Everything about Ukrainian Nationalist Organisation totally explained
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists or
OUN (or ОУН) was a
Ukrainian political movement originally created in 1929 in the
interwar Poland. The OUN accepted
violence as a political tool against foreign and domestic enemies of their cause. OUN's stated immediate goal was to protect the
Ukrainian population from repression and exploitation by Polish governing authorities; its ultimate goal was an independent and unified Ukrainian state. A later created (1942) military wing of OUN, the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), was a major Ukrainian armed
resistance movement.
Creation
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was created in the 1929 by the merger of the
Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) and several
nationalist student associations: the
Group of Ukrainian National Youth, the
League of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the
Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth.
Ideology
The OUN grew out of the failure of the Ukrainian people to achieve an independent state during the period of 1917–1921. According to its initial declaration, the OUN's goal was to establish an independent, united national state on ethnic Ukrainian territory. This goal was to be achieved by a national revolution, led by a dictatorship, that would drive out the occupying powers and set up a government representing all regions and Ukrainian social groups. The OUN's leadership felt that past attempts at securing independence failed due to democracy, poor discipline and a conciliatory attitude towards Ukraine's traditional enemies. Accordingly, its ideology rejected the socialist ideas supported by
Petliura and the compromises of Galicia's traditional elite. Instead, the OUN adopted the ideology of
Dmytro Dontsov, an émigré from Eastern Ukraine.
Dmytro Dontsov wrote the nation was the Absolute and that all classes, regional groups, and individuals should be subordinated into an all-encompassing national movement. Dontsov claimed that the 20th century would witness the "twilight of the gods to whom the nineteenth century prayed" and that a new man must be created, with the "fire of fanatical commitment" and the "iron force of enthusiasm", and that the only way forward was through "the organization of a new violence." This new doctrine was the
chynnyi natsionalizm – the "nationalism of the deed." In many respects its creed was similar to that of other eastern European, agrarian fascist movements, such as Romania's
Legion of the Archangel Michael and Croatia's
Ustashe. Unlike the latter organizations, the OUN didn't emphasize antisemitism in its ideology. Indeed, three of its leaders, General Mykola Kapustiansky, Rico Yary, and Mykola Skyborski, were married to Jewish women ". However, the OUN was willing to condone Nazi policies if doing so would result in an independent Ukrainian state. For example, a resolution of the Second General Congress of OUN-B (April, 1941, Krakow) called the "Jews of the USSR the most faithful supporters of the Bolshevik regime and the vanguard of the Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine." A slogan put forth by the
Bandera group and recorded in the July 16, 1941
Einsatzgruppen report stated: "Long live Ukraine without Jews, Poles and Germans; Poles behind the river San, Germans to Berlin, and Jews to the gallows". Once the OUN was at war with Germany, such instances lessened. There were many cases of Jews having been sheltered from the Nazis by the OUN's military wing UPA and Jews fought in the ranks of UPA . Although its ideology advocated achieving national independence, power and unity
by any means necessary (thus setting the stage for the
mass killing of Polish population in the territory OUN deemed Ukrainian as a means of preventing the Poles from taking control over those Ukrainian lands after the war), it didn't advocate the killing of people as a goal in itself.
At a party congress in 1943, the OUN rejected most of this fascistic ideology in favor of a social democratic model, while maintaining its hierarchical structure. This was done in light of the impending defeat of fascism in Europe and in order to gain support from Soviet deserters and the western Allies. It also formed, in 1943, an organization called the
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (headed by Yaroslav Stetsko). The jettisoning of its fascist ideology broadened its membership somewhat. In exile, the OUN's ideology was focused on opposition to communism. The
Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations it created and headed would include at various times emigre organizations from almost every eastern European country with the exception of Poland: Croatia, the Baltic countries, anti-communist emigre
Cossacks, Hungary, Georgia, Czechia, and Slovakia. In the 1970's the ABN was joined by anti-communist Vietnamese and Cuban organizations.
