entrance. Rising to the third floor, he saw a man whose face was familiar to Bandera - he had seen him in church in the morning. To the question "What are you doing here?" the stranger, whose name was Bogdan Stashinsky, pointed a rolled-up newspaper at Bandera. This newspaper contained a syringe pistol with potassium cyanide. By the time the neighbors looked out into the stairwell, Stashinsky had already left the building. On October 20, 1959, Bandera was buried at the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Munich. Stashinsky was arrested by German law enforcement agencies and on October 8, 1962, the KGB agent was sentenced to eight years in prison. After serving his sentence, he disappeared in an unknown direction.
Here is such a biography.
Stepan Andreevich Bandera - ideologist Ukrainian nationalism, one of the main initiators of the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1942, whose goal was the declared struggle for the independence of Ukraine. He was born on January 1, 1909 in the village of Stary Ugryniv, Kalush district (now Ivano-Frankivsk region) in the family of a Greek Catholic priest. After graduation civil war this part of Ukraine became part of Poland.
In 1922, Stepan Bandera joined the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth. In 1928 he entered the agronomy department of the Lvov Higher Polytechnic School, which he never graduated from.
In the summer of 1941, after the arrival of the Nazis, Bandera called on “the Ukrainian people to help the German army everywhere to defeat Moscow and Bolshevism.”
On the same day, Stepan Bandera, without any coordination with the German command, solemnly proclaimed the restoration of the great Ukrainian power. The “Act of Revival of the Ukrainian State” was read out, an order on the formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the creation of a national government.
The declaration of independence of Ukraine was not part of Germany's plans, so Bandera was arrested, and fifteen leaders of Ukrainian nationalists were shot.
The Ukrainian Legion, in whose ranks there was unrest after the arrest of political leaders, was soon recalled from the front and subsequently performed police functions in the occupied territories.
Stepan Bandera spent a year and a half in prison, after which he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was kept together with other Ukrainian nationalists in privileged conditions. Bandera's members were allowed to meet with each other, and they also received food and money from relatives and the OUN. They often left the camp in order to contact the “conspiracy” OUN, as well as the Friedenthal castle (200 meters from the Zelenbau bunker), which housed a school for OUN agent and sabotage personnel.
Stepan Bandera was one of the main initiators of the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) on October 14, 1942. The goal of the UPA was declared to be the struggle for the independence of Ukraine. In 1943, an agreement was reached between representatives of the German authorities and the OUN that the UPA would protect railways and bridges from Soviet partisans, support German events occupation authorities. In return, Germany promised to supply UPA units with weapons and ammunition, and in the event of a Nazi victory over the USSR, to allow the creation of a Ukrainian state under German protectorate. UPA fighters actively participated in punitive operations Hitler's troops, including destroying civilian population, who sympathized with the Soviet army.
In September 1944, Bandera was released. Until the end of the war, he collaborated with the Abwehr intelligence department in preparing OUN sabotage groups.
After the war, Bandera continued his activities in the OUN, whose centralized control was located in West Germany. In 1947, at the next meeting of the OUN, Bandera was appointed its leader and was re-elected to this position twice in 1953 and 1955. He led the terrorist activities of the OUN and UPA on the territory of the USSR. During cold war Ukrainian nationalists were actively used by the intelligence services Western countries in the fight against the Soviet Union.
It is alleged that Bandera was poisoned by an agent of the USSR KGB on October 15, 1959 in Munich. He was buried on October 20, 1959 at the Munich Waldfriedhof cemetery.
In 1992, Ukraine celebrated the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) for the first time, and attempts began to give its participants the status of war veterans. And in 1997-2000, a special government commission was created (with a permanent working group) in order to develop an official position regarding the OUN-UPA. The result of her work was the removal from the OUN of responsibility for cooperation with Hitler's Germany and recognition of the UPA as a “third force” and a national liberation movement that fought for the “true” independence of Ukraine.
On January 22, 2010, President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko announced the posthumous award to Stepan Bandera.
On January 29, 2010, Yushchenko, by his decree, recognized members of the UPA as fighters for the independence of Ukraine.
Monuments to the leader of Ukrainian nationalists Stepan Bandera were erected in the Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Streets in cities and villages of Western Ukraine are named in his honor.
The glorification of UPA leader Stepan Bandera draws criticism from many veterans of the Great Patriotic War Patriotic War and politicians accusing the Banderaites of collaborating with the Nazis. At the same time, part of Ukrainian society, living mainly in the west of the country, considers Bandera and Shukhevych national heroes.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
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Biography, life story of Stepan Andreevich Bandera
Stepan Andreevich Bandera is a Ukrainian politician, ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism.Family, early childhood
Stepan was born on January 1, 1909 in the village of Stary Ugrinov (Ukraine). My father's name was Andrei Mikhailovich, he was a Greek Catholic clergyman. Mother's name is Miroslava Vladimirovna (maiden name is Glodzinskaya, daughter of the Greek Catholic priest from Stary Uringov Vladimir Glodzinsky). In the family, in addition to Stepan, there were six more children - daughters Marta-Maria (1907-1982), Vladimir (1913-2001), Oksana (1917-2008) and sons Alexander (1911-1942), Vasily (1915-1942), Bogdan (1921-1943). In 1922, Andrei and Miroslava had another night, who was named after their mother, but the baby died in infancy.
The large family did not have their own home. They lived in a service house, which was provided for their use by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Andrei Mikhailovich was a staunch Ukrainian nationalist. He raised his many offspring in the same spirit, trying to early childhood instill in them your values.
