Yuri Shukhevych: The Truth About the UPA will be Known

This respectable gentleman lives in one of the buildings on a street named after his father, General Chuprynka (an alias of Roman Shukhevych, Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army – Ukr. abbr., UPA). Due to the Stalinist regime’s adherence to the principle whereby children answered for their fathers’ wrongdoings, Yuri Shukhevych served a long term in a prison camp, released in the late 1980s, physically exhausted, almost blind, but morally unbroken. Today, this courageous man is known not only as a veteran political prisoner, but also as an active political figure. Few rallies or other political events in Lviv pass without his attendance. He continues his father’s cause – not with arms but with ardent penetrating words. Yuri Shukhevych kindly agreed to an interview with The Day on the eve of UPA’s 60th anniversary.

“When did you learn that the UPA commander General Chuprynka was your father Roman Shukhevych? Who let you in on the secret?”

“I learned that UPA commander General Chuprynka was actually my father Roman Shukhevych in 1947. I was at an orphanage in Donetsk and I ran away. Our family had been arrested two years before. My sister and I had been institutionalized (first in Drohobych, then Chornobyl, and then Stalino which is Donetsk today). Our mother and grandmother had been imprisoned. After my escape, already in Lviv oblast, I got in touch with people in the Ukrainian underground and learned about my father’s rank, although I already knew that he was a member of the OUN central provid leadership.”

“Let’s face it; not all in Ukraine regard the UPA as an army. Most people in the western territories consider it a national-liberation army, but in the central regions, in the south and east the attitude is less enthusiastic, mildly speaking, it is often openly hostile. Could you cite a few examples to demonstrate that it wasn’t a guerilla force but a genuine national-liberation movement?”

“First, UPA was numerically quite strong – and I am not just referring to officers and men. For as long as the underground resistance network existed, it was constantly linked with the populace; people supplied it with food, gave shelter, and provided medical treatment... And evidence of this is not only to be found in our historical studies. Several years ago a Russian language book titled The Insurgent Army was published in Minsk. The Moscow authors, referring to the 1940s-1950s, describe UPA as a belligerent side during WW II. More evidence is detailed in Abwehr agents’ reports included in the two-volume German Chronicle of the UPA. Add there General de Gaulle’s documented testimony. In a word, there is plenty of literature about UPA in the West, translated into several languages. Such literature is found even in China, Vietnam, Guatemala, and Cuba – in countries with their own national-liberation experiences. Another unbiased testimony cost Commissar Rudnev his life. I mean his Carpathian diaries with first-hand information about the insurgent movement. They were to be published, but Moscow authorities loathed the commissar’s objective view on the UPA. His female radio operator received a secret order from the NKVD headquarters and shot Rudnev...

“One other thing. During the war UPA was alleged to serve as a kind of espionage network developed by the Germans to combat the Soviet partisans and Red Army after they liberated Nazi-occupied territories. Later, we obtained conclusive evidence that it wasn’t so. The resistance movement continued after the Third Reich capitulated. It existed longer than any others in Europe, after all the rest had been destroyed in the Baltic republics, Romania, Hungary, and Poland. The anti-Bolshevik movement in Western Ukraine lasted until 1956...”

“We know that General Chuprynka – I mean your father Roman Shukhevych – led the movement in 1943. How did that come about?” “He belonged to a generation that did not despair after the national liberation defeats of 1917-21 but continued with its struggle, led by Konovalets. Sometime in 1922-23, Roman Shukhevych, then aged 15-16, joined the movement, first as a sympathizer, then as a member of the Ukrainian Military Organization (1925).

“He joined the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as soon as it was established, was a member of the Galician provid, its field referent executive. Then he was arrested and served terms in Polish prisons, then there was Carpathian Ukraine and the Ukrainian Legion... Finally, he went underground. In 1943, he headed the OUN and several months later became commander in chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In other words, he took part in the liberation struggle from youth until his death at the village of Bilohorsha near Lviv, March 5, 1950.”

“Why do you think Russia and then Poland became so insistent in rejecting the UPA’s status as a combatant in World War II?”

