Who is Bender. Who is Stepan Bandera

On the first day of each new year, torchlight processions take place in the cities and towns of Western Ukraine. People take to the streets to honor the memory of Stepan Bandera, the most controversial figure of modern Ukrainian history. Many consider him a real hero who gave his life for the independence of the country, others - a criminal and a traitor, because of which thousands of people died. He himself did not have to kill people, but his supporters, blindly obeying orders, in post-war years staged a real terror in western regions Ukraine.

Stepan Bandera was born in Stary Ugrinov in 1909. In the documents about the place of his birth, there is an entry about already non-existent state─ The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, which was then integral part Austro-Hungarian Empire. Stepan Bandera is destined to absorb the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism from childhood. His father, the Greek Catholic priest Andriy Bandera, firmly believed in the realization of the then unrealizable dream ─ gaining independence by Ukraine.

During the First World War, Galicia became a gigantic battlefield. Father, being served by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, went to fight at the front. After the defeat of the Austrians in the war, he became a member of the parliament of the independent West Ukrainian people's republic and joined the Ukrainian militia ─ the Galician army, the predecessor of the future armed formations of Ukrainian nationalists. Stepan Bandera met the end of the war with relatives in the city of Stryi, not far from Lvov. Western Ukraine fell under the rule of Poland and my father, who served as a chaplain in the Galician army that fought against the Poles, had to hide from the occupation authorities for some time.

At the age of twelve, Stepan Bandera joined underground organization Ukrainian schoolchildren. Thus began his path into politics and the struggle for "independence", which lasted almost 40 years, most of which he will have to spend in captivity or illegally. You can safely call him a fanatic or obsessed with an idea. Even as a child, he began to prepare himself for future difficult trials.

Stepan Bandera often went on long forest hikes with scouts, went in for sports, and in winter he hardened himself in the cold, pouring himself with water. He overdid it a little. From hypothermia, he will develop rheumatism of the legs, from which he will suffer greatly all his life. Poland in the post-war years began to pursue a policy of forced assimilation in the Ukrainian territories, supporting the resettlement of Poles in Western Ukraine. So the Polish authorities became the main enemy for Ukrainian nationalists.

In 1927, Stepan Bandera joined the Ukrainian military organization, and 2 years later he found himself in the newly organized Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Studying at the Lviv Polytechnic as an agronomist, he free time devoted to underground activities. Throughout his life, Bandera had many nicknames ─ Fox, Gray, Kruk, Baba, Rykh. In those years, he wrote a lot for illegal newspapers, signing under the pseudonym Matvey Gordon.

The life of an underground worker is the same in all countries and at all times. Secret meetings, posting leaflets, distribution of illegal newspapers, propaganda among the masses, organization of strikes and boycotts of elections ─ he had to deal with all this. The active young nationalist was quickly noticed. In 1933, he was appointed a "regional conductor" ─ the head of the regional organization of the OUN.

Stepan Bandera nationality

The political struggle gradually became radicalized. Ukrainians began to take up arms. In 1932, Stepan Bandera was trained in the German intelligence school in Danzig in the methods of sabotage. Thus began his cooperation with the German authorities, in those years, trying to cultivate an internal enemy for the neighboring unfriendly Poland. In 1933, the OUN decided to liquidate the Minister of the Interior of Poland, Bronisław Peracki.

The organization of the operation was personally led by Stepan Bandera. In mid-June 1934, in Warsaw, a Polish minister was shot by a member of the OUN Grigory Matseyko. He managed to successfully leave both the crime scene itself and Poland, but the organizer of the action was not lucky. They were all arrested, including Stepan Bandera. A court in Warsaw found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging. During the trial, Bandera was removed from the courtroom several times for shouting "Live Ukraine." death penalty commuted to life imprisonment. In prison, Stepan Bandera proved to be a very restless prisoner, constantly participating in protest hunger strikes. From he continued to lead the activities of the OUN for Western Ukraine.

In addition to Poland, the gaze of Ukrainian nationalists often turned to the east. In the early 1930s, famine broke out on the territory of Soviet Ukraine due to crop failures. Ukrainians often refer to those events as the "Holodomor", still considering it to be artificially inspired by Stalin's entourage. Stepan Bandera adhered to the same views. He decided to take revenge on the Soviet authorities for the "mockery" of the Ukrainian people.

In the autumn of 1933, Aleksey Maylov, secretary of the USSR consulate in Lvov, died at the hands of a sent man. From this event, the war of Bandera and the OUN against the USSR began. The outbreak of the Second World War helped the release of the prisoner. He met her in the Brest Fortress. The Poles had a maximum security prison within its walls. When the Soviet troops approached, moving west according to the Molotov-Ribbentropp plan, the prison guards fled. Stepan Bandera immediately went home to Lviv. These were the few months he lived under Soviet power, of course, in an illegal position. If the NKVD had arrested him then, he would have rotted in Kolyma or even been immediately shot in the basement, but Bandera managed to secretly cross the border and get into the territory occupied by Germany.

Bandera movement

Poland disappeared from the map of Europe. Western Ukraine was divided between Germany and the USSR. The enemy for Bandera has changed. Poland was replaced by Germany. While he was in prison, great changes took place in the OUN. The former leader, Evgen Konovalets, was blown up by a bomb in Rotterdam. Andrey Melnik claimed unconditional leadership. Their meeting took place in Italy. Stepan Bandera demanded that Melnik stop any contacts with Germany. He refused. The OUN split into two parts. Bandera headed the OUN (Bandera movement).