Stepan grew up as a completely obedient child - he loved and respected his dear parents very much, blindly believed in God, and prayed daily. When the time came to send little Stepan to school, there was a war going on. Andrei Mikhailovich had to teach his own at home.
Already from the age of five, Stepan saw something that would make anyone, even the most healthy person Psychological deviations may begin. Stepan observed military operations more than once, saw pain, death, despair and hopelessness.
Education, upbringing
In 1919, Stepan left his family and moved to the city of Stryi to live with his paternal grandparents. In the same year, Stepan entered the Ukrainian classical gymnasium, where he studied until 1927.
At the gymnasium, Stepan Bandera showed himself to be a strong-willed person. Already knowing that he would have a difficult struggle for his ideals, for the ideals of his father, the young man often doused himself with ice water and stood in the cold for long hours. True, in the end this led to Stepan getting rheumatism of the joints. This disease did not leave him until the end of his life.
CONTINUED BELOW
According to the records of Vadim Pavlovich Belyaev, a Soviet journalist and publicist, Stepan, at a young age, could strangle a cat with one hand on a dare in front of his shocked peers. Thus, according to historians, Bandera tested whether he could, without feeling any remorse, take the life of a living creature.
At one time, together with other high school students, whose minds were entirely occupied with the promotion of nationalist ideas, he joined various thematic organizations. Thus, Stepan was a member of the Group of Ukrainian State Youth and a member of the Organization of High Schools of Ukrainian Gymnasiums. A little later, these two organizations merged into one - the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth.
After high school
Having successfully passed his final exams, in 1927 Stepan Bandera decided to enter the Ukrainian Economic Academy in Poděbrady (Czechoslovakia). However, his dream was not destined to come true - the authorities refused to issue him a foreign passport and Stepan had to return to Stary Ugrinov. IN hometown Stepan began to actively engage in housework, devoted sufficient quantity time for cultural and educational work, organized a local choir, created an amateur theater group and a sports society. Stepan Bandera somehow amazingly managed to combine all these activities with underground work through the Ukrainian Military Organization, which the young man joined while studying in high school. In 1928, Bandera officially became a member of this organization, first becoming an employee of the intelligence department, and a little later - of the propaganda department.
In the fall of 1928, Stepan Bandera moved to Lviv to enter the Lviv Polytechnic National University. Stepan managed to become a student in the agronomy department. In this educational institution Bandera studied until 1934.
Political activity
In 1929, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was created on the territory of Ukraine. Stepan Andreevich became one of the first members of this community in Western Ukraine. The leadership of the organization immediately entrusted Stepan with a very responsible task - to discreetly distribute underground nationalist literature among the students of Lvov and residents of the Kalush district. Bandera coped with his task brilliantly. In 1920, he began to independently manage the department of underground publications, a little later he became the head of the technical and publishing department, and in 1931 he began to control the delivery of underground publications from abroad, mainly from Poland. It was thanks to Stepan’s efforts that Ukrainians were able to read such printed publications, like “Awakening of the Nation”, “Ukrainian Nationalist”, “Surma” and “Yunak”. Polish police have repeatedly caught Bandera for his misconduct, for transporting literature, but every time he managed to get away with it.
From 1928 to 1930, Stepan was a correspondent for the underground satirical monthly Pride of the Nation. Bandera wrote interesting and poignant articles, which he signed not with his own name, but with the sonorous pseudonym Matvey Gordon.
In 1932, Stepan Andreevich visited (conspiratorially, of course) the city of Danzig (northern Poland), where he took a course in German school scouts. In 1933, Bandera became the regional leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in Western Ukraine.
In the period 1932-1933 on the territory of Ukraine local residents were starving en masse. The organization of Ukrainian nationalists, headed by Stepan Bandera, carried out a number of public actions in their support. At the same time, the OUN fought against the influence of Communist Party Western Ukraine, which tried to rebuild the minds of Western Ukrainian citizens.
On June 3, 1933, at the OUN conference, it was decided to commit an assassination attempt on the Soviet consul in Lvov. Bandera volunteered to lead the operation. However, everything did not go as smoothly as we would like: the fact is that when Nikolai Lemik, the perpetrator of the assassination attempt, arrived at the Soviet consulate, the consul himself was not there. Then Nikolai shot Andrei Mailov, the consulate secretary and secret agent of the United State political management under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. As a result, Lemik was sentenced to life in prison.
Stepan Andreevich did a lot to promote the ideas of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Thus, it was during his leadership that the organization increasingly began to use previously unpopular methods of influence - terrorism, mass actions, protests. Quite often, Bandera organized actions against everything Polish, from vodka and cigarettes to the Polish language.
Murders in Poland and prison
On June 15, 1943, on the orders of Stepan Andreevich, Bronislaw Wilhelm Peracki, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland, was killed. The killer himself, Grigory Matseyko, managed to escape. The day before Peratsky’s death, Bandera was arrested while trying to cross the Polish-Czech border.
On November 18, 1935, the trial of Stepan Bandera and eleven other nationalists began in Warsaw. Three of them (including Stepan himself) were sentenced to death by hanging, but during the trial an amnesty was passed. As a result, they decided to put the nationalists behind bars for life.