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History
The OUN accepted violence as a political tool against foreign and domestic enemies of their cause. Most of its activity was directed against the
Polish civilians. Under the command of the Western Ukrainian Territorial Executive (established February
1929), the OUN carried out hundreds of acts of
sabotage in
Galicia and
Volhynia, including a campaign of
arson against Polish landowners (which helped provoke the
1930 Pacification), boycotts of state schools and Polish tobacco and liquor monopolies, dozens of
expropriation attacks on government institutions to obtain funds for its activities, and some sixty
assassinations. Some of the OUN's victims included
Tadeusz Hołówko, a Polish promoter of Ukrainian/Polish compromise,
Emilian Czechowski,
Lviv's Polish police commissioner,
Alexei Mailov, a Soviet consular official killed in retaliation for the
Ukrainian Famine, and most notably
Bronisław Pieracki, the Polish interior minister. The OUN also killed moderate Ukrainian figures such as the respected teacher (and former officer of the military of the
West Ukrainian People's Republic)
Ivan Babii. Such acts were condemned by the head of the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Metropolitan
Andriy Sheptytsky, who was particularly critical of the OUN's leadership in exile who inspired the acts of youthful violence, writing that they were "using our children to kill their parents" and that "whoever demoralizes our youth is a criminal and an enemy of the people."
The OUN was originally a fringe movement in western Ukraine, whose political scene was dominated by the mainstream and moderate Ukrainian National Democratic Party (UNDO), which promoted constitutional democracy and sought to achieve independence through peaceful means. UNDO was supported by the Ukrainian clergy, intelligentsia, and the traditional establishment. As Polish persecution of Ukrainians during the interwar period increased, however, many Ukrainians (particularly the youth, many of whom felt they'd no future) lost faith in traditional legal approaches and in the western democracies who were seen as turning their backs on Ukraine. This period of disillusionment coincided with the increase in support for the OUN. By the beginning of the Second World War, the OUN was estimated to have 20,000 active members and several times that number in sympathizers. Many bright students, such as the talented young poets Bohdan Kravtsiv and
Olena Teliha (executed by the Nazis at
Babi Yar) were attracted to the OUN's revolutionary message. In 1936 and 1937, the Poles used claims of OUN involvement to justify mass trials and executions of Ukrainians, particularly youths.
As a means to gain independence from Polish and Soviet oppression, before
World War II the OUN accepted material and moral support from
Nazi Germany. The Germans, needed Ukrainian assistance against the Soviet Union, were expected by OUN to further the goal of Ukrainian independence. Although some elements of the German military were inclined to do so, they were ultimately overruled by
Hitler and his political organization, whose racial prejudice against the Ukrainians precluded cooperation. After
invasion of Poland in September
1939, some cadres of the OUN collaborated with Germany both against the Poles and, later, against the
Soviet Union. In August
1940 the organisation divided into two competing fractions:
OUN-M headed by
Andrii Melnyk and
OUN-B (or OUN-R for "revolutionary") headed by
Stepan Bandera. The OUN-B faction was more numerous while OUN-m, with its historic ties to the German military, attempted to re-establish those contacts, supposedly unaware of the true nature of the Nazi regime. Both OUN factions created their own special forces units, named "
Roland" and "
Nachtigall", respectively. Eight days after
Germany's invasion of the USSR, on
June 30 1941, the OUN-B proclaimed Ukraine's independence in
Lviv, with
Yaroslav Stetsko as
premier. A couple of days later both
Bandera and
Stetsko were imprisoned and sent to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where they were kept until September
1944. Many OUN leaders and associates were soon arrested and imprisoned by the
Gestapo. Many OUN members were killed outright, or perished in jails and
concentration camps. Both of Bandera's brothers were murdered at Auschwitz. Although the OUN was dominant in Western Ukraine during the war, hundreds of OUN members operated as far east as
Kharkiv,
Donetsk and
Crimea. Newly declassified documents show that the OUN in Eastern Ukrine were invovled in anti-fascist activities and that several hundred OUN members there were sent to concentration camps or shot by the
Gestapo. The OUN in eastern and southern Ukraine contionued to struggle against the Soviets; 1958 marked the last year when an OUN member was arrested in Donetsk.
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After the war, the OUN continued to be quite influential within the
Ukrainian diaspora. After the fall of Communism it resumed activities within Ukraine, reorganizing itself there as the
Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN). Until her death in 2003, KUN was headed by Slava Stetsko, widow of Yaroslav Stetsko, who simulataneously headed the OUN and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists is currently a member of
Viktor Yushchenko's
Our Ukraine Bloc.
Further Information
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