Actually, after a quarrel between the two leaders of the OUN, the term "Bandera" came into play. With Nazi Germany, he still had to start cooperation. He met the German attack on the USSR in Krakow, being under vigilant police supervision. He was strongly advised not to visit his native places. As part of the German troops at the end of June 1941, which entered Lvov, there were 2 battalions manned by his supporters. On the same day, one of the leaders of the OUN (b), Yaroslav Stetsko, read out in Lvov the “Act of the Revival of the Ukrainian State”. The Germans absolutely did not need an independent Ukraine. They didn't have their own plans. They did not recognize any "independence", and all its guardians were quickly arrested.

Stepan Bandera with his wife and daughters were placed in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There he soon met Andrey Melnik, who always staked on Germany. In the concentration camp, Stepan Bandera had some privileges compared to other prisoners. He was fed a little better and was sometimes allowed to meet with his family. The Germans have always been very prudent.

Andrey Melnik in old age

Bandera was remembered in 1944, when the Soviet Army approached the lands of Western Ukraine. According to calculations German command Ukrainian nationalists were supposed to start guerrilla war in the liberated areas. Bandera made the recognition by Germany of the “Act of the Revival of the Ukrainian State” a prerequisite for further cooperation. He never managed to achieve this.

Back in 1942, in Galicia, without the participation of Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the UPA began to form, which became the core of the resistance and received help from the Germans in the form of weapons. Stepan Bandera from Germany tried to lead the "out of band" formations of nationalists.

Opposition grew within the OUN, especially among its members hiding in the forests of Ukraine, accusing it of being out of touch with real life and dogmatism.

Stepan Bandera met the end of the war in the part of Germany occupied by the British. Very quickly, British intelligence agencies came to him. In turn, the Americans continued to look for Bandera as an accomplice of Nazi Germany, and for a couple of years he had to hide from them.

Since then, the only enemy for Ukrainian nationalists has remained Soviet Union. The guerrilla war in Western Ukraine continued until the mid-1950s.

Many years after the destruction of the main forces of the "Bandera" in the villages, they found hiding in the cellars of the relatives of the former UPA fighters. Such stubbornness was only demonstrated by Japanese soldiers who did not recognize surrender, who continued to be caught in the jungles of the Philippines until the 70s.

The murder of Stepan Bandera

The recognized leader of the nationalist movement inevitably became a target for the Soviet secret services. In 1947, an assassination attempt was made by Yaroslav Moroz, a year later by Vladimir Stelmashchuk. In 1952, German citizens Leguda and Leman were convicted of plotting an assassination. A year later, Stepan Liebgolts tried to get to Bandera. The OUN's own security service and the German police were on the alert, exposing the agents. The OUN leader lived with his family under the name Poppel in Munich. He conspired so reliably that his own children for a long time believed that Poppel was their real name.

In October 1959, Stepan Bandera and the address of his house were calculated by KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky. 2 years before that, he successfully liquidated another OUN leader, Lev Rebet. For the new murder, Stashinsky used a special syringe pistol charged with potassium cyanide. He was waiting for Bandera at the entrance of the house with a bundle of newspaper in which weapons were hidden. Poppel-Bandera returned home for lunch. Stashinsky shot him in the face and fled. Only an autopsy determined the true cause of death. Initially, doctors assumed a heart attack.

Stepan Bandera, with a huge gathering of Ukrainian emigrants, was buried at the Waldfriedhof cemetery. Stashinsky will flee to the West in 1961 from the GDR with his German wife. He frankly confesses to the murders of Rebet and Bandera. After 6 years, he will be released early from prison and disappear. He will undergo plastic surgery, after which, under a fictitious name, Stashinsky will live in South Africa.

Dmitry Galkovsky

It so happened that Stepan Bandera became a key figure in the political history of Ukraine. This is the most mentioned figure in modern Ukrainian history. In the split Ukrainian society, there are two versions of his biography.

For the East (as well as for the Russian Federation), Bandera is the head of Ukrainian nationalists, a terrorist and a murderer who supports the occupation regime in the fascist Reichskommissariat Ukraine, who took refuge in the West after the war, and tried to conduct American espionage and terrorist-sabotage activities on the territory of the USSR. For which he was eliminated in 1959.

For the Lviv West, Bandera is again the head of Ukrainian nationalists, a fiery fighter for independence - first with the Polish oppressors, then with the German invaders and finally with the Soviet (or, let's call a spade a spade, Russian) occupiers. For which these invaders vilely and killed.

In my opinion, both versions are far from the truth. Although both myths themselves have a right to exist, just as the peoples who gave birth to them have a similar right to exist.

Let's start with the fact that Bandera was never the head of an organization of Ukrainian nationalists. The head of the OUN (and before its establishment - UVO: Ukrainian Military Organization) was Evgeny Konovalets, who passed world war ensign of the Austro-Hungarian army. After his assassination in 1938, the OUN was headed by Andrei Melnik, also an Austrian with experience in the First World War and then civil war. These people were almost 20 years older than Bandera; Bandera himself looked like a Komsomol activist against their background. He really was such an activist.

Andrey Melnik

The maximum position of Bandera in the OUN is the head of the Krakow organization, that is, entry not even into the second, but into the third echelon of management. And he did not stay long in this position.

There is no Bandera among the organs of independent Ukraine during the Nazi occupation.

On October 5, 1941, the Ukrainian National Council was established in Kyiv on the initiative of Melnyk and under the leadership of the Kyiv professor Mykola Velichkovsky. There was no place for Bandera in this Ukrainian proto-government.

A similar body was created in the district of Galicia - the Ukrainian part of the Polish governor-general. It was headed by Vladimir Kubiyovych, Associate Professor at the University of Krakow. Bandera was not there either.

Bandera was not a party ideologist, like the Bolshevik Bukharin, or at least a "golden pen", like the Bolshevik and Bandera's countryman Karl Radek.

On the contrary, the cultural level of Bandera is quite low. He went to school only at the age of 10, then he tried to study as an agronomist, but something did not work out.

Polish pioneers, that is, scouts. Far right - Bandera.

Maybe this is some kind of fiery chegevara, who left behind a lot of revolutionary "deeds"? Also no. While studying at school, he really liked secretary Komsomol work - meetings, lightning, reading scout literature. As a student, he was arrested several times, mostly for smuggling nationalist literature.

On the right is Bandera with scout badges. A well-recognized type of school "excellent student". It is always said that in childhood, for authority, Stepan Andreevich strangled cats in front of enthusiastic classmates. Oh, the brave stranglers do not remember this. They are told by hard-nosed brats who have suffered slaps on the back of the head from school hooligans.

Then he was arrested on someone else's case and hanged a life sentence. In June 1934, the Ukrainian nationalist Hryhoriy Matseyko assassinates the Minister of the Interior of Poland, Bronisław Poretsky. The killer manages to escape abroad, and the enraged Polish government hangs the organization of the murder on the OUN activists who turned up. 12 people are appointed responsible, including one arrested the day before the murder of Bandera (in another trifling case - smuggling of Ukrainian literature across the Czechoslovak border). In the end, Terpila “confesses” to everything, and two more murders are immediately blamed on him - a professor and a student of Lviv University, which occurred ONE AND A HALF YEAR AFTER HIS ARREST. Terpila agrees with this accusation, and receives a life sentence.

That's the whole "terrorist activity" of Bandera until 1939 - he transported books, wrote articles in the regional press, organized terrible boycotts: do not buy Polish vodka and cigarettes in local shops. And he signed up for three murders that he did not commit, and COULD NOT commit.

Where did Bandera come from, and why did his name become so popular?

At the time of the Stalin-Hitler partition of Poland, Bandera was imprisoned in the Brest Fortress and, consequently, fell into the Soviet zone of occupation. It is believed that he left the prison during the shift change, a few days before the arrival of Soviet troops. That's quite possible. But then ... further it is stated that Bandera manages to hide for some time, move to the Soviet Lvov, hold meetings with party comrades, and then safely cross the German-Soviet border. Along which combat divisions are stationed along the entire front, and special groups of the NKVD are operating in the rear. Moreover, this is also possible for his brother, who was previously held in a Polish concentration camp in Beryoza-Kartuzskaya. Although it is believed that this camp did not have a shift change at all, and Soviet troops occupied it.

It is easy to see that the miraculous liberation and crossing of the Bander brothers across the border repeats like two peas the equally miraculous escape from the camp and crossing the border of the Solonevich brothers. True, then, while still in exile, his wife joined Solonevich. You will laugh, but in a few months the single Stepan Bandera will marry a girl who, in 1939, was also imprisoned in Lvov and also miraculously escaped. It should also be noted that both Solonevich and Bandera were imprisoned just for an unsuccessful border crossing. They couldn't cross the border from home. And from prison - it turned out. It turned out to be much easier.

On the blue eye

In April 1940, Bandera, for some reason, like Lenin in 1917, not in need of money, travels to Italy, where he meets with the head of the OUN, Melnik. Again, like Lenin, Bandera stuns the venerable head of the Ukrainian nationalists " April theses”: there is nothing to focus on Germany, it is necessary to create an armed underground in the territory occupied by the Wehrmacht and wait for the X-hour to raise an all-Ukrainian uprising. Let me remind you that this was said in a situation where there was no Ukrainian population at all in the occupation zone of Germany. Only individual emigrants in the amount of several thousand people. The situation was so delusional that Melnik ordered Yaroslav Baranovsky, head of the OUN counterintelligence, to take up the biography of the talented agronomist. To which Bandera said that Baranovsky was a proven Polish spy and he should be killed (and indeed, in 1943 he was killed by Bandera). Baranovsky (by the way, a doctor of law from the University of Prague) could well work for Polish intelligence. Why not? The question is how Bandera could know about this and where did he get the evidence of such an accusation.

In the official history of the OUN, it is generally accepted that the organization since that time, like the RSDLP, has split into the OUN (m) and OUN (b) (Menshevik-Melnikov and Bolshevik-Bandera). But this analogy is wrong. The OUN was before and remained after that under the leadership of Melnyk. And Bandera created a noisy and incomprehensibly financed organization that appropriated a different name for itself and included only people from one region of Ukraine.

Until June 22, 1941, Bandera led a splitting campaign against the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and, despite Melnik's warnings, sent underground groups to the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. Naturally, the groups were immediately identified and thrown into the prisons of the NKVD, but (oh, a miracle!) After June 22, some of Bandera's comrades-in-arms "fled" from Stalin's prisons and crossed the front line. A striking example- Dmitry Klyachkivsky. In September 1940 he was arrested by the NKVD as a German spy, but in July 1941 he "fled" from Stalin's prison and then (attention!) heads the security service military organization OUN (b) - "Ukrainian Insurgent Army".

Now what happened after June 22nd. From the beginning of 1941, the Germans formed the Nachtigal special battalion from Ukrainians who had experience of serving in the Polish army. It was not a political, but a purely military (military sabotage) unit, designed to solve tactical tasks (mining behind enemy lines, destroying communications equipment, etc.). The recruitment of "Nachtigal" by Bandera was carried out without permission, they simply signed up as Ukrainian volunteers. The real support at the German top then was from the Melnikovites, they formed several combat units on the Slovak border.

