Osyp Boidunyk. A Constant Participant in the OUN Congresses

It is the 95th anniversary since the proclamation of the OUN at the First Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, held in Vienna on January 28 – February 3, 1929. Osyp Boidunyk was a participant in that historical event, and then in all further Congresses of the OUN, which took place during his lifetime. In declassified documents of the Intelligence’s archives, he is mentioned under the codename “Yaryi”.

Almost all the participants of the first Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (there were 30 of them) including two guests, were in operational cultivation by the ogpu of the ussr. The greatest attention was paid to Yevhen Konovalets, Dmytro Andriyevskyi, Mykola Kapustianskyi, Stepan Lenkavskyi, Mykola Stsiborskyi. The chekists were interested in the OUN programs, structure, leadership’s composition, goals, network, who was responsible for what direction of work, characteristics of the members, relations between them, on what to play to cause personal conflicts, to split, to compromise. Therefore, they opened dossiers in which all the necessary information was accumulated.

The operational cultivation of Osyp Boidunyk was limited to collecting information about his lifestyle, features of character, beliefs, possible ways to influence him and, after all, to find out whether it was possible to recruit him. This task was set by the chekists practically for every figure of the Ukrainian national liberation movement. If the attempt failed, other plans and schemes were created.

The biographical information in the reports on O. Boidunyk for different years of monitoring him shows that he had undergone a serious school of struggle for the Ukrainian cause. Here are some excerpts from documents that reflect the initial period of his activity:

“Osyp Boidunyk, OUN pseudo “Dibrova”, a native of the city of Dolyna, Stanislav region, a Ukrainian, with higher education, a graduate of the Pedagogical Institute and Higher Technical School in Prague (Czechoslovakia), a journalist”.

“From 1918 – first in the Ukrainian Galician Army, then – in the Army of the Ukrainian People's Republic until November 1920.

Since December 1920, a participant in the revolutionary underground and a member of the Ukrainian Military Organization. One of the founders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists at the 1st Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1929, a member of which he is now, a member of the Provid of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Perennial Head of the Ukrainian Academic Society and the Ukrainian National Youth Group in Prague”.

(BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 10937. - P. 139).

His arrest in the 1930s was mentioned only by general phrases – “for active Ukrainian-nationalist activity”. In reality – for participating in the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and membership in the OUN. On September 5-9, 1932, he was sentenced to four years in prison at the “Process of Participants of the Congress” in Lviv. After having been released from prison, he became a co-editor of the “Holos Natsii” and “Holos” – the Ukrainian weeklies published in Lviv.

Due to persecution, he was forced to leave Poland for abroad. After the beginning of the Second World War, he came to Krakow, where, according to archival documents, he worked in the Ukrainian Central Committee as an organizational referent. During the OUN split in February 1940, he supported Andriy Melnyk, remained in the part of the Organization that began to be called “Melnykites”, and became a member of the OUN Central Provid (m).

The archival documents contain an interesting characteristic of him from the foreign agentura of that period. It reads as follows: “Boidunyk Osyp is tall, blond, pale faced… The behavior is very tactful, in disputes he is balanced and calm. He had a great influence on students, especially those from Galicia. He is a fanatic of nationalism. In the struggle of Bandera and Melnyk, he was on the side of the latter and all the Melnykites (Melnyk’s faction- Transl.) were grouped around him” (BSA of the CZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 10937. - P. 18). Such characteristics were very important for chekists’ planning their further operational measures and choosing tactics in the cultivation of “Yaryi”.

“In 1940, Boidunyk, the codename “Slavko”, – points out one of the later papers, – “was part of the Krakow Staff of the armed uprising, which was planned by Ukrainian nationalists to be conducted in western regions of the Ukrainian ssr, and performed in it the functions of the chief’s assistant for general supply. After the start of the Patriotic War, Boidunyk arrived in Lviv in 1941, in the same year he left for Kyiv, where he was a member of the Ukrainian National Rada, but due to the elimination by the Germans of this “rada”, he returned to Lviv” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 10937. - P. 64-65).

Due to the Hitler Occupying Administration’s negative attitude to the activities of the UNRada and the Ukrainian movement for independence, many prominent figures, O. Boidunyk included, were arrested. In archival documents, this is dated February 1944. It is noted that he was placed in a concentration camp in Oranienburg. He was released in 1944. After his release, according to the documents, he constantly was with Andriy Melnyk first in Berlin and then in Weimar and Bad Kissingen.

The intensification of O. Boidunyk's activity after the Second World War, the growth of his role and authority in the environment of Ukrainian emigraees, forced the mgb of the ussr to seek new approaches to him, lost during the war. The mgb had information that he was a constant member of the Central Provid of the OUN (M), at different periods performed the functions of the chief of the Intelligence referentura, foreign affairs, he was A. Melnyk’s deputy and worked on the creation of OUN organizations and intelligence residenturas in the territory of Europe, in particular in Austria. “In the OUN’s anti -soviet work abroad”, state the papers, “Boidunyk is of great importance, claims the role of an ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism, often publishes his articles in the Ukrainian nationalist press” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1., Case 10937, P. 65).

Chekists were most alarmed by the information that O. Boidunyk was a supporter of consolidation of all forces in the so-called unified political and state dispositional center. He wrote about it in the article “The New Reality and Our Tasks”. The task of the mgb was to prevent consolidation. Soon, in 1948, such a center or pre -parliament in emigration was created and was called the Ukrainian National Rada (UNRada). O. Boidunyk became a member of the UNRada, in 1954-1955 he was its Acting Head, and in 1961-1965 - the Head of it.

He argued that the liberation of the Ukrainian people depends solely on the nation itself, and focused on the organization of world cooperation of Ukrainians. To this end, he made several trips to the settlements of Ukrainians in the USA, Canada and South America. Those trips were closely monitored by moscow, which sent circulars to the kgb of the Ukrainian ssr to somehow influence O. Boidunyk.

The chekists were especially concerned with the report from one of the foreign agents who returned from a trip to Western Germany, where he had a thorough conversation with O. Boidunyk. The latter frankly shared “new ideological and tactical basic provisions of the OUN’s activity”. As the agent pointed out in his report, the aim of the work was continued struggle for the creation of a unified independent Ukrainian state. “Of course, this struggle is no longer armed”, the agent quotes O. Boidunyk, “but political and propaganda one, which is no less important... It is a struggle against communism in general and against moscow-bolshevik imperialism in particular”.

“Then Boidunyk spoke on the goals and objectives of the organization abroad and in the “homeland”, - the message reads. – “He told me that the OUN's “Provid” is aimed at letting the Western world learn as widely as possible about creation of “independent Ukraine” and proving the need for this to ensure measures against moscow’s imperialism, which has been threatening the world all the time, and recently has expanded its influence far away beyond russia and Europe. This confirms the correctness of the OUN’s “thesis” about russian danger. In the future, the OUN's “Provid” should combine as many supporters of Ukraine's separation from russia as possible... Many influential US senators and congressmen have already made their official statements about the creation of “independent Ukraine”... There is a noticeable manifestation of sympathy for Ukrainian liberation struggle among many political figures in other Western countries. At the same time, since the USA is a leader of the Western Bloc, we first of all need to achieve support and official recognition by the United States, while others, if they see this support, will also support…”(BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. - Case 10937. - P. 164–170).

Having received this information, the kgb of the Ukrainian ssr planned measures to activate O. Boidunyk’s operational cultivation. To this end, they set the task of collecting information on his close relatives who lived in Ukraine and, if possible, compromising materials on them. They intended to persuade someone to cooperate in this way, then send the person abroad so as to influence O. Boidunyk.

This work lasted for several years. During that time, Osyp’s brothers, sister, nephews and other distant relatives were found. They were studied, checked, and lots of paper work was done on them. Eventually, the following conclusion was drawn:

“In the process of his cultivation, we did not receive information that would give us reason to believe that if we had an opportunity to have a conversation with him, “Yaryi” would agree to cooperate with us or at least stop his nationalist activity. On the contrary, we have information showing that “Yaryi” is a convinced, evil enemy of the soviet power.

Therefore, we consider it inappropriate to go on the work on the cultivation of his numerous distant family ties in the direction of possible use of any of them in the recruitment.

We intend to conduct further work in the case of “Yaryi” in the direction of collecting information on him, using which to compromise “Yaryi” before the leaders of the OUN and thus stop his nationalist activity” (BSA of the SZR of Ukraine. - F.1. – Case 11425. Vol. 2 - P. 33-34).

So they analyzed his behavior during his stay in the occupied territory, contacts with the Nazis, publications in the press during the war and in the post -war period. According to the results of the work, they did not find anything seditious. In particular, he did not cooperate with the German occupying authorities, as evidenced by his being arrested by Gestapo and put in the concentration camp. In numerous works entitled “Unity of Ukraine and Its Eastern Borders”, “Economy”, “National Solidarism”, “Ukrainian Internal Policy”, “The Current State of Liberation Policy” and others, he analyzed positive and negative processes of national state formation on Ukrainian ethnic lands, described the concept of state building in the future Ukrainian state.

Eventually, the operational cultivation was stopped because of the death of the person. O. Boidunyk died on April 7, 1966 in a hospital from a heart attack and was buried in Munich. On January 22, 2010, on the Day of the Unification of Ukraine, thanks to the efforts of representatives of Ukrainian national-patriotic organizations and state structures, the remains of O. Boidunyk and other prominent fighters for freedom of Ukraine – Mykola Kapustianskyi, Dmytro Andriyevskyi and Yakiv Makovetskyi – were reburied at the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv.