Roman Shukhevych

Roman-Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych (Рома́н-Тарас Йо́сипович Шухе́вич, also known by his pseudonym, Tur and Taras Chuprynka; 30 June 1907 – 5 March 1950) was a Ukrainian nationalist and a military leader of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which during the Second World War fought against the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent against the Nazi Germany for Ukrainian independence.

His political formation was influenced by Yevhen Konovalets, the commander of the Ukrainian Military Organization, who rented a room in Yevhen Konovalets's father's house from 1921 to 1922.

In 1925 Shukhevych joined the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO).

In October 1926, Shukhevych entered the Lviv Politechnic Institute (then Politechnika Lwowska – when the city of Lwów was part of the Second Polish Republic) to study civil engineering.

In 1926 the regional team of UVO ordered Shukhevych to assassinate the Lwów school superintendent, Stanisław Sobiński, accused of "Polonizing" the Ukrainian education system.

Roman Shukhevych and Bohdan Pidhainy carried out the assassination on 19 October 1926.

He organized Plast groups and founded the "Chornomortsi" (Black Sea Cossacks) Kurin in 1927.

From 1928 to 1929, Shukhevych did his military service in the Polish army.

As a tertiary student, he was automatically sent for officer training.

However, he was deemed unreliable, and instead completed his military service as a private in the artillery in Volhynia.

In 1928–29 Shukhevych served his military service in the Polish Army as an artillerist.

In February 1929 the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded in Vienna.

Shukhevych, under the name "Dzvin" (Bell), became a representative of the Ukrainian Executive.

Shukhevych was a leader of a wave of attacks against Polish property and homes in Galicia in 1930 intended to provoke Polish authorities into retaliation and to radicalise Ukrainian society.

The Polish administration retaliated with a process of "pacification" which intensified anti-Polish sentiment and increased Ukrainian nationalism.

Shukhevych planned and also participated in terrorist activities and assassinations (sometimes claimed by Ukrainian nationalists to be acts of protest against anti-Ukrainian policies).

These included:

Shukhevych, with Stepan Bandera, Stepan Lenkavskyi, Yaroslav Stetsko, Yaroslav Starukh, and others developed a concept of "permanent revolution".

According to their manifesto, the Ukrainian people, exploited by an occupier, could only obtain freedom through continued assault on the enemy.

As a result, the OUN took on the task of preparing for an all-Ukrainian revolt.

Shukhevych propagated the idea that the revolution was an uncompromising conflict in order to permanently defeat the foe.

Shukhevych took an active part in developing a concept regarding the formation of a Ukrainian army.

At that time two diametrically opposed arguments existed.

The first proposed forming a Ukrainian army of Ukrainian emigrants; the second advocated recruiting a national army in Western Ukraine organized by Ukrainians.

In July 1934 he completed his studies with an engineering degree in road-bridge speciality.

At this time he was known for his athletic abilities, for which he won numerous awards.

He was also an accomplished musician and with his brother Yuriy completed studies in piano and voice at the Lysenko Music Institute.

He sang solo on occasions with his brother in the Lviv opera.

During his student years in gymnasium, Shukhevych became an active member of the Ukrainian Scouting organization Plast.

He was a member of Lisovi Chorty.

After the 15 June 1934 OUN assassination of Polish Internal Affairs Minister Bronisław Pieracki, Shukhevych was arrested on 18 July and was sent to the Bereza Kartuska Prison.

He collaborated with the Nazis from February 1941 to December 1942 as commanding officer of the Nachtigall Battalion in early 1941, and as a Hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion in late 1941 and 1942.

Shukhevych was one of the perpetrators of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of tens of thousands of Polish civilians.

It is unclear to what extent Shuchevych was responsible for the massacres of Poles in Volhynia, but he certainly condoned them after some time, and also directed the massacres of Poles in Eastern Galicia.

Historian Per Anders Rudling has accused the Ukrainian diaspora and Ukrainian academics of "ignoring, glossing over, or outright denying" OUN's role in this.

Shukhevych was born in the city of Lemberg (now Lviv), in the Galicia region of Austria-Hungary (some sources claim his place of birth as Krakovets).

Both of his parents were involved with the Ukrainian national revival in the 19th century.

The family lays claim to dozens of active community activists in politics, music, science, and art.

Shukhevych received his early education outside of Lviv.

He returned to Lviv to study at the Lviv Academic Gymnasium, living with his grandfather, an ethnographer Volodymyr Shukhevych.