UKRAINIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF 1920s –1950s IN THE WORKS OF PETRО MIRCHUK AND ZYNOVY KNYSH: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

The views of well-known representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora Petro Mirchuk and Zinovy Knysh on the important problems of the Ukrainian liberation movement of the 1920s –1950s under the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) are compared. It is emphasized that a great infl uence on the formation of the worldview positions of the researchers had their party affi liation – the fi rst to the Bandera, and the second – to the Melnyk parts of the OUN. Both authors expressed unanimity in their assessments of the birth process of the nationalist movement in their native lands and abroad, unifying tendencies among youth national-patriotic circles, ideological foundations and program provisions of the OUN, etc. Their judgments diff ered regarding the intra-organizational development of the nationalist organization, certain high-profi le anti-Polish actions of the OUN, the relations of the nationalist underground with the foreign leadership of the OUN, the causes and consequences of the organization’s split in 1940, etc. However, each of the researchers made a signifi cant contribution to the study of a scientifi c problem. Thus, P. Mirchuk’s «Essay on the History of the OUN» remains today the most thorough work on the functioning of the nationalist organization in the pre-war period. His historical explorations devoted to the fi gures of S. Bandera and R. Shukhevych have not lost their importance. The contours of the study of the history of the UPA drawn by P. Mirchuk will continue to be valuable for modern researchers. Of all the works of Z. Knysh, those devoted to the process of formation and activity of the Ukrainian military organization are valuable for the national historical science. It is not by chance that the editorial board of the «Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies» turned to this researcher with a proposal to write an article about UMO (UVO) for the ninth volume of the named encyclopedic edition. It has been established that the complete history of UMO is not available today. Therefore, in the future, historians need to make maximum use of the factual material contained in the works of Z. Knysh. Futhermore the scientifi c biographies of S. Bandera and R. Shukhevych are waiting for their researcher (or even better, their researchers). Keywords historiographical analysis, historiographic source, Ukrainian liberation movement, UMO, OUN, UIA, Petrо Mirchuk, Zynovy Knysh.