FEATURES OF USING THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE FOR STATEHOOD, 1918-1919, IN THE CREATION OF UKRAINIAN NATIONAL SELF-DEFENSE, 1943

Abstract

The article covers some aspects of the use of military experience of Ukrainian armed groups of the period of the national liberation struggle 1917–1921 by the members of the nationalist wing of the national resistance movement during World War II. Much attention is given to measures aimed at the development of tactical units of the structure of the Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (Ukrainska Narodna Samooborona; UNS) in the second half of 1943 in Galicia. These facts are analyzed in the context of the development of a national army concept among leaders of Ukrainian nationalists at the various stages of the Nazi-Soviet war (1941–1945). The main stages of their vision evolution of the development process of the domestic armed forces are outlined. The author highlights the reasons and the factors of shifting focus from the idea of creating a regular army to the idea of deploying a partisan form of struggle against the occupation regimes, characterized the role of the armed forces in the implementation of the idea of national statehood. The specifics of the ideological motive of the armed struggle are revealed with emphasis on the tradition of struggle for the nation's interest. The paper also concentrates on external and internal preconditions for expanding the geography of armed resistance to the occupiers, regional specifics in the processes of deployment of military structures run by the nationalist wing of the Ukrainian resistance movement. Keywords tradition, statehood, armed forces, resistance, nationalism.