While Bandera was on trial, his comrades did not sit idly by. In the city of Lvov, Ivan Babiy, a professor of philology at Lvov University, and Yakov Bachinsky, his student, were shot dead. After the examination, it became clear that Ivan, Yakov and Bronislav were killed from the same revolver. Having indisputable evidence in hand, the Polish authorities held another trial, at which Bandera admitted that all three were killed on his personal orders. As a result, the court sentenced Stepan Andreevich to seven life sentences.
On July 2, 1936, Stepan was taken to the Mokotów prison in Warsaw, and the next day he was transferred to the Święty Krzyz prison. During his imprisonment, Bandera became interested in the works of the ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism Dmitry Ivanovich Dontsov. Admiring Dontsov’s thoughts, Bandera came to the conclusion that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists lacked a certain revolutionary spirit.
In 1937, it was decided to tighten the regime in Święty Krzyż. The administration prohibited relatives from sending parcels to prisoners. Outraged, Stepan and several of his comrades went on a sixteen-day hunger strike. As a result, the administration had to give in and make concessions. In June of the same year, Bandera was transferred to solitary confinement. Until this moment, he served his sentence in the company of his comrades in the OUN, who were subsequently distributed to different prisons in Poland.
In 1938, Stepan Andreevich was sent to Wronki prison (Poznan). The Polish authorities considered that Wronki was a much more reliable place for such a terrible criminal to serve his sentence. Around the same time, Bandera’s associates, who managed to remain free, began to develop a plan for the release of their leader. This somehow became known to the authorities. To avoid mistakes, Stepan was transferred to another prison, much more strict than the previous ones. Bandera ended up in prison in the Brest Fortress. However, he did not stay there long. On September 13, 1929, when the entire prison administration left Brest due to the German attack on Poland, Stepan Andreevich and other prisoners calmly left Brest Fortress and were released.
Activities of Stepan Bandera during World War II
After leaving prison and teaming up with several supporters of his beliefs, Stepan Andreevich went to Lvov. Along the way, he established contact with the existing network of the Organization of National Ukrainians. Having entered into the essence of the matter, Bandera immediately ordered that all the forces of the organization be directed to fight the Bolsheviks.
Having reached Lviv, Bandera lived in an atmosphere of complete secrecy for two whole weeks, but this did not prevent him from taking an active part in the affairs of the OUN.
In October 1939, Stepan Andreevich left Lviv, fearing that he might be caught, and went to Krakow.
In November 1939, Stepan Bandera went to Slovakia for two weeks, where experienced doctors were supposed to help him restore his health (rheumatism, which had plagued him since early childhood, intensified during his imprisonment). Even during the course of treatment, Bandera did not forget about his mission - he took an active part in OUN meetings, developed new strategies, and made proposals.
After Slovakia, Bandera went to Vienna to a major OUN center, and from there to Rome for a large congress of Ukrainian nationalists. At that very congress, a split in the organization first emerged: like-minded people had to make a very serious decision and choose the leader of the organization. Two candidates were nominated - Stepan Bandera and Andrey Melnik. The congress delegates were divided and it was difficult to make a unanimous decision. Melnik and Bandera had completely different plans for the future - Melnik assured that he would help give the Ukrainian people freedom Nazi Germany, and Bandera was sure that you need to rely only on yourself, on your own strength. The prudent Bandera, knowing that disagreements would arise at this congress, even on February 10, 1940 (two months before the congress), organized the OUN Revolutionary Conduct in Krakow, which included Bandera’s closest comrades and unanimously recognized him as the leader. When it became clear that Melnik and Bandera would not be able to come to an agreement, the OUN split into two camps - Bandera’s and Melnik’s (OUN(b) and OUN(m), respectively). Bandera, of course, became the leader of his organization.
On June 30, 1941 (a week after the start of the Great Patriotic War), the Germans occupied Lvov. At this time, Stepan Bandera was in Krakow. On his behalf, one of his spoke to the Ukrainian people faithful assistants and associates Yaroslav Stetsko. He publicly read out on Legislative Assembly a document called “Act of Revival of the Ukrainian State,” the essence of which was the creation of a new independent state on Ukrainian soil. In just a few days, representatives of the OUN(b) created the Ukrainian government and the National Assembly. Bandera's supporters even enlisted the support of the Greek Catholic Church.
On July 5, 1941, the German authorities sent Stepan Bandera an invitation to negotiations regarding German non-interference in the sovereign rights of the Ukrainian state. However, this turned out to be just a cunning ploy. As soon as Bandera arrived in Germany, he was arrested. The Germans demanded that Bandera renounce the “Act of Revival of the Ukrainian State,” but Stepan Andreevich did not agree, firmly believing in his ideals. As a result, Bandera was sent to the Montelupich police prison, and a year and a half later to the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen. In the concentration camp, Bandera was kept in solitary confinement under round-the-clock surveillance by guards, while, as some historians claim, he was well fed and the conditions in the cell were not entirely terrible. Bandera stayed in Sachsenhausen until September 25, 1944. On this day, he and a couple of hundred other Ukrainians were released. After living in the camp, Stepan Andreevich decided to stay and live in Berlin.
Last years of life
Having barely begun his free life in Berlin, Bandera, according to some sources, was recruited by the organ military intelligence and German counterintelligence under the nickname Gray.
In February 1945, still remaining on German territory, Stepan Bandera again became the leader of the OUN(b).
In the second half of the 40s, Stepan Andreevich actively collaborated with the British intelligence services, helping them search for and prepare spies to be sent to the territory of the USSR.
