Olha Basarab

Basarab Olha Mykhailivna (née Levytska) was born on September 1, 1889, in the village of Pidhoroddia (now Ivano-Frankivsk region). She was educated in a private boarding school for girls in Weißwasser (now Bila Voda, Czech Republic), and later in the Lyceum of the Ukrainian Girls' Institute in Peremyshl (now Przemyśl, Poland) and at the Vienna Trading Academy.

Since 1910, she lived in Lviv, worked at the “Dnister” Insurance Company, the Land Mortgage Bank, and was a member of the main department of the Lviv “Prosvita”. In 1914, she married Dmytro Basarab, a student of the Polytechnic, who was killed on the Italian front during the First World War. At that time, she was actively involved in social work, including the Vienna-based Ukrainian Women’s Committee for Aid to Wounded Ukrainian Soldiers of the Austrian Army, the Ukrainian League for Peace and Freedom, and the Ukrainian Section of the International Red Cross, which awarded her with the Silver Order for her ascetic work. Together with her friends, she created the first women’s unit in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen.

During the period of the UPR Directory, she worked as a Secretary of the Ukrainian Embassy in Finland and later as an accountant at the UPR’s Embassy in Vienna, while also working for the Foreign Information (Intelligence) Department of the Political Department of the UPR Ministry of Internal Affairs.  In 1923, she moved to Lviv, where she became a member of the Main Board of the Ukrainian Women’s Union branch in Lviv, actively cooperated with the Ukrainian Military Organization and its intelligence, and served as a liaison.

On February 9, 1924, she was arrested by the Polish police. During a search of her apartment, they found a detailed description of all military units in German; a pack of copies of concise intelligence instructions of the intelligence handbook with explanations of how to conduct reconnaissance operations; a notebook of draft records with detailed information on the status of individual regiments and units, organization of the state intelligence apparatus with names and ranks; instructions of the Ukrainian Military Organization on conducting intelligence work; essays on the methods and tactics of the insurgent struggle; plans of Polish military barracks; extracts from secret orders of military units and more.

During the interrogations with the use of torture, she did not betray any of the members of the underground organization. On February 12, O. Basarab was found hanging on an embroidered towel from the bars of the cell window. Later, the official report of her suicide was rejected by the public.

She was buried at the Yaniv Cemetery in Lviv. Her grave has become an object of pilgrimage for Ukrainians, and her name is shrouded in the aura of martyrdom for the struggle for a united and independent Ukraine.