Shukhevych is a member of the parliament. Yuri Shukhevych: it’s good that my father was not taken alive. Where were they sitting?

20.02.2022 ethnoscience
Birth: Lua error in Module:CategoryForProfession on line 52: attempt to index field "wikibase" (a nil value). Yuri Bogdan Romanovich Shukhevich(ukr. Yuriy-Bogdan Romanovich Shukhevych; March 28, 1933, Oglyadov, Lviv Voivodeship, Poland) - Ukrainian politician, Soviet dissident and political prisoner, son of Roman Shukhevych. Head of UNA-UNSO (1990-1994 and 2005-2014).

Biography

early years

Born on March 28, 1933 in the village of Oglyadov, Lviv Voivodeship of Poland (now Lviv Region of Ukraine) in the family of an active figure in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the future head of the UPA, Roman Shukhevych.

From 1939 to 1941, the Shukhevychs lived in Krakow, and from 1941 in Lviv. For connections with the anti-Soviet underground, Yuri’s mother and grandmother were arrested in 1945, and he and his sister were placed in a Chernobyl orphanage. In 1946, Yuri and his sister were transferred to a Donetsk orphanage, from where he soon managed to escape and return to his homeland.

Arrest and imprisonment

In 1948, he returned to Donetsk to pick up his sister, but was arrested. In 1949, the court sentenced him to 10 years in forced labor camps.

In 1950, Yuri Shukhevych was transported to Western Ukraine to identify the body of his father, who was killed by a special detachment of the MGB on March 5 of the same year. In 1954 he was released under an amnesty, but that same year he was arrested again and sent back to prison.

In 1958, the court extended Shukhevych’s imprisonment for another 10 years. He served his second term in Mordovian camps. Having been released in 1968, Shukhevych was forced to go to live in Nalchik, since he was forbidden to live in Ukraine for 5 years. There he worked as an electrician. Having entered dissident circles, Yuri Shukhevych wrote an anti-Soviet pamphlet, which was found during another search of his apartment. For this, the court in 1972 sentenced him once again to 10 years in prison.

Yuri Shukhevych served the first 7 years of his third term in one of the Vladimir prisons. In 1973, he wrote a letter to the UN, for which his term was extended for another year. Since 1979, Yuri Shukhevych was imprisoned in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Due to difficult conditions of detention, Yuri Shukhevych became blind. The operation, carried out in 1982, did not produce results. After being released from prison in 1983, Yuri Shukhevych was forcibly kept in a home for the disabled in the Tomsk region for 6 years. Only in October 1989 did he manage to return to Lvov.

Activities in UNA-UNSO

Despite poor health, Yuri Shukhevych immediately became involved in politics. With his active participation, on July 30, 1990, the Ukrainian Inter-Party Assembly (UMA), which included several right-wing parties and public organizations. On July 1, 1990, Yuriy Shukhevych was elected head of the UMA, which subsequently became organizationally an independent party and changed its name to the Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA). In the parliamentary elections in March 1994, he ran for the post of people's deputy of Ukraine from the Zolochiv single-mandate (No. 277) electoral district, but received only 7.44% of the votes and was not elected. Yuri Shukhevych was the chairman of the UNA (UNA-UNSO) until August 1994, when his health and relations with other leaders of this party completely deteriorated. After that he left active political life, heading the public organization “Galician Choice” (Ukrainian. "Galician choice") in Lviv.

At the beginning of 2006, Yuri Shukhevych returned to politics and entered the UNA-UNSO electoral list at number 1. The party, however, lost the elections, and Yuri Shukhevych did not enter parliament. During the election campaign, he was in Sevastopol, where he spoke in Russian.

On August 19, 2006, Yuri Shukhevych was awarded the title “Hero of Ukraine” - for civil courage, long-term socio-political and human rights activities in the name of gaining independence of Ukraine.

