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THE

HADOW

ITLER

The eastern regions suffered a series of bloody conflicts before being

incorporated into the Soviet Union. The western region was in turn

awarded to the restored Polish state, which had agreed in principle

to offer autonomy to its large Ukrainian minority in eastern Galicia,

while other areas with large Ukrainian populations in the region were

ceded to other states. Thus, Bessarabia and Bukovyna (Bukovina) were

given to Romania, and the Transcarpathian region came under the

control of the newly-created Czechoslovakia. But it was in Poland that

Ukrainian integral nationalism was born, in response to the perceived

failure of the resurrected state to live up to its treaty obligations, and

in response to harsh measures deployed against Ukrainian villages,

particularly the military pacification of the early 1930s. The situation

was intensified by the growing power of Nazi Germany and its viola-

tions of the Versailles treaty, culminating in the annexation of Austria

in 1938 and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

This essay will examine the life of Bandera as a ‘personality of

the right’ and then assess his legacy and memory in contemporary

Ukraine. It will analyse his links to extremism and his personal role

in some of the cataclysmic events of the Second World War. At the

same time, a proviso needs to be made that many of the events took

place in the name of Bandera but without his direct participation. To

what extent he can be linked with things that happened during his

imprisonment in Germany is debatable. On the other hand, there is

little dispute that he remained in command of his own followers at

least until his emigration abroad, where he became involved in the

fractious disputes that continued until his death. What follows will

begin with Bandera’s biography and family details, and go on examine

his life in conjunction with the pivotal events of the pre-war and war

years and in the post-war environment when the cause of Ukrainian

nationalism appeared to be lost.

Stepan Bandera was born on 1 January 1909 in the village of Staryi

Uhryniv in western Ukraine (now Kalush district of Ivano-Frankivs’k

region) into the family of a Greek Catholic priest, Andrii Bandera,

and his wife, Myroslava Hlodzin’ska, who died of tuberculosis of the

throat in 1922. The family lived in modest circumstances. Andrii

and Myroslava had eight children: Marta-Mariya (born 1907), Stepan