In the period 1946-1947, Bandera had to remember the life of an ever-hiding conspirator - at that time a real hunt was announced for him by the military police in the American zone of occupation of Germany.
In the early 50s, Stepan moved to Munich. There he began to lead an almost normal life. He even invited his family - his wife and children. At the same time, the Soviet intelligence services still continued to dream of his death, while the American services had long forgotten about him. To protect himself and his family, Stepan Andreevich acquired security guards. German police also closely monitored the lives of the Bander family, fearing that they might be killed. By the way, they managed to stop several attempts to kill Stepan Andreevich.
Death
On October 15, 1959, an agent of the Committee was waiting for Stepan Andreevich in his own house state security USSR Bogdan Nikolaevich Stashinsky. It is curious that it was on that day that Bandera, for some unknown reason, released his bodyguards at the entrance. Previously, the guards did not leave their object of observation. At about one o'clock in the afternoon, Bandera went up to the third floor, saw Stashinsky and managed to ask him only one question - “What are you doing here?” At that same second, Bogdan Nikolaevich sharply extended his hand forward with a syringe pistol wrapped in newspaper with charged potassium cyanide, and shot Bandera in the face. The shot was barely audible. When the neighbors finally looked out onto the site, sensing something was wrong, Stashinsky had already disappeared, and Bandera himself was still alive. Neighbors took Stepan Popel (and that was the name they knew him by) to the hospital. However, the dying Bandera failed to reach the doctors in time - on the way to the hospital, without regaining consciousness, he died. At first, doctors ruled that death was caused by a crack in the base of the skull due to a fall on the steps. Over time, thanks to the efforts of law enforcement agencies, it was established real reason death of Stepan Andreevich - potassium cyanide poisoning.
A little later, Bogdan Stashinsky was arrested. He confessed to the murder of Bandera and in 1962 was sentenced to eight years in maximum security prison. After serving his sentence, Bogdan Nikolaevich disappeared from public view.
Funeral
On October 20, 1959, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Stepan Andreevich Bandera was buried in the Waldfirodhov cemetery (Munich). Several thousand people arrived to say goodbye to Bandera. Before being lowered into the grave, the coffin with the body was sprinkled with specially brought earth from Ukraine and sprinkled with water from the Black Sea.
Wife and children
On June 3, 1940, Stepan Bandera was legally married to Yaroslava Vasilyevna Oparovskaya, who later became the head of the women's department and youth affairs department of the OUN(b). The wife gave birth to Stepan two daughters and one son - Natalya (1941-1985), Lesya (1947-2011) and Andrey (1944-1984). Stepan Andreevich loved his offspring very much and tried to ensure that his political activities did not have a negative impact on their lives. So, his children learned their real name only after the death of his father. Until then, they firmly believed that they sang.
Hero of Ukraine
On January 20, 2010, the President of Ukraine
Life story
On October 12, 1957, Dr. Lev Rebet, editor of the Ukrainian Independent, one of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Abroad (OUN(3)), a longtime political opponent of Bandera and OUN (revolutionary).
A medical examination carried out 48 hours after death determined that death was due to cardiac arrest. On Thursday, October 15, 1959, on the landing of the first floor on Kreitmayr Street, 7, in Munich at 13.05, Stepan Bandera, the conductor (leader) of the OUN, was found still alive, covered in blood. He lived in this house with his family. He was immediately taken to the hospital. The doctor, when examining the already dead Bandera, found a holster with a revolver tied to him, and therefore this incident was immediately reported to the criminal police. The examination established that “death occurred as a result of violence through potassium cyanide poisoning.”
The German criminal police immediately took a false lead and throughout the entire investigation were unable to establish anything. The Wire (Leadership) of the Foreign Parts of the OUN (ZCh OUN) immediately on the day of the death of its leader made a statement that this murder was political and that it was a continuation of a series of assassination attempts begun by Moscow in 1926 with the murder of Symon Petliura in Paris, and in 1938 - Evgeniy Konovalets in Rotterdam.
Stepan Bandera was buried on October 20 at the large Munich cemetery Waldfriedgof.
In parallel with the investigation conducted by the West German police, the OUN ZCH Wire created its own commission to investigate the murder of the conductor, which consisted of five OUN members from England, Austria, Holland, Canada and West Germany.
...The final i’s were dotted in the death of Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera only at the end of 1961 at the world famous trial in Karlsruhe.
The day before the construction of the Berlin Wall began, on August 12, 1961, a young couple of fugitives from West Berlin contacted the American police in West Berlin. eastern zone: USSR citizen Bogdan Stashinsky and his wife, German Inge Pohl. Stashinsky stated that he was an employee of the KGB and, on the orders of this organization, became the killer of exiled politicians Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera...
A few months before his tragic death, Stepan Bandera wrote “My Biographical Data,” in which he reported some facts from his childhood and youth.
Born on January 1, 1909 in the village of Ugryniv Stary near Kalush during Austro-Hungarian rule in Galicia (now Ivano-Frankivsk region).
His father, Andrei Bandera ("Bandera" - translated into modern language means “banner”), was a Greek Catholic priest in the same village and came from Stryi, where he was born into a bourgeois family of Mikhail and Rosalia (maiden name Beletskaya) Bander. Mother, Miroslava, was the daughter of a priest from Ugryniv Stary - Vladimir Glodzinsky and Catherine (before marriage - Kushlyk). Stepan was the second child after his older sister Martha. In addition to him, three brothers and three sisters grew up in the family.