On October 12, 2007, Yuri Shukhevych’s father, Roman Shukhevych, was also posthumously awarded the title “Hero of Ukraine” by decree of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. Yuri Shukhevych accepted the award. On April 21, 2010, the Donetsk District Administrative Court of Appeal, at the suit of Donetsk Medical University professor Anatoly Solovyov, declared illegal and canceled the decree on the glorification of Shukhevych.

In an interview in 2010, he stated that Kuban, Belgorod region and the southern Don are Ukrainian lands that will sooner or later return to Ukraine, and “we will be able to renew Ukrainian Ukraine from Tisza to the Caucasus.”

In February 2014, he signed an appeal from cultural and public figures of Galicia demanding to respect the Russian language and Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine, not to impose the Galician way of life on the Donetsk or Crimean people, so that they would not feel like strangers in Ukraine.

People's Deputy of Ukraine

He participated in the parliamentary elections on October 26, 2014 on the party list of the “Radical Party of Oleg Lyashko”, because of which he was removed from the post of chairman of the UNA-UNSO. Following the election results, he entered the Verkhovna Rada, becoming a people's deputy of Ukraine of the 8th convocation.

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Excerpt characterizing Shukhevych, Yuri Romanovich

But the man did not pay any attention to me. Apparently, all these long years, he was just waiting for someone to eventually find someone who could help him “get” his poor wife and his ten-year “sacrifice” would not be in vain. And now, when it finally really happened, he completely lost control of himself...
– Mile, Milenka, I’ve been wanting to say for so long... come with me, dear... let’s go. I can’t do it alone... I can’t live without you for so many years... come with me.
He mumbled something incoherently, repeating the same words all the time. And then it only dawned on me what this man really wanted!!! He asked his living, beautiful wife to leave with him in a place that simply meant dying... At this point I couldn’t stand it any longer.
- Listen to me! You're just crazy! – I mentally screamed. “I won’t say these vile words to her!” Get away to where you should have been long ago!.. This is exactly your place.
I was simply sick with indignation!.. Could this really happen?! I didn’t yet know what I would do, but I knew one thing for sure: I would never give him this woman for anything in the world.
He was infuriated that I did not repeat to her what he said. He shouted at me, yelled at her, cursed in words that I had never heard... He cried, if you can call it crying... And I realized that now he could truly become dangerous, but I still didn’t understand how can this happen. Everything in the house moved furiously, window panes shattered. Milia stood in a stupor in horror, unable to utter a word. She was very scared, because, unlike me, she did not see anything that was happening in that “other” reality, closed to her, but saw only inanimate objects “dancing” in front of her in some kind of crazy dance ...and slowly went crazy...
It’s very funny in books to read about mysterious poltergeists, other realities and admire heroes who always “defeat dragons”... In reality, there is nothing “funny” about this, except quiet horror that you don’t know what to do with it, and that Because of your helplessness, a good person may die right now...
I suddenly saw how Mile began to sink to the floor and became pale as death. I became terribly scared. I suddenly felt like who I really was then - just a little girl who, through her stupidity, got into something terrible and now doesn’t know how to get out of it all.
“Well, no,” I thought, “you won’t get it!”
And with all her might she energetically hit this insignificant entity, putting all her indignation into this blow... A strange howl was heard... and everything disappeared. There was no more crazy movement of objects in the room, there was no fear... and there was no more that strange crazy man who almost sent his innocent wife to the next world... There was dead silence in the house. Only occasionally some broken things jingled. Milia sat on the floor with her eyes closed and showed no signs of life. But for some reason I was sure that everything would be fine with her. I walked up to her and stroked her cheek.
“Aunt Milya, it’s already over,” I whispered quietly, trying not to scare her. - He will never come again.
She opened her eyes and looked around her disfigured room with a tired look.
-What was that, honey? – she whispered.
– It was your husband, Vlad, but he will never come again.
Then she seemed to burst through... I had never heard such a heartbreaking cry before!.. It seemed that this poor woman wanted to cry out everything that had accumulated in her life over these long and, as I later found out, very terrible years. But, as they say, no matter how much despair or resentment there is, you cannot cry endlessly. Something overflows in the soul, as if tears wash away all the bitterness and pain, and the soul, like a flower, little by little begins to return to life. So Milya, little by little, began to come to life. Surprise appeared in the eyes, gradually giving way to timid joy.
“How do you know he won’t come, baby?” – as if wanting confirmation, she asked.
Nobody called me “baby” for a long time, and especially at that moment it sounded a little strange, because I was exactly the “baby” who had just, one might say, accidentally saved her life... But naturally, I was not going to be offended. And there was no strength, not only to take offense, but even just... to move to the sofa. Apparently everything to the last was “spent” on that one blow, which now I could never repeat.
My neighbor and I sat together for quite a long time, and she finally told me how all this time (for ten whole years!!!) her husband had been tormenting her. True, she was not completely sure then that it was him, but now her doubts were dispelled, and she knew for sure that she was right. Dying, Vlad told her that he would not rest until he took her with him. So I tried for so many years...
I couldn’t understand how a person could be so cruel and still dare to call such horror love?! But I was, as my neighbor said, just a little girl who could not yet fully believe that sometimes a person can be terrible, even in such a sublime feeling as love...