On June 29-30, Nachtigal ended up in Lvov, at the same time Bandera emissaries arrived there. They began to exterminate the Jews (deliberately senseless in order to completely discredit the Germans in front of the United States - for example, professors of mathematics from Lviv University) and proclaimed the creation of an independent Ukrainian republic, as well as the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian armed forces(to seize the initiative from the Germans and present them with a fait accompli). The Germans were stunned by such impudence, "Nachtigal" was taken out of Lvov (it's not at all clear how he got there) and soon disbanded. Already in early July, Bandera and his self-appointed government were arrested by the Germans. The Ukrainian state, as agreed with the venerable Melnyk, was proclaimed in Kyiv three months later.

The problem was that other settlements Bandera acted with the same agility and, in the wake of the anti-Stalinist enthusiasm of the population, they managed to form cells of activists. The Germans considered this and soon Bandera was released. But about positive work (in the understanding of the Germans), Bandera did not have a trace. Relying on armed groups of activists, he began the physical destruction of the Melnikovites.

Ukraine is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - on the back of Bandera.

On August 30, two members of the leadership of the Melnyk OUN were shot dead in Zhytomyr, then in different cities several dozen more people were killed, and in total, the Banderaites handed down about 600 death sentences to the Melnikovites. Massive oppression of the Polish population also began. Already at this stage, the cause of creating an independent Ukraine under the auspices of Germany was hopelessly thwarted. Soon the Germans again imprisoned Bandera and sent him to a concentration camp, where his two brothers ended up (later killed by the camp administration from the Poles).

At the same time, it cannot be said that Bandera was guided by ... well, for example, Stalin, and Melnik - Hitler. In principle, Melnik had no disagreements with Bandera, it was about tactics and common sense. Melnyk wanted to strengthen himself with the help of the Germans, and if they lost, he would jump on the overhead and recreate an independent Ukrainian state. Therefore, in 1944, the Germans put him in prison.

Here I will allow myself a small digression.

As I already had the honor to explain in the Belarusian cycle, the history of partisan wars is the most deceitful area of ​​historiography (after church history). You can safely forget what you have been told for 70 years about Kovpak and Ponomarenko. Real church history and real story partisan movement (this is if it exists) with the so-called. the townsfolk should be absolute fiction.

It is believed that partisan movement during the war years was carried out by a certain "Central Partisan Headquarters at the headquarters supreme command” under the leadership of the party bureaucrat and electrical engineer Ponomarenko. It was partly true, but the scheme did not work. Because in order to conduct a guerrilla war, you need to have the appropriate personnel and specialist leaders. They did not exist in the USSR, and you cannot master such a thing by trial and error. Too far to take trial and error, eh Feedback delayed by months or not at all.

Apparently, the current sector of sabotage and partisan work (and, of course, it was) was supervised by a group of foreign specialists, and the partisan movement itself unfolded against the backdrop of complex forms of cooperation with local oppositionists. So the backbone of Dmitry Medvedev's partisan group consisted of Spanish saboteurs trained by the British, dressed in the form of Melnikovites. In turn, the Melnikovs used clothes Soviet army etc.

Moreover, all this magnificence was covered by the German leadership of Ukraine.

I think everyone has heard about the fascist fanatic Gauleitor of Ukraine Koch, he was killed there by partisans or hanged in Nuremberg. So no.

Rosenberg in Kyiv. Far right - Erich Koch.

After the war, Erich Koch safely moved to the British zone of occupation and lived there until the summer of 1949. Although it seems that the chela had to search long and hard, and it was quite easy to do this - because of the pathologically short stature. Most likely, the British were well informed about his whereabouts, but after being advertised, they were forced to arrest him. However, they themselves did not judge him, but handed over the chief executioner of the USSR. What about the USSR? But nothing - he handed over the Gauleiter ... to Poland. It is very strange, but the NDP must have been pulled off to the fullest. No, at first his death sentence was suspended for 10 years, and then completely canceled. There was no pomp, at the trial Koch for some reason said that he loved the USSR, and did a lot of useful things. He lived in Poland until the age of 90, died in 1986, was actually kept under house arrest. This, I repeat, is one of the main fanatics even after the mass executions of the leaders of the Third Reich.

What, by the way, were the names of Soviet agitators of Ukrainian collaborators during the war? It turns out for the most part it doesn't. "Police". After the war, three names appeared: "Melnikovtsy", "Bandera" and "Bulbovtsy". Bulbovtsy - named "Taras Bulba", in the world - Taras Borovets, the head of the third group of Ukrainian nationalists, united in the "Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army". (Borovets was eventually sent to a German camp as well, while the Bandera people seized his wife and killed him after monstrous torture.)

"Taras Bulba" in the form of a civilized officer.

"Taras Bulba" in the form of a Russian commander partisan detachment(pay attention to plywood birches).

And this home view, "in slippers." As far as I understand, the "bulbs" were real field commanders occupied Ukraine.

Gradually, in the 60-70s, the “Melnikovites” and “Bulbovites” were forgotten, in the Soviet propaganda literature, the name Bandera was firmly established behind all the independentists. Meanwhile, Bandera himself from September 1941 to September 1944 was in a concentration camp and could not lead operations and generally take part in the course of affairs. (For comparison, Melnik was imprisoned from February to September 1944, Bulba - from December 1943 to September 1944). In the absence of Bandera, the OUN (b) was led by Nikolai Lebed, who, unlike Melnik or Bulba, was IN ILLEGAL STATION, and the Germans put a reward on his head. The main activity of the OUN (b), - rather insignificant - was the destruction of the people of Melnik and Bulba, as well as terror against the Polish population (Volyn massacre of 1943).

Emigrant affairs.

After the war, Bandera's emigre activity naturally again came down to the surrender of the MGB to agents abandoned by the Americans, in addition, the OUN (b) itself split into two parts. The breakaway part was headed by Lev Rebet, who was soon killed by the Staro-Banderites. The answer followed two years later. Despite the fact that Bandera was highly encrypted (even his children did not know that he was Bandera, and thought that their dad was an ordinary Bandera member named Poppel), the Rebetovites tracked him down and killed him.

As is customary in such cases among Ukrainians, two years later another independent nationalist appeared on the horizon - Stashinsky, and stated that he personally killed both Rebet and Bandera ... on the instructions of the KGB. Further, with all the stops up to mysterious disappearances, plastic surgeries, polonium poisoning, etc. Recently, we all saw the Ukrainian performance on the example of Litvinenko-Lugovoy - also with the miraculous finding of lost parents, articles in the yellow press and Polish zilch at the end.

On vacation in Switzerland. The scout net is sorely lacking.

As for the OUN(m), led by Melnyk, it finally merged with, so to speak, the indigenous Ukrainian national movement - the Petliurist government in exile, which, like the Poles, survived until the collapse of socialism and committed a symbolic act of transferring power to the legitimate government of Ukraine in the early 90s.

Shukhevych is a junior officer of the auxiliary German troops, who then went underground and removed Lebed from the military leadership of the OUN (b). Now the nationalists are fastened to Bender, because he did not take part in any action at all.

Why, after all, did the “Banderites” become a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism, and not the respectable (and, in the end, more or less legitimate) “Melnykovites”, and not the brave “Bulbovites”? From point of view Soviet propaganda, as it is ridiculous, business in a significant surname. "Bandera" from "gang", "Bandera" = "bandits".

Lenin is, Lenin is not. Happiness.

Well, as a teenager, I discovered the brochure of the publishing house of foreign literature "Korean Proverbs and Sayings." She always lay on the shelf, and then I take it and open it. The first thing I saw was the saying: "Spoiled air is the loudest indignant of the one who spoiled it." The next day, the whole "sixth be" was laughing, the brochure was read to the holes. And the state is a teenager.

For a long time the name of the movement was distorted - "Bendera" instead of "Bandera", in the 50s. The NKVD created punitive detachments, dressed in the form of "Bandera", which were destroyed in order to arouse hatred for the OUN-UPA, etc.

4. During Patriotic War, which began in 2014, separatists and Russians called all the defenders of Ukraine only "Banderites" or "Bandera punishers."

5. What are the main merits of Stepan Bandera to the people of Ukraine? He

Became one of the organizers in 1929 of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) - the main instrument of the national liberation movement of Ukrainians in subsequent decades. From 1933, Bandera became the regional conductor of the OUN in Western and the regional commandant of the combat department of the OUN-UVO, from 1940 - the head of the OUN-UPA (b);

On July 5, 1941, members of the OUN-UPA (b) in Lvov announced the "Act of the Revival of the Ukrainian State", which announced the creation of a "new Ukrainian state on the mother Ukrainian lands", for which Stepan Bandera was arrested on the same day, subsequently sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until September 1944;

His followers, led by Roman Shukhevych, created Ukrainian army OUN-UPA, which fought both the fascist (1942-1944) and the communist regime in the USSR from 1944 to 1956.

2010 - Hero of Ukraine "for the invincibility of the spirit in defending national idea heroism and self-sacrifice in the struggle for an independent Ukrainian state".

The then President of Ukraine, during the celebrations in honor of the Day of Unity, noted that millions of Ukrainians had been waiting for Stepan Bandera to be awarded the title of "Hero of Ukraine" for many years.

The post-war years were the most difficult for Stepan Bandera. So, for example, only in 1948 he changed his place of residence six times (Berlin, Innsbruck, Seefeld, Munich, Hildesheim, Starnberg). Ultimately, Bandera and his family moved to Munich in order to give their daughter a good education. The fact is that Stepan, together with his wife, tried to protect from everything that was happening around her father, and never told her that the famous Stepan Bandera was actually her blood father. “At the age of 13, I began to read Ukrainian newspapers, in which they wrote a lot about Stepan Bandera. Over time, based on my own observations, as well as constant name changes, and also due to the fact that there were always a huge number of people around my father, I some suspicions arose. And when one of my acquaintances let it slip, I was sure that Stepan Bandera was my own father, "said Natalia, Bandera's daughter.

Stepan Bandera's mother died of tuberculosis at the age of 33, and he himself was in poor health since childhood. Basically he was worried about the joints, often rendered legs. In this regard, all his efforts to get into the "Plast" turned out to be fruitless. He managed to join this organization only in the third grade. “He was short, brown-haired, very poorly dressed,” his comrade Yaroslav Rak recalled to Bandera.

Once, a group of students gathered in the Academic House in Lvov, one of whom immediately declared that he had nothing to do with politics and was outside of it. Stepan Bandera was also present. When a "non-political" student tried to shake his hand, Bandera turned away. Then Stepan was reprimanded, to which he replied: "If you don't like it, you can sue me." A few decades later, the same student, whose last name turned out to be Stashinsky, became the murderer of Stepan Bandera.

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The social network "" also has enough a large number of groups dedicated to Bandera. The largest of them is Group under the name "Stepan Bandera".

Biography of Stepan Bandera.

1927 - Bandera entered the Ukrainian economic academy in the village of Podebrady (Czechoslovakia). However, the Polish refused to provide him with a passport, in connection with which he continued to live in his native village, where he was engaged in cultural, educational and economic activities;

1928 - moved to live in, where he enrolled in the agronomic department of the Higher polytechnic school, where he studied until 1933, and before the final exams he was arrested because of his political activities;

1932-1933 - deputy regional conductor;

1933 - appointed regional conductor of the OUN in Western Ukraine;

1934 - arrested by the Polish police. He was under investigation in the prisons of Lvov, Warsaw and Krakow;

From November 18, 1935 to January 13, 1936, the Warsaw Trial took place, in which Stepan Bandera, along with 11 other defendants, was convicted for involvement in the OUN, as well as for organizing the murder of Bronisław Penatsky, the Polish Interior Ministry. Initially, Bandera was sentenced to death, but later it was commuted to life imprisonment;

On September 19, 1939, when the situation of the Polish troops became almost critical, Bandera was released;

On July 5, 1941, shortly after the adoption of the act of proclaiming the restoration of the Ukrainian state, the Germans arrested Bandera;

December 1944 - Bandera is released along with several other OUN conductors;

1950 - resigned from the post of head of the OUN conductors;

August 22, 1952 - resigned from the post of head of the conductors of the entire OUN-B. However, his decision was not officially accepted, and therefore he remained in this position until his death;

The last years of his life, Bandera lived in Munich under the name Stefan Popel.

The murder of Bandera.

On October 15, 1959, in Munich, at the entrance of house number 7, located on Kraitmayr Street, at 13:05 local time, Stepan Bandera was found bloody, but still alive. However, he soon died.

Results of the medical expertise showed that the cause of Bandera's death was poison. As it turned out, later, his killer, who was Bogdan Stashinsky, shot Bandera in the face with a special pistol loaded with potassium cyanide.

Two years after Bandera's death, the judiciary announced that Stashinsky had acted on the orders of Khrushchev and Shelepin. The killer was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Later German Supreme Court proclaimed that the USSR in Moscow was responsible for the death of Stepan Bandera.

Bandera's funeral took place in 1959 in Munich.

Commemoration of Stepan Bandera.

1995 - Ukrainian director Oleg Yanchuk filmed "Atentat - Autumn Murder in Munich", which is dedicated to the post-war fate of Bandera;

2005 - "Unconquered", in general about the fate of Bandera;

Rohir van Aarde, a writer from the Netherlands, wrote the novel "Attempt", dedicated to the political assassination of Stepan Bandera;

January 1, 2009 - in honor of the centenary of Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian state enterprise "Ukrposhta" issued a commemorative envelope and a postage stamp with his image.

2009 and 2014 in the Ternopil region of Ukraine were declared the years of Stepan Bandera;

2012 - Lviv Regional Council initiated the founding of the award named after the Hero of Ukraine Stepan Bandera;

In honor of Bandera, streets were named in the following cities: Lviv, Lutsk, Dubovitsy, Rivne, Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chervonograd, Drohobych, Stry, Dolina, Kalush, Kovel, Vladimir-Volynsky, Gorodenka, Izyaslav, Skole, Shepetovka and some others settlements, including villages and towns;

There are 6 museums of Stepan Bandera in the world:

Stepan Bandera Museum in Dublyany;

Museum-estate of Stepan Bandera (Will-Zaderevatskaya);

Historical and Memorial Museum of Stepan Bandera (Stary Ugryniv village);

Museum of Stepan Bandera (Yagolnitsa);

Museum liberation struggle named after Stepan Bandera (London);

Museum-estate of Bandera (Stry).

Monuments to Bandera.

Most of the monuments to Stepan Bandera were erected in the period 1990-2000, since until that moment the identity of Bandera was banned by the communist ideology of the Soviet Union.

The following monuments to Stepan Bandera are currently known:

1991, Kolomyia - a monument;

2007, Lviv. Monument;

1998 - Borislav;

2001 - Drohobych;

Date of creation: 12/01/2011

Stepan Andreevich Bandera(ukr. Stepan Andriyovich Bandera) (January 1, 1909, Stary Ugrinov, Austria-Hungary - October 15, 1959, Munich, Germany) - one of the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, Hero of Ukraine (2010), in 1941-1959. head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN (b)).

Formation of the battalions "Nachtigal" and "Roland"

The Nazis planned to use the OUN to exterminate Poles and Jews. . In November 1939, about 400 Ukrainian nationalists began training in the Abwehr camps.

According to a number of sources, at the beginning of 1941, S. Bandera held a series of meetings with the leadership of German military intelligence, which resulted in the beginning of the formation of the Nachtigall battalions (a number of sources mention the "Ukrainian Legion named after S. Bandera" among the names of this unit) and "Roland" , in the spring of 1941, the OUN-R receives 2.5 million marks from the Abwehr to conduct a subversive struggle in the USSR.

As follows from the memoirs of Y. Stetsko, shortly before the war, Bandera secretly met with Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr. Bandera himself pointed out that at the meeting with Canaris, the conditions for training Ukrainian volunteer units under the Wehrmacht were mainly discussed.

Proclamation of anti-Jewish policy

In April 1941, the Revolutionary Wire of the OUN convened in Krakow "their own" II-th Great Gathering of Ukrainian nationalists, where Stepan Bandera was elected head of the OUN, and Yaroslav Stetsko as his deputy.

The organizational greeting of a member of the OUN was adopted by the Nazi salute. The colors of the OUN flag under the leadership of S. Bandera were adopted - black and red.

The decisions of the congress stated: The Jews in the USSR are the most devoted support of the ruling Bolshevik regime and the vanguard of Moscow imperialism in the Ukraine. The anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses are used by the Moscow-Bolshevik government to divert their attention from the real cause of the troubles and to direct them during the uprising to Jewish pogroms. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists fights the Jews as the mainstay of the Moscow-Bolshevik regime, while at the same time informing the masses that Moscow is the main enemy» .

The basic document of the OUN (b) adopted after the Congress - the instruction “Struggle and activities of the OUN during the war” stated: “In times of chaos and unrest, you can afford to liquidate unwanted Polish, Moscow and Jewish figures, especially supporters of Bolshevik-Moscow imperialism; national minorities are divided into: a) loyal to us, actually members of the still oppressed peoples; b) hostile to us - Muscovites, Poles and Jews. a) they have the same rights as the Ukrainians…, b) to destroy in the struggle, in particular those who will defend the regime: to resettle in their lands, to destroy, mainly, the intelligentsia, which should not be allowed into any governing bodies, to make “production” impossible at all intelligentsia, access to schools, etc. Destroy the leaders… Assimilation of the Jews is excluded.”

On June 23, 1941, the OUN(b) sends its version of the memorandum to the Reich Chancellery; the OUN(m) will do so on July 3.

Anti-Jewish activity

Stry, a memorial plaque at the school where Bandera studied.

After the entry of German troops into Soviet territory, on June 25, 1941, J. Stetsko wrote in his letter-report to S. Bandera: "We are creating a police force that will help remove the Jews."

In the rear of the advanced units of the German troops, S. Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko with a group of supporters arrived in Lvov on June 29, where Bandera was detained and returned to Krakow, and the next day Stetsko convened the “Ukrainian National Assemblies”, which proclaimed on June 30, 1941 the “Ukrainian State » which will be together with Greater Germany establish a new order around the world, led by "the leader of the Ukrainian people, Stepan Bandera."

The statement of the head of the newly proclaimed "Ukrainian State" Yaroslav Stetsko said:

« Moscow and Judaism are the biggest enemies of Ukraine. I consider Moscow the main and decisive enemy, which imperiously held Ukraine in captivity. And, nevertheless, I appreciate the hostile and wrecking will of the Jews, who helped Moscow to enslave Ukraine. Therefore, I stand on the positions of the extermination of the Jews and the expediency of transferring to Ukraine the German methods of exterminating the Jews, excluding their assimilation". , The participation of the Nachtigal battalion as an organized force in the Jewish pogrom in Lvov in early July 1941 has not been proven.

From 20 (according to other sources 25) July 1941, Bandera and Stetsko were under house arrest in Berlin. The arrest did not prevent them from leading the OUN.

On August 14, 1941, Bandera wrote a letter to Alfred Rosenberg in which he once again tried to clarify the situation with the OUN (b) for the Germans. Attached to S. Bandera’s letter is a memorandum called “Zur Lage in Lwiw (Lemberg)”, which had the following sections: “History of cooperation between the OUN and Germany”, “OUN and the new order in Europe”, “Fundamentals for Ukrainian-German friendship”, “ The state as a source of the creative labor of the people", "The goal of the OUN is the Ukrainian state", "Act of 06/30/1941 and Ukrainian-German cooperation", "The attitude of the OUN to the Ukrainian state government", "OUN for further cooperation with Germany" and " Final provisions". In this memorandum, in particular, it was stated: "Ukrainianism fights against any oppression, whether it be Jewish Bolshevism or Russian imperialism."

Stepan Bandera is a Ukrainian politician, the main figure of Ukrainian nationalism. The biography of Stepan Bandera is filled with a series of terrible events, this politician went through concentration camps, murders and prisons, many facts of his biography are still shrouded in a haze of mystery. Nevertheless, many data about Stepan Andreevich Bandera are known for certain, mainly thanks to the autobiography he wrote shortly before his death.

Childhood and youth

Stepan Bandera was born on January 1, 1909 in the village of Stary Ugrinov (Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary) in the family of a Greek Catholic clergyman. Stepan was born the second child, after him six more children appeared in the family.

The parents did not have their own home, they lived in a service house belonging to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In his autobiography, the already adult Bandera wrote:

From childhood, the spirit of patriotism reigned in the family, parents brought up in children living national-cultural, political and public interests.

In the service house a big library, it was visited by many important politicians in Galicia: Mikhail Gavrilko, Yaroslav Veselovsky, Pavel Glodzinsky. They had an undeniable influence on the future leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Stepan Bandera also received primary education at home, he was taught by his father Andrei Bandera, and some sciences were taught by visiting Ukrainian teachers.

The family of Stepan Bandera was extremely religious, the future leader of the OUN was a very obedient child who respected his parents. Bandera with early years was a believer, morning and evening he long time prayed. From early childhood, Stepan Bandera was going to become a fighter for the freedom of Ukraine, therefore, secretly from his parents, he prepared his body for pain: he pricked himself with needles, tortured himself with heavy chains, and doused himself ice water. Due to the so-called painful exercises, Bandera developed rheumatism of the joints, which haunted him until his death.

At the age of five, Bandera witnessed the outbreak of the First World War, they were destroyed, because veterans passed through the village of Stary Ugrinov several times. An unexpected surge in the activity of the national liberation movement had an even greater impact on his future activities. Bandera's father also took part in this movement: he contributed to the formation of full-fledged military units from the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, and also provided them with all the necessary weapons.

In 1919, Stepan Bandera entered the gymnasium in the city of Stryi, where he studied for eight years, during which he studied Latin, Greek language, literature and history, philosophy and logic. In the gymnasium, Bandera was remembered as "a short, poorly dressed youth". In general, Bandera was a very active student, despite the disease of the joints: he played a lot of sports, participated in many youth events, sang in the choir and played musical instruments.

Carier start

After the gymnasium, Stepan was engaged in cultural and educational work, housekeeping, and also led various youth circles. At the same time, Bandera worked underground in the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) - documentarily, he became a member of the UVO only in 1928, but he met this organization while still a high school student.

In 1928, Stepan moved to Lviv, where he studied at the Lviv Polytechnic at the agronomy department. At the same time, he continued to work in the UVO and OUN. Bandera was one of the first members of the OUN in Western Ukraine. Bandera's turbulent activity was multifaceted: an underground correspondent for the satirical magazine "Pride of the Nation", the organizer of the illegal supply of many foreign publications to Ukraine.

General Council of Chervona Kalina. Stepan Bandera - fourth from the left in the top row

In 1932, the career of Stepan Bandera received a new round of development: first he took the post of deputy regional conductor of the OUN, and in 1933 he was appointed acting regional conductor of the OUN in Western Ukraine and the regional commandant of the combat department of the OUN-UVO. From 1930 to 1933, Stepan Bandera was arrested about five times: either for anti-Polish propaganda, then for an attempt on the life of the commissar of the political police brigade E. Chekhovsky, then for trying to illegally cross the Polish-Czech police.

attacks

On December 22, 1932, when OUN militants Danylyshyn and Bilas were being executed in Lvov, Bandera organized a propaganda protest: during the execution, all churches in Lvov rang out bells.

Bandera was the organizer of many other protests. In particular, on June 3, 1933, Stepan Bandera personally led the operation to liquidate the Soviet consul in Lvov - the executor of the operation was Nikolai Lemik, who killed the consul's secretary only because the victim himself was not at the workplace at that moment. For this Lemik was sentenced to life.

In September 1933, Bandera organized a "school action", in which Ukrainian schoolchildren boycotted everything Polish: from symbols to language. In this action, Bandera managed to involve, according to the Polish media, tens of thousands of schoolchildren. In addition, Stepan Bandera was also the organizer of many political assassinations: not all operations were successful, three of them received the widest public outcry:

• an attempt on the school curator Gadomsky;
• assassination attempt on the Soviet consul in Lvov;
• the realized assassination of the Minister of the Interior of Poland, Bronisław Peracki (on June 15, the diplomat was shot three times in the back of the head).

Bandera was the organizer and participant huge amount terrorist acts of the OUN, in which Polish policemen, local communists, the Galician political beau monde and their relatives were killed. However, Ukrainians also became victims of the OUN. By order of Stepan Bandera, in 1934, the editorial office of the left-wing newspaper Pratsya (Labor) was blown up. The explosives in the editorial office were planted by a well-known OUN activist, Lviv student Ekaterina Zaritskaya.

Conclusion

On July 2, 1936, Stepan Bandera ended up in the Mokotow prison in Warsaw for his crimes. The next day, he was transferred to the Sventy Krzyż (Holy Cross) prison near Kielce. Bandera recalled that he felt bad in prison due to the lack of normal conditions for life: there was not enough light, water and paper. Since 1937, the conditions for staying in prison have become even more stringent, so Bandera himself and the OUN organized a 16-day hunger strike, protesting against the prison administration. This hunger strike was recognized, Bandera made concessions.

During his imprisonment, Bandera was moved to various Polish prisons, in which he held numerous protests. After Germany invaded Poland, Bandera was released, like many other Ukrainian nationalists.

Concentration camp "Sachsenhausen"

On July 5, 1941, Bandera was invited to a meeting by the German authorities ostensibly for negotiations, but at the meeting Bandera was arrested because he did not want to abandon the "Act of the Revival of the Ukrainian State", after which he was first placed in a German police prison in Krakow, and after a year and a half to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There he was kept in a block for "political persons", he was constantly monitored.

When Stepan Bandera refused the offer of the German authorities, he did not become a victim of new persecution, but remained "out of what is happening" - he lived in Germany and did nothing. He tried to keep abreast of what was happening in Ukraine, but was completely isolated from it. But this did not last long, after the split of the OUN, already in 1945 he headed the OUN (b) on the initiative of Shukhevych.

Death

Stepan Bandera died not by his own death, he was killed on October 15, 1959 in Munich. According to sources, the murder of Stepan Bandera took place in the entrance of his house: he came home for lunch, but KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky was waiting for him in the entrance - he had been waiting for the right moment to kill Bandera since January. Bandera was killed by Stashinsky with a cyanide pistol.

Bandera, who was killed in the entrance, was found by neighbors who heard his scream. He was covered in blood. It was assumed that the leader died of heart failure, but they helped to find out the true reason for the murder of Stepan Bandera law enforcement.

The murderer of Stepan Bandera Bogdan Stashinsky was arrested by the German police, in 1962 a loud trial in which he pleaded guilty. The KGB agent was sentenced to eight years in prison, but after six years in prison, Stashinsky disappeared in an unknown direction.

Title of Hero of Ukraine

Posthumously in 2010, Stepan Bandera received the title of Hero of Ukraine, which was awarded to him by the then president "for the invincibility of the spirit." Then Yushchenko noted that millions of Ukrainians had been waiting for a long time for Bandera to be awarded the Hero of Ukraine, and Yushchenko's decision was accepted by a storm of applause from the public present at the award ceremony for Stepan Bandera's namesake grandson.

Nevertheless, this event caused a great public outcry, many disagreed with Yushchenko's decision. The European Union also reacted negatively to this event, so they called on the newly elected president to cancel the decision.

At present, the personality of Stepan Bandera evokes different points of view in society: if in Western Ukraine Bandera is considered a symbol of the struggle for independence, then Eastern Ukraine, Poland and Russia perceive this politician mostly negatively - he is accused of terrorism, fascism, and also of radical nationalism.

Who are the "Banderites"?

The concept of "Bandera" came from the name of Stepan Bandera, at present this expression has already become a household name - in modern society"Bandera" call all the nationalists.

Sources note that the concept of "Bandera" in modern society does not mean that nationalists have an entirely positive attitude towards Stepan Bandera - this is how all nationalists are called, regardless of their point of view on Bandera's activities.