My childhood years in my native village were spent in an atmosphere of Ukrainian patriotism. My father had large library. Often the house was visited by active participants in national and political life Galicia. The mother's brothers were well-known political figures in Galicia. Pavlo
Glodzinsky was one of the founders of the Ukrainian organizations "Maslosoyuz" and "Silsky Gospodar", and Yaroslav Veselovsky was a deputy of the Vienna Parliament.
In October-November 1918, Stepan, as he himself writes, “experienced the exciting events of the revival and construction of the Ukrainian state.”
During the Ukrainian-Polish War, his father, Andrei Bandera, volunteered for the Ukrainian Galician Army, becoming a military chaplain. As part of the UGA, he was in the Naddniepryanshchina, fighting with the Bolsheviks and White Guards. He returned to Galicia in the summer of 1920. In the fall of 1919, Stepan Bandera entered the Ukrainian gymnasium in Stryi, from which he graduated in 1927.
Polish teachers tried to introduce the “Polish spirit” into the gymnasium environment, and these intentions caused serious resistance from the gymnasium students.
Defeat of the Ukrainians Sichovykh Streltsy led to the self-dissolution of the Streletskaya Rada (July 1920, Prague), and in September of the same year the Ukrainian Military Organization led by Evgeniy Konovalets. Under the leadership of the UVO, student resistance groups were created in polonized Ukrainian gymnasiums. Although students in the seventh and eighth grades usually became members of these groups, Stepan Bandera took an active part in them already in the fifth grade. In addition, he was a member of the 5th Kuren of Ukrainian Plastuns (scouts), and after graduating from high school he moved to the Kuren of Senior Plastuns "Chervona Kalina".
In 1927, Bandera intended to go to study at the Ukrainian Economic Academy in Podebrady (Czecho-Slovakia), but was unable to obtain a passport to travel abroad. Therefore, he stayed at home, “engaged in farming and cultural and educational activities in his native village (he worked in the Prosvita reading room, led an amateur theater group and choir, founded the sports association “Lug”, participated in the organization of a cooperative). At the same time, he carried out organizational activities educational work through the underground educational institution in neighboring villages" ("My biographical data").
In September 1928, Bandera moved to Lviv and entered the agronomic department of the Higher Polytechnic School. He continued his studies until 1934 (from the autumn of 1928 to mid-1930 he lived in Dublyany, where there was a department Lviv Polytechnic). He spent his holidays in the village with his father (his mother died in the spring of 1922).
He never received a diploma as an agronomist engineer: political activity and arrest prevented him.
In 1929, the process of unification of all nationalist organizations that acted separately was completed, in single Organization Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Yevgeny Konovalets was elected as the leader of the OUN, who at the same time continued to lead the UVO. The leadership of the two organizations made it possible to gradually and painlessly turn the UVO into one of the referentures of the OUN, although due to the fact that the UVO was very popular among the people, its nominal independence was preserved.
Bandera became a member of the OUN from the beginning of its existence. Having already had experience in revolutionary activities, he began to manage the dissemination of underground literature, which was published outside Poland, in particular, the press organs of the "Rozbudova Natsi", "Surma", "Nationalist", banned by the Polish authorities, as well as the "Crajowa Bulletin" published clandestinely in Galicia Executive OUN", "Yunatstvo", "Yunak". In 1931, after the tragic death of centurion Julian Golovinsky, whom
Konovalets sent to Western Ukraine to complete the difficult process of uniting the OUN and UVO; Stepan Okhrimovich became the regional guide of the OUN in the Ukrainian lands occupied by Poland. Okhrimovich knew Bandera from his time at the gymnasium. He introduced him to the Regional Executive (executive body) of the OUN, entrusting him with the leadership of the entire referent office of OUN propaganda in Western Ukraine.
Okhrimovich believed that Bandera, despite his youth, would cope with this task. Stepan Bandera really raised the OUN propaganda cause to high level. He laid the basis for the propaganda activities of the OUN on the need to disseminate the ideas of the OUN not only among the Ukrainian intelligentsia, students, but also among the broadest masses of the Ukrainian people.
Mass actions began that pursued the goal of awakening the national and political activity of the people. Memorial services, festive demonstrations during the construction of symbolic graves for fighters for the freedom of Ukraine, honoring fallen heroes on national holidays, anti-monopoly and school actions intensified the national liberation struggle in Western Ukraine. The anti-monopoly action represented the refusal of Ukrainians to purchase vodka and tobacco, the production of which had a state monopoly. The OUN called: “Get away from Ukrainian villages and cities vodka and tobacco, because every penny spent on them increases the funds of the Polish occupiers, who use them against the Ukrainian people.” The school action, which was prepared by Bandera while still a referent for the OUN CE, was held in 1933, when he was already the Regional Guide of the OUN. The action consisted of schoolchildren throwing Polish items out of school premises. state emblems, mocked the Polish flag, refused to answer teachers’ questions Polish language, demanded that Polish teachers move to Poland. On November 30, 1932, an attack on post office. At the same time, Vasyl Bilas and Dmytro Danylyshyn were arrested and then hanged in the courtyard of the Lviv prison. Under the leadership of Bandera, a mass publication of OUN literature about this process was organized. During the execution of Bilas and Danylyshyn, mourning bells rang in all the villages of Western Ukraine, saluting the heroes. In 1932, Bandera became the deputy regional conductor, and in January 1933 he began to perform the duties of the regional conductor of the OUN. The OUN Conduct Conference in Prague at the beginning of June of the same 1933 formally approved Stepan Bandera at the age of 24 as the regional conductor.
Serious work began to eliminate the long-standing conflict that arose during the merger of the OUN and the UVO, expanding the organizational structure of the OUN, and organizing underground training for personnel.
Under the leadership of Bandera, the OUN moves away from expropriation actions and begins a series of punitive actions against representatives of the Polish occupation authorities.
The three most famous political assassinations of that time received wide publicity throughout the world, once again providing an opportunity to put the Ukrainian problem in the spotlight of the world community. On October 21 of the same year, 18-year-old Lvov University student Mykola Lemyk entered the USSR consulate and killed KGB officer A. Mailov, declaring that he had come to avenge the artificial famine that the Russian Bolsheviks had organized in Ukraine.
This political murder was personally led by Stepan Bandera. OUN combat assistant Roman Shukhevych (“Dzvin”) drew a plan for the embassy and developed an assassination plan.
Lemyk voluntarily surrendered to the police, and his trial made it possible to declare to the whole world that the famine in Ukraine is a real fact, which is hushed up by the Soviet and Polish press and official authorities.
Another political murder was committed by Grigory Matseyko (“Gonta”) on June 16, 1934. His victim was the Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland, Peracki. The resolution to kill Peratsky was adopted at a special conference of the OUN in April 1933 in Berlin, in which Andrei Melnyk and others took part from the Ukrainian Nationalist Conduct, and the acting regional conductor Stepan Bandera from the OUN Committee. This murder was an act of revenge for the "pacification" in Galicia in 1930. Then the Polish authorities pacified the Galicians with mass beatings, destroying and burning Ukrainian reading rooms and economic institutions. On October 30, centurion Yulian Golovinsky, chairman of the OUN CE and regional commandant of the UVO, who was betrayed by the provocateur Roman Baranovsky, was brutally tortured. The head of the “pacification” was the Vice Minister of Internal Affairs Peratsky. He also led similar “pacification” operations in Polesie and Volyn in 1932, and was the author of the plan for the “destruction of Rus'”4.
The assassination plan was developed by Roman Shukhevych, it was put into action by Mykola Lebed (“Marko”), and the overall leadership was carried out by Stepan Bandera (“Baba”, “Fox”).
The Polish magazine "Revolt of the Young" on December 20, 1933, in the article "Five minutes to twelve" wrote: "...The mysterious OUN - the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists - is stronger than all the legal Ukrainian parties combined. It dominates the youth, it shapes public opinion, it acts at a terrible pace in order to draw the masses into the cycle of revolution... Today it is already clear that time is working against us Every village head in Lesser Poland and even in Volyn can name several villages that until recently were completely passive, but today they are striving to fight. , are ready for anti-state actions. This means that the enemy’s strength has increased, and the Polish state has lost a lot.” This powerful and mysterious OUN was led by a little-known young intelligent student Stepan Bandera.
On June 14, the day before the assassination of General Peratsky, the Polish police arrested Bandera along with his comrade, engineer Bohdan Pidgain (“Bull”), the second (together with Shukhevych) combat assistant of the OUN CE, when they tried to cross the Czech-Polish border. After the death of Peracki, the arrest of Jaroslaw Karpinets, a chemistry student at the Jagiellonian University, and a search of his apartment in Krakow, when a number of objects were found that confirmed his involvement in the manufacture of the bomb left by Maciejko at the scene of the assassination, an investigation began: the police recorded contacts of Bandera and Pidgayny with Karpinets in Krakow. Several other members of the organization who were involved in the murder of the minister were arrested, including Lebed and his fiancee, future wife, Daria Gnatkivskaya.
The investigation dragged on for a long time, and perhaps the suspects could not have been brought to justice, but about two thousand OUN documents fell into the hands of the police - the so-called “Senyk archive”, which was located in Czechoslovakia. These documents enabled the Polish police to identify a large number of OUN members and leaders. Two years of interrogations, physical and mental torture. Bandera was kept in solitary confinement, shackled. But even under these conditions, he looked for opportunities to contact friends, support them, and tried to find out the reasons for the failure. While eating, his hands were unshackled, and during this time he managed to write notes to his friends at the bottom of the plate.
From November 18, 1935 to January 13, 1936, a trial took place in Warsaw of twelve OUN members accused of complicity in the murder of Polish Interior Minister Bronislaw Peracki. Along with Bandera, Daria Gnatkivskaya, Yaroslav Karpinets, Yakov Chorny, Yevgeny Kachmarsky, Roman Mygal, Ekaterina Zaritskaya, Yaroslav Rak, Mykola Lebed were tried. The indictment consisted of 102 typewritten pages. The accused refused to speak Polish, greeted with the greeting: “Glory to Ukraine!”, and turned the trial hall into a platform for propagating the ideas of the OUN. On January 13, 1936, the verdict was announced: Bandera, Lebed, Karpinets were sentenced to death, the rest - from 7 to 15 years in prison.
The trial caused a worldwide outcry; the Polish government did not dare to carry out the sentence and began negotiations with legal Ukrainian political parties on the “normalization” of Ukrainian-Polish relations. Bandera and his friends death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment.
This made it possible to organize another trial against Bandera and members of the Regional Executive of the OUN, this time in Lviv, in the case of several terrorist acts committed by the OUN. At the Lviv trial, which began on May 25, 1936, there were already 21 defendants in the dock. Here Bandera openly acted as a regional leader of the OUN.
At the Warsaw and Lviv trials, Stepan Bandera was sentenced together to seven life sentences. Several attempts to prepare his escape from prison were unsuccessful. Bandera spent time behind bars until 1939 - until the occupation of Poland by the Germans.
Already at this time, the NKVD was interested in the OUN, in particular Bandera. On June 26, 1936, when Bandera testified at the Lvov trial, the Moscow diplomat Svetnyala listened attentively to his words in the hall. Bandera, explaining the goal and methods of the struggle of Ukrainian nationalists against Russian Bolshevism, said: “The OUN opposes Bolshevism because Bolshevism is a system with the help of which Moscow enslaved the Ukrainian nation, destroying Ukrainian statehood...
Bolshevism fights the Ukrainian people in the Eastern Ukrainian lands with methods of physical destruction, namely, mass executions in the dungeons of the GPU, the extermination of millions of people by starvation and constant exile to Siberia, to Solovki... The Bolsheviks use physical methods, so we also use physical methods in the fight against them methods..."
After the Germans captured Poland, new occupiers came to Western Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainian political prisoners have been released from Polish prisons, and among them Stepan Bandera.
At the end of September 1939, he clandestinely arrived in Lvov, where for several weeks he worked on developing a strategy for the future struggle.
The main thing is the creation of a dense network of OUN throughout Ukraine, the establishment of its large-scale activities. A plan of action was being thought out in the event of mass repressions and deportations of the population of Western Ukraine by the Soviet occupiers.
By order of the OUN Wire, Bandera crossed the border to Krakow. Here he married Yaroslav Oparivskaya. The “revolutionaries” in the OUN, whose leader was Stepan Bandera, believed that Ukraine should, on its own, without relying on anyone’s mercy, without being an obedient instrument in the hands of others, win independence through struggle.
The events that occurred in the summer of 1941, before and after the Act of Restoration of Ukrainian Statehood, showed that Bandera was completely right that Ukraine should not expect mercy from Hitler.
In preparation for the fight against the Moscow-Bolshevik occupiers, the revolutionary OUN decided to use internal disagreements between some military circles of the Wehrmacht and the Nazi Party to organize Ukrainian training groups under the German army. The northern Ukrainian legion "Nachtigal" ("Nightingale") under the leadership of Roman Shukhevych and the southern legion "Roland" were created. Preconditions their creation was that these formations were intended only to fight against the Bolsheviks and were not considered components of the German army; The warriors of these legions had to wear a trident on their uniforms and go into battle under blue and yellow banners.
The leadership of the OUN(r) planned that with the arrival of these legions in Ukraine they should become the embryo of an independent national army. On June 30, 1941, immediately after the flight of the Bolsheviks, the National Assembly in Lvov proclaimed the Act of Restoration of Ukrainian Statehood. The Chairman of the National Assembly Yaroslav Stetsko was authorized to create a Provisional Government to organize Ukrainian power structures.
Hitler instructed Himmler to urgently eliminate the “Bandera sabotage”; the creation of an independent Ukrainian state was by no means included in the Nazi plans.
An SD team and a Gestapo special group immediately arrived in Lvov to “eliminate the conspiracy of Ukrainian independentists.” Prime Minister Stetsko was presented with an ultimatum: to invalidate the Act of Renewal of the Ukrainian State. After a decisive refusal, Stetsko and several other government members were arrested. OUN guide Bandera was arrested in Krakow.
The Nazis threw hundreds of Ukrainian patriots into concentration camps and prisons. Mass terror began. Stepan Bandera's brothers Oleksa and Vasyl were brutally tortured in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
When the arrests began, both Ukrainian legions, Nachtigal and Roland, refused to obey the German military command and were disbanded, their commanders were arrested.
Bandera stayed in the concentration camp until the end of 1944.
Feeling the power of the UPA first-hand, the Germans began to look for an ally against Moscow in the OUN-UPA. In December 1944, Bandera and several other members of the OUN-revolutionary were released. They were offered negotiations about possible cooperation. The first condition for the negotiations, Bandera put forward the recognition of the Act of Renewal of Ukrainian Statehood and the creation of the Ukrainian army as separate, independent from the German, armed forces of an independent power. The Nazis did not agree to recognize the independence of Ukraine and sought to create a pro-German puppet government and Ukrainian military formations within the German army.
Bandera decisively rejected these proposals.
All subsequent years of S. Bandera’s life until his tragic death were a time of struggle and great work outside of Ukraine for its benefit in the semi-legal conditions of a foreign environment.
After August 1943, from the III Extraordinary Great Gathering of the OUN, at which leadership passed to the OUN Wire Bureau, and until the February 1945 conference, the chairman of the Organization was Roman Shukhevych (“Tour”). The February conference elected a new composition of the Wire Bureau (Bandera, Shukhevych, Stetsko). Stepan Bandera again became the leader of the OUN(r), and Roman Shukhevych became his deputy and chairman of Provod in Ukraine. The OUN conductor decided that due to the Moscow-Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine and the unfavorable international situation, the OUN conductor should constantly remain abroad. Bandera, after whom the national liberation movement against the occupation of Ukraine was named, was dangerous for Moscow. A powerful ideological and punitive machine was set in motion. In February 1946, speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian SSR at a session of the UN General Assembly in London, the poet Mykola Bazhan demanded Western states the extradition of a large number of Ukrainian politicians in exile and, first of all, Stepan Bandera.
Throughout 1946-1947, American military police hunted for Bandera in the American occupation zone of Germany. In the last 15 years of his life, Stepan Bandera (“Veslyar”) published a large number theoretical works, in which the political situation in the world, in the USSR, in Ukraine was analyzed, and ways of further struggle were determined. These articles have not lost their significance in our time. As a warning to the current builders of “independent” Ukraine in the close embrace of its northern neighbor, the words of S. Bandera sound from the article “A word to Ukrainian nationalist revolutionaries abroad” (“Vizvolny Shlyakh” - London. - 1948. - NoNo 10, 11, 12) : "The main goal and the overriding principle the entire Ukrainian policy is and should be the restoration of the Ukrainian Independent Council State through the elimination of the Bolshevik occupation and dismemberment Russian Empire into independent national states. Only then can the unification of these independent national states into blocs or alliances take place on the basis of geopolitical, economic, defense and cultural interests on the grounds presented above. The concepts of evolutionary restructuring or the transformation of the USSR into a union of free states, but also united, in the same composition, with a predominant or central position of Russia - such concepts contradict the idea of the liberation of Ukraine, they must be completely eliminated from Ukrainian politics.
The Ukrainian people will be able to achieve an independent state only through struggle and labor. Favorable developments in the international situation can greatly help the expansion and success of our liberation struggle, but it can only play a supporting role, albeit very useful role. Without the active struggle of the Ukrainian people, the most favorable situations will never give us state independence, but only the replacement of one enslavement by another. Russia with its deeply rooted, and in modern era the most heated aggressive imperialism, in every situation, in every condition, with all its might, with all its ferocity, will rush at Ukraine in order to keep it as part of its empire or to re-enslave it. Both the liberation and the defense of Ukraine’s independence can fundamentally rely only on Ukraine’s own forces, on its own struggle and constant readiness for self-defense.
The murder of S. Bandera was the final link in a 15-year chain of permanent hunt for the leader of Ukrainian nationalists.
In 1965, a 700-page book was published in Munich - “The Moscow Murderers of Bandera Before Trial”, which collected a large number of facts and documents about the political murder of Bandera, responses from the world community about the trial of Stashinsky in Karlsruhe, detailed description the process itself. The book describes a number of attempts to assassinate Bandera. How many of them remain unknown?
In 1947, the assassination attempt on Bandera was prepared on the orders of the MGB by Yaroslav Moroz, who was tasked with committing the murder so that it would look like an emigrant settling of scores. The assassination attempt was uncovered by the OUN Security Service.
At the beginning of 1948, MGB agent Vladimir Stelmashchuk (“Zhabski”, “Kovalchuk”), captain of the underground Polish Home Army, arrived from Poland to West Germany. Stelmashchuk managed to reach Bandera’s place of residence, but realizing that the OUN had become aware of his undercover activities, he disappeared from Germany.
In 1950, the Security Council of the OUN learned that the KGB base in the capital of Czechoslovakia, Prague, was preparing an assassination attempt on Bandera.
The following year, an MGB agent, a German from Volyn, Stepan Liebholz, began collecting information about Bandera. Later, the KGB used it in a provocation related to the escape of Bandera's killer, Stashinsky, to the West. In March 1959, in Munich, the German criminal police arrested a certain Vintsik, allegedly an employee of some Czech company, who was intensively looking for the address of the school where Stepan Bandera’s son Andrei studied. The OUN members had information that in the same year the KGB, using the experience of the destruction of Petliura, was preparing for the assassination of a young Pole, whose relatives were allegedly destroyed by Bandera in Galicia. And finally, Bogdan Stashinsky, a native of the village of Borshchovychi near Lviv. Even before the murder of Rebet, Stashinsky met a German woman, Inge Pohl, whom he married in early 1960. Inge Pohl obviously played a big role in opening Stashinsky's eyes to the communist Soviet reality. Realizing that the KGB, covering its tracks, would destroy him, Stashinsky the day before the funeral little son fled with his wife to the American zone of West Berlin.
After his engagement to Inge Pohl in April 1959, Stashinsky was summoned to Moscow and ordered by the “highest authority” to kill Bandera. But then, in May, having gone to Munich and tracking down the OUN guide, last minute Stashinsky could not control himself and ran away.
On October 2, 1959, 13 days before Bandera’s death, the OUN Security Council abroad became aware of Moscow’s decision to kill the guide. But they didn’t save him... When Bandera was returning home at one o’clock in the afternoon on October 15, Stashinsky approached him on the steps of the stairs and, from a two-channel “pistol” wrapped in newspaper, shot him in the face with hydrocyanic acid...
Once upon a time, at the hands of Ukrainian lads captured by the Tatars and turned into Janissaries, their brothers were exterminated. Now the Ukrainian Stashinsky, a lackey of the Moscow-Bolshevik occupiers, destroyed the Ukrainian guide with his own hands...
The news of Stashinsky's escape to the West became a bombshell of great political force. His trial in Karlsruhe showed that orders for political murders were issued by the first leaders of the USSR, members of the CPSU Central Committee.
...On the quiet, fashionable street of Liverpool Road, 200, almost in the center of London, the Stepan Bandera Museum houses the personal belongings of the OUN leader, clothes with traces of his blood, and a death mask. The museum is designed in such a way that you can only enter it from inside the premises. The time will come - and the exhibits of this museum will be transferred to Ukraine, for which she fought all her life and for which her great son died.
Website: CHRONOS
Article: Stepan Bandera. Life and activity.