“Let’s refer ourselves to history. The Poles and Russians would come to terms whenever Ukraine was at issue. It’s a tradition dating from the 17th century. They divided Ukraine into Left and Right Bank, the former going to Polish and the latter to the Moscow crown. Later, Moscow would divide Poland between itself, Prussia, and Austria. And what happened in 1920? Didn’t Soviet Russia and Poland, then independent, divide Ukraine between themselves? Didn’t Poland receive Galicia [Halychyna] and Volyn, with the rest going to Russia? Less than 20 years later, Poland would be divided between Germany and Russia... In other words, whenever it came to dividing Ukraine, there would be no problems. But they both hated it when the Ukrainian people decided to determine their own destiny, so they joined forces to prevent it. I mean both Poland and Russia opposing the UPA, so, naturally, both would assess our liberation efforts quite negatively. By the way, according to their own logic, the same could be said of the Polish Armia Krajowa– or the Home Army. We all know what they did near Chelm and Nadsiannia. Therefore, we Ukrainians should be the ones to pass judgment to Petliura, Konovalets, and Shukhevych.”

“Unfortunately, no one knows exactly where General Chuprynka was buried. Are there any leads?”

“Yes, several. One has it that he was buried at one of the NKVD penitentiaries in Lviv. Another claims that his body was taken to Kyiv and buried there somewhere. Another possibility is that they cut off his head, took it somewhere, and buried the body somewhere near Lviv. An archival trace? Who can access those archives? If we had access, it wouldn’t be difficult. I know – and other people confirm – that there is a Shukhevych photo album at the SBU, including photos of him as a student and then in the underground. A major Ukrainian weekly publication carried one such photo recently. It must be from that album. In that photo he is lying dead, obviously after shooting himself in the temple. Who could have taken that picture back in 1950 except an NKVD man?”

“You have spent many years behind bars. Why? Perhaps just like the sisters of Stepan Bandera, Volodymyra and Oksana, just because of family connection with OUN leadership?”

“Naturally, I was first institutionalized and then arrested in 1948 because my father was the UPA commander in chief. I was 15 at the time. I was tried once, twice, and then charged with anti-Soviet agitation. I’ve spent 31 years in prison and then in exile, adding up to almost 40 years. Vladimir-on-Klyazma, Aleksandrovsky Penitentiary near Irkutsk, Mordovia. I’ve been to the remotest parts of the Soviet Union, so I know geography at first hand. At times I thought I’d had it, but I survived by His will...”

“We can’t say that no tribute has been paid to the UPA in the years of Ukrainian independence, especially in Western Ukraine. Streets have been named for its commander and statues unveiled... There is a rehabilitation center for OUN- UPA veterans in Morshyn. But of course, this is not enough. Now is the time for the state to officially recognize the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. A lot is being said on the subject, nothing has been done. Why?”

“Because what’s happening is absurd. We all know that the 1917-21 movement was for the establishment of an independent Ukrainian state. Petliura, Skoropadsky, Hrushevsky, Vynnychenko, and a lot of others, among them such noted Western Ukrainian figures as Petrushevych, Tarnavsky, Vitovsky – they all did their best to make an independent Ukraine a reality. Are they really acknowledged today? Now and then we hear about Hrushevsky as an historian – and very seldom as the first Ukrainian president... But that’s beside the point. Who do you expect to act contrary to what has been inculcated for decades, condemning everything associated with the Ukrainian national-liberation struggle? See what I mean? And so our Ukrainian history is what it is, distorted, scorned, falsified. Likewise, they can’t bring themselves to recognize UPA, it just doesn’t fit in the modern political context. It’s as though the Ukrainian state existed but all those that had struggled for its existence were not recognized...”

“Do you personally believe that the UPA will be eventually acknowledged?”

What does it mean, recognizing or not recognizing history? Address the same question to Napoleon or Alexander the Great. See? History is objective, whether we like it or not. UPA won’t be acknowledged by all those characters who voted against Ukrainian independence on August 24, 1991. So they won’t acknowledge the army now and won’t mention it in school textbooks, and will continue to ignore Mazepa, Petliura, and Bandera. So what? These figures are still there in history. The time will come and the historical truth will triumph. By the way, do you know the difference between truth and falsehood? Truth can afford the luxury of being twisted and scorned, but sooner or later it will prevail. Falsehood can afford no such thing, because it is exposed once and forever. True, UPA veterans are currently in disgrace, but Ivan Franko wrote, “That’s how we all join a community, hammer in hand, united by a sacred cause. Let the world condemn us and forget us, we’ll crash that mountain rock and pave the way to the truth. Others will be happy after us...” Ten, maybe twenty years from now the truth about UPA will become known. It must be and it shall be.