One of the most shocking cases in my very long “practice” of contacts with the essences of the dead occurred when I was calmly walking home from school on a warm autumn evening... Usually I always returned much later, since I went on the second shift, and had lessons with we finished somewhere around seven o'clock in the evening, but that day there were no last two lessons and we were sent home earlier than usual.
The weather was unusually pleasant, I didn’t want to rush anywhere, and before going home I decided to take a short walk.
The air smelled of the bittersweet aroma of the last autumn flowers. A playful light breeze rustled in the fallen leaves, quietly whispering something to the naked trees bashfully blushing in the reflections of the sunset. The soft twilight breathed with peace and silence...
I really loved this time of day, it attracted me with its mystery and fragility of something that had not happened and at the same time had not even begun... When today had not yet become a thing of the past, and the night had not yet come into its own ... Something “nobody's” and magical, something as if suspended in the “between time”, something elusive... I adored this short period of time and always felt very special in it.
But on that day, something “special” happened, but certainly not something special that I would like to see or experience again...
I was calmly walking towards the intersection, deep in thought about something, when I suddenly found myself abruptly torn out of my “dreams” by the wild squeal of brakes and the screams of frightened people.
Right in front of me, a small white passenger car somehow managed to hit a cement pillar and, with all its might, hit a huge oncoming car right in the forehead...
After a few moments, the essences of a little boy and girl “jumped out” from the white car, crumpled almost into a cake, who looked around in confusion, until finally they stared in shock at their own physical bodies, disfigured by a strong blow...
- What is this?! – the girl asked in fear. “Is that us there?...” she whispered very quietly, pointing her finger at her bloody physical face. - How can this be... but here, it’s us too?..
It was clear that everything that was happening shocked her, and her greatest desire at that moment was to hide somewhere from it all...
- Mom, where are you?! – the little girl suddenly screamed. - Mom-ah!
She looked about four years old, no more. Thin blonde braids, with huge pink bows woven into them, and funny “pretzels” puffed up on both sides, making her look like a kind faun. Wide-open, large gray eyes looked in confusion at the world that was so familiar and familiar to her, which suddenly for some reason became incomprehensible, alien and cold... She was very scared, and she did not hide it at all.

Yuri Shukhevych - Hero of Ukraine, chairman of the UNA-UNSO, leader of the socio-political association "Galician Choice", son of the UPA commander-in-chief Roman Shukhevych, gave an exclusive interview to Polemica.

The original interview is in Ukrainian. “Controversy” recommends reading it, since Shukhevych’s lively speech most comprehensively characterizes the views and beliefs of this extraordinary person.

Pan Yuriy, how do you assess the court’s decision to deprive your father of the title of Hero of Ukraine?

Bandera and Shukhevych can be given a Hero, they can be removed through the courts - this will not change the situation. Those who considered him a hero will continue to think so, despite all decisions. On Yushchenko’s part, this was simply a gesture of recognition by the state of this status. I don't think anything particularly terrible happened.

What just surprises me is this: when “Regions” came to power, they said: one part of Ukraine has its own heroes, and the other has its own. If so, why don't they want to recognize the heroes we have, but force us, as they did on May 9, to honor other heroes? They are restoring monuments to Stalin, Dzerzhinsky... This also indicates something. This is a sign of the direction where we are going. The direction of restoration, restoration of the distant past. For Stalin, whom the Congress of the Communist Party condemned, is an odious figure, and not only here, but throughout the world. Erecting monuments to him and persecuting those who throw them down says a lot.

SOURCE
- Do you intend to appeal this decision?

Yes. There are many purely legal grounds for this appeal.

The Supreme Administrative Court is the highest authority in these matters, but when it commits certain violations, there are grounds to appeal to the Supreme Court of Ukraine. If the Supreme Court of Ukraine makes a negative decision, we will appeal it to the European Court.

What legal violations are you referring to?

First of all, Olentsevich (Donetsk lawyer - author), who filed a lawsuit against both Bandera and Shukhevych, did not have the right to do this, because the decree is an act of individual action, it does not concern Olentsevich, does not violate his rights. This is what the court decided in the first and second instance. Then Olentsevich found a certain Solovyov and with his hands again filed a lawsuit. Soloviev was late with his claim, so he wrote that he accidentally found information in the newspaper, and the statute of limitations was restored.

But there are several cases in which we applied for similar things, and the Supreme Administrative Court refused to do the same. The first instance also refused Solovyov, but there were presidential elections - and the second instance, the Court of Appeal, overturned the decision of the District Administrative Court and ruled in his favor. On August 2, the Higher Administrative Court upheld Solovyov’s appeal and rejected us.

In your opinion, when making this decision, what influences were there on the court from the Presidential Administration or personally from the head of state?

Undoubtedly. Otherwise, there would not be one decision in the first instance and an opposite one in the other. With Bandera everything is simpler. The title was canceled due to the fact that he is not a citizen of Ukraine. But what is citizenship? This is a legal connection between a person and the state. With the moment of death of a person, this connection is lost. That is, everyone who died is not a citizen of Ukraine. Olentsevich appealed against a lot of awards. The same court rejected his complaints regarding the awarding of V. Stus, the awarding of Yu. Lutsenko with the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, A. Pasenyuk with the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, and the awarding of the title of Hero to the rector of the Donetsk National Medical University Kazakov.

Berest, who raised the flag over the Reichstag, was also not a citizen of Ukraine. General Derevianko, who accepted the surrender of Japan, received posthumously the Hero of Ukraine, although he was also not a citizen.

You can name many names of people who received the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine without being citizens of Ukraine. That is, the court approached this case selectively.

In Eastern Ukraine, your father, like Bandera, is called a fascist and an enemy. They find it difficult to understand the arguments justifying his actions. What would you like to tell them to convince them otherwise?

I once listened to Kiselev. It was then that there was a “war of monuments”, a long discussion. One of the speakers said: Bandera won because Stalin killed millions of people so that Ukraine would not exist, and Bandera fought all his life for Ukraine to be independent. Well, in this case we should not have recognized the very fact of the existence of an independent Ukraine, because these people fought for this independence.

In the East, many people, especially the older generation, have a somewhat distorted idea of ​​Shukhevych, Bandera, Stalin, and much more. That's why they are considered enemies. It is difficult for people who fought in the Soviet army under the red banner, even their children, to understand that Shukhevych and Bandera fought against the victory of both Stalin and Hitler.

According to polls, the number of people who recognize that Bandera is a national hero is constantly growing. I understand that this is happening thanks to the younger generation and an increase in the number of more informed people. In addition, people are getting rid of Soviet stereotypes. But it is very difficult to convince those who have lived with this thought all their lives to the contrary.

In your opinion, it will take some time for everything to change. But how long - 100, 200 years? ..

No. Definitely less. Several decades. In the same poll, Bandera fell just a few percentage points short of half of all votes. That is, it’s almost 50/50. True, this survey was conducted among the active population, but still... Give people true story. Many people do not know that throughout the war Bandera was in a German concentration camp, nor do they know that his two brothers died there.

They also say that your father received two iron crosses from Hitler's hands?

It is not true.

That is, Roman Shukhevych did not receive any distinctions from Hitler’s hands?

No. Only a few people received crosses from Hitler’s hands, and there were no Ukrainians among them.

At one of the meetings in Lviv, you stated that Ukraine would regain Kuban. How will this happen?

It's also a matter of time. When I was still at school, there was a geographical atlas with a map of the distribution of nationalities. Everything on this map Voronezh region, the entire Kuban was painted with the same color as Ukraine. That is, the Bolsheviks recognized that Ukrainians lived there. But the residents were constantly hammered into their heads with the idea that they were Russians. However, this does not mean that they identify themselves with Muscovites.

One says: “I am Russian.” I tell him: you are a badass. “What are you talking about!

Katsaps are the worst people there are.” That is, he does not identify himself with them, although he says that he is Russian.

In some Kuban schools they began to study the “Kuban dialect”. Do you know what this is? This Ukrainian language with a certain Kuban dialect. This is more likely a Kuban surzhik. I was in Kuban. They say there that four words are Ukrainian and only one or two are Russian. And this is called the “Russian language”.

But this once again demonstrates that they do not identify themselves with that old, indigenous Russia. They say that they are Cossacks, and call the rest non-residents.

But even their desire is not enough to join Ukraine. Russia will never allow this to happen. This will be the second Chechnya...

I believe that the Russian issue has already been resolved. Decided in the sense that it will not exist even in the form Russian Federation. It will fall apart. Centrifugal processes continue. Sometimes, for example, after the collapse of the Union, they become quite violent. Centrifugal processes have always existed in Russia; they were restrained in one body only by the hoop of the empire.

But as soon as this hoop is loosened, everything begins to unravel. By the way, Russians are not a nation. If they fell under the rule of another state (no matter whether it was the Germans or the Chinese), they would very quickly disappear. This nation is assimilating extremely quickly.

In the 1970s, the Nauka publishing house published the book “Ethnic Processes in the USA and Canada.” There I found a very interesting thing: the Russians who emigrated there are disappearing very quickly.

They assimilate. Some felt like Jews there, others - Tatars, others - God knows what else, but not Russians. Or they simply assimilate with the local population. The largest nations there are Germans, Ukrainians and Poles.

If Germany had won the war, where would Ukraine be now and would it exist at all?

Of course there would be. Where would she go? The devil is not as scary as he is painted. Firstly, the Germans themselves would not be enough to capture such vast spaces. By that time there were about 80 million Germans. Only Soviet Union had about 180 million. And add Poland, the Czech Republic... The Germans had to reckon with the local population. In the 1960s, German magazines published articles on the topic “What would happen to the world if Germany had won.”

The Germans believed that Ukraine needed to create a country that would be the guardian of German interests in the east. There were also hotheads who believed that Ukraine should be assimilated and populated with Germans.

But could they do that? They also could not destroy 40 million Ukrainians, because this would cause significant resistance not only in Ukraine, but throughout the world. Therefore, in my opinion, the German Empire would have collapsed much faster than the Soviet Union.

Let's take the current political situation in Ukraine.

The opposition declares a dictatorship of the authorities, political persecution, calls Tymoshenko a political prisoner. This is true?

No. Tymoshenko herself provoked the fact that she is now in prison. She provoked, and Yanukovych succumbed.

That is, Tymoshenko benefits from her current state?

Very profitable. She provoked this situation in order to be a political prisoner. You see, the regime is persecuting her. But let her not forget that she committed a crime (and more than one). These were not only gas agreements, but a lot of abuses. All this can be proven, and must be proven.

Yanukovych’s opponents are, of course, right when they say that there is bribery and abuse on everyone’s part, but they are repressing her. If we are going to fight against the phenomenon, then we need to imprison our own people, and more than one.

But the authorities are trying. Recently, the head of one of the regional state administrations in the Lviv region was caught taking a bribe. Of course, this is not the level of the prime minister, but still...

That's it. Somewhere they caught the chairman of the Regional State Administration in the Lviv region, somewhere in the Rivne region, in Bukovina... But these are very small figures compared to Tymoshenko. Please also pay attention to the following.

Be that as it may, Lutsenko was not a low-level person, he was the Minister of Internal Affairs. Were people called to picket when he was arrested, were they called to go to Kyiv? Many more ministers of Yulia Vladimirovna’s government were imprisoned. Were there any allegations of political repression? No, it was not. And as soon as Tymoshenko was imprisoned, calls immediately began. This is proof that she herself provoked her arrest.

We did not vote for Yu. Timoshenko. When Tymoshenko and Yanukovych qualified for the second round of the presidential election, who should we vote for? For the lesser evil? At one time, Franco said: voting for a lesser evil means still voting for evil. Why should you vote for evil?

I think that both were evil, one and the other candidates suited Russia.

Now elections to the Verkhovna Rada are approaching, and the presidential elections of 2015 are just around the corner. Are they preparing two candidates for us again?

Do you think that Tymoshenko will not be imprisoned?

Perhaps the verdict will be guilty. They would make her an even greater heroine, our Joan of Arc. Well, they would make Joan of Arc: they would burn her and then canonize her. This is me laughing. On my part, perhaps this is even blasphemy. Because I don’t want to compare Tymoshenko with Joan of Arc.

The latter really was a heroine.

As you mentioned, parliamentary elections are coming soon. What is the position of the UNA-UNSO party you lead?

There has not been a congress yet. But it will be soon. They say: the opposition must be united. I don’t argue, but I always say that the opposition needs to be united not in the name of whom, but in the name of what. This must be a principled, ideological opposition. How many idols will we create for ourselves...

There was already Yushchenko...

I supported Yushchenko. I believe that this is really the Ukrainian president. He wanted to do a lot, but, on the one hand, they didn’t let him, on the other, he was too liberal-democratic. And at such turning points in history, a little more authoritarianism is required. We needed a Ukrainian de Gaulle. There was a lot to do. Yushchenko made good steps, but did not follow through. In addition, for some reason we, Ukrainians, decided: we have elected our president, and he must do everything for us. This doesn't happen. It was necessary to lend him a shoulder.

That's why I say - in the name of what should the opposition unite? In the name of Yulia Tymoshenko? No. I disagree. Why should I unite and expose my head to police batons, possibly imprisonment? In the name of Yulia Tymoshenko? What good did she do for me, for people?

The opposition is uniting against Yanukovych. And unite against certain steps, but immediately give an alternative. Are you against pension reform? Fine. Offer people another pension reform that will suit them. The same applies to the Tax Code. That is, give people an alternative, show them what you will do when you come to power.

Don't shout - that's not good, that's not good. Why are you better? This is how the question should be asked.

Which parties are you ready to go to elections with in order to create an ideological opposition?

I don’t believe in the current parties. Because now these are interest clubs, political facades of certain economic clans, nothing more.

What can you say about the Svoboda party, which received significant support in the last elections in Western Ukraine? Can it be considered a real nationalist organization?

It received support, but I judge the party not by slogans and declarations, but by specific actions. They came to power, and eight months have passed since then. What specifically has been done during this time for Lviv, for the Lviv region, Ivano-Frankivsk region, for Ternopil, where the mayor is from Svoboda?

Well, from what I have seen, these are rallies, political statements and declarations...

The regional council, of course, can adopt a political statement on a particular issue. But in general, regional and city councils should not engage in high politics, but specific cases. The Lviv region has the worst roads. Outside the Lviv region they are much better.

Although this is not the merit of the “Svobodovites”, because the roads were built even before them. This is for example. There are many such questions. Why don’t they deal with them, but only deal with statements and declarations?

You can understand them, they are used to doing this, they don’t know anything else...

That's the point. However, if you go to power, then what, in the name of declarations? Where are the guarantees then that at the highest national level there will not be only declarations? For 20 years, we are fed up with declarations.

So if your father were alive, he would hardly be in this organization?

Undoubtedly. Even before the elections, I spoke to the city council. He spoke not only about “Svoboda”, but also about “Por”, BYuT, and named names. I told them: “You beat your chest that you are the heirs of Konovalets and Shukhevych.

But if Shukhevych rose from the grave today, he would shoot you all here like looters.” This applies not only to “Svoboda”, they all... It’s just that some have more slogans, others have fewer. But dividing communal property, land, budget - here they are all masters.

You spent almost 40 years in prison. It's hard for me to even imagine this. Such tests could break anyone. How did you manage to maintain your views?

Of course, all this influenced me. But, despite decades behind bars, I could not become a Soviet person. My worldview did not change, because I knew that all this was unfair, all this was built on a lie, that sooner or later this had to end. And it came, the Union collapsed.

What do you regret most in life?

Many years were wasted on useless things. I sat within four walls. There was a lot that could have been done.

Are you still an active politician now?

Yes, I'm staying a little longer.

Biography

Born on March 28, 1933 in the village of Oglyadiv, Radekhiv district, Lviv region. Son of the legendary Roman Shukhevych.

The Shukhevych family included publicists, ethnographers, organizers of the Lviv Prosvita, Boyana, and the Ukrainian pedagogical brotherhood Russian Conversations.

In 1944, Yuri-Bogdan turns 11 years old, it is then that the Soviet government comes to Western Ukraine and arrests him and his mother. According to a court decision, the two of them are exiled to Siberia.

In 1946, Shukhevych was separated from his mother and placed in an orphanage for children of “enemies of the people,” this institution was located on the territory of Donbass. The young man ran away from there twice and was returned twice.

In 1948, a trial began over 15-year-old Yuri-Bogdan; in fact, he was not personally accused of anything, he was tried for the political activities of his father, Roman Shukhevych.

When a young guy becomes an adult, by a court verdict he receives a sentence of imprisonment for a period of 10 years.

In 1954, after serving six years of imprisonment, he fell under the amnesty law for minors, but as a result of the actions of the Prosecutor General of the SRSR, he was returned to prison.

In 1958, after the end of the 10-year prison term, he was re-sentenced to 10 years.

In 1968, Yuri-Bogdan Shukhevych was released, but due to the ban on residing on the territory of Ukraine, he settled in the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the city of Nalchik, where he worked as an electrician.

In 1972, he was arrested again and sentenced for the third time to 9 years in prison and 5 years in exile.

Yuri-Bogdan Romanovich was an active participant in companies whose demand was to grant prisoners the status of political prisoners, and he also repeatedly wrote petitions and demands to be given the right to leave the territory of the USSR.

He was a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.

In 1988, at the age of 55, his term of exile in Siberia ended. Due to the harsh conditions of detention, the elderly man suffered complete loss of vision, as a result of which he was sent to a nursing home.

In 1990, at the age of 57, he sought permission and returned to the territory of sovereign and independent Ukraine.

After the declaration of Independence of Ukraine in 1991, Shukhevych was invited to some foreign countries - the USA, Canada, Western European countries.

The invitation came from the Ukrainian diaspora and human rights organizations.

In 2006, Yuri-Bogdan Shukhevych received the title of Hero of Ukraine.

Living in Lvov, he took an active part in the public life of the city.

He also headed the political party Ukrainian National Assembly and became the Chief Commander of the Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO).

Since November 2014 people's deputy Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the VIII convocation. No. 5 on the electoral list of Oleg Lyashk’s Radical Party.

Until 1950, the leader of Ukrainian nationalists Roman Shukhevych managed to hide from state security officers. However, 5 years before Shukhevych’s liquidation, his wife was arrested and the children were placed in an orphanage. However, the son of the leader of the OUN*(b) soon fled from there. And this escape turned out to be just one of many “adventures” that befell Yuri Shukhevych.

Shukhevych Jr.'s childhood

Yuri Romanovich Shukhevych, according to Vladimir Sergeychuk, the author of the publication “Roman Shukhevych in Documents” with reference to the words of the son of the leader of the OUN (b), was born in 1933 in the village of Oglyadov, Lviv region. However, the Shukhevych family did not live there for long: after 6 years they moved to Krakow, then to Lviv. Here in 1945, the wife of the leader of the Ukrainian nationalists was arrested, and his children were sent to an orphanage in Chernobyl. However, after a few months, Yuri escaped from a government institution. The boy was returned and placed in a Donetsk boarding school.

As Leonid Mlechin writes in his book “Stepan Bandera and the Fate of Ukraine,” Yuri Shukhevych, then still a schoolboy, was secretly followed by security officers. They hoped that Roman Shukhevych, whom they were looking for, would want to see his son. However, it was possible to establish the whereabouts of Shukhevych Sr. with the help of the arrested contact Daria Gusyak. And Yuri ran away from the orphanage again. This happened in 1946. The teenager was detained only 2 years later.

"Camp" period

According to Roman Chasty, author of the book “Stepan Bandera: Myths, Legends, Reality,” Yuri Shukhevych managed to establish a connection with his father. By prior agreement with him, Yuri returned to Donbass in 1948 in order to kidnap his sister Maria. In August of the same year, Shukhevych Jr. was arrested and then sentenced to 10 years in the camps. Yuri Romanovich served his term in Mordovia. However, he had to spend twice as much time in the Mordovian camps. In 1958, Shukhevych received another 10 years, thanks to which he was released only in 1968.

Due to the fact that Yuri Shukhevych was barred from entering Ukraine, he lived for some time in the city of Nalchik. But even this relative freedom did not last long. According to German Markov, author of the book “Ukraine. A bad mark in history,” 4 years later Shukhevych was placed in a Vladimir prison for publishing an anti-Soviet pamphlet. In total, Yuri Romanovich spent more than 30 years in prison. During this time, as Alexander Arkhangelsky writes in his book “Free People,” due to poor conditions of detention, Shukhevych was practically blind.

Present tense

Nevertheless, having returned to the city of Lviv in 1989, Yuri Shukhevych continued the work of his father. According to Vadim Demin, author of the book “On the Trail of the Gray,” Shukhevych headed the nationalist organization UNA-UNSO*. Despite this, in 2006, in his homeland, Yuri Romanovich “for civil courage, socio-political and human rights activities” was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, according to German Markov, author of the book “Ukraine. “A bad mark in history,” in 2016, when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the “Declaration of Memory and Solidarity,” according to which the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was declared criminal, Yuriy Shukhevych called the deputies idiots. Yuri Romanovich stated that in this case it is necessary to transfer the territories seized by the USSR to their former owners: Lvov and Galicia to Poland, Transcarpathia to Hungary, and the Chernivtsi region to Romania.

* - organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation