On July 15, Ukraine celebrates the Day of Ukrainian Statehood.
Ukrainian Statehood is the invisible chain that connects the glorious history of Kyivan Rus, the Galician-Volhynian principality, the Ukrainian Cossack state, the Ukrainian People's Republic, the West Ukrainian People's Republic, and modern independent Ukraine. Ukrainian Statehood is not only laws and administrative apparatus; it is the millennia-old history of a multi-million people, of dozens of generations with their native language, customs, traditions, and culture. Ukrainian Statehood is hundreds, thousands, millions of people who day by day shaped, fought for, defended, and passed on to their descendants the values that today unite us as the Ukrainian people.
On the occasion of the Day of Ukrainian Statehood, the Donetsk Regional State Administration publishes a series of stories about the fighters for the idea of Ukrainian statehood and the independence of Ukraine.
In the 1940s, the OUN-UPA actively worked in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, conducting Ukrainization and trying to unite local residents around the national idea.
On October 8, 1941, OUN members from the III March Group of OUN (b) found themselves in Mariupol, where they immediately began to build a network of nationalist underground. There were 10-12 people, led by Volodymyr Bolharskyi-Bulavskyi.
Underground member M. Stasiuk founded the "Mariupol Newspaper" in the city and gathered around him a group of patriots (workers from printing houses, publishing houses, museums and theaters, doctors, agronomists, teachers) who were to conduct nationalist activities in the city and district.
At the same time, Bolharskyi-Bulavskyi formed his cell and base of nationalist underground in the city of Krasnohorivka, where he began working as the head of the Narosvity department of the Marinka district. From that time, active work began to build an underground network in the region and conduct agitation and propaganda activities among the local population.
The group faced a complex problem of uniting the local population around the idea of Ukrainian nationalism. This was particularly manifested in the skepticism of the residents of eastern Ukraine regarding the possibilities of winning their independence by their own efforts. However, the members of the march group managed to organize underground groups from the local population. Thus, in Mariupol, the OUN (b) organization numbered about 300 people, in Kramatorsk – 120, in Sloviansk – 80, in Krasnoarmiisk – over 50 people.
Following the directives of the OUN (b) leadership, nationalists in the region began to take control of local newspapers, trying to penetrate local administrations. In the Marinka district, "Prosvita" was organized, which began publishing a Ukrainian-language newspaper "Pluh," edited by school director O. Petrusenko.
Primarily, the OUN consisted of intelligentsia, including teachers and doctors, as well as youth.
"According to the calculations of the Chekists, the most powerful Melnyk and Bandera organizations during the German-Soviet war were created in Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Odesa, Stalino, and Kharkiv regions. According to researchers, the number of participants in the OUN movement born in Donetsk region was about half of the total organization in Donetsk. Those from Galicia and Volhynia made up about 10 percent. Approximately 40 percent of OUN underground members were from central Ukraine. This confirms the thesis of Yevhen Stakhiv about the support of the OUN (b) underground by some local Ukrainians," wrote Oleksandr Dobrovolskyi.
Embracing the idea of Unity, OUN members saw Donetsk as an integral part of the Ukrainian state.
"Members of the OUN and their sympathizers managed eleven of the 35 district education departments. Textbooks and an alphabet for schools in Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Mariupol, Horlivka, Avdiivka (it is unknown whether they were printed) were prepared and published. In Kostiantynivka, due to the arrival of the Reds in the fall of 1943, the prepared textbooks were destroyed. In 1942, for the first time in Donbas, 8 orders were issued to introduce the Ukrainian language as the state language in seven districts: Horlivka, Kostiantynivka, Volnovakha, Olhynka, Avdiivka, Mariupol, Dobropillia of Stalino region and Popasna district of Luhansk region. A well-known order at the end of 1942 introduced the Ukrainian language as the state language throughout Luhansk region," wrote Oleksandr Dobrovolskyi.
With the onset of 1942, the OUN underground began its "black days." The German command believed that Ukrainian nationalists had gone too far in spreading the idea of an independent Ukraine and popularizing national heroes, which they considered threatening to the stability of the occupied territory. For example, in the "Mariupol Newspaper," throughout 1942, there was a spread of not only propaganda information about the victorious battles of the German army on all fronts but also various pro-Ukrainian materials. Given that the editorial office of the mentioned newspaper was under the control of the German authorities, the Ukrainian underground still managed to use the periodical publication for its purposes and thus influence people's consciousness. To revive the greatness of the Ukrainian people and show Ukrainians that we also have our own history, heroes, and enlighteners who fought not only with weapons in hand but also with the melodious native language. Thus, in the February issue of the newspaper, a selection about Lesya Ukrainka was prepared. And for the creativity of Taras Shevchenko, the September issue of the "Mariupol Newspaper" was dedicated, in which the editors tried to reflect not only the life path and activities of the poet-artist but also to show a national hero whose life was laid on the altar of the Motherland. At the same time, representatives of OUN (b) did not forget about the revival of national traditions. For this, on December 25, 1942, an article "How Christmas was celebrated in Ukraine" was prepared in the "Mariupol Newspaper," which depicted authentic Ukrainian caroling rituals in an ethnographic retrospective. Also, in the section "Studies of Ukrainian history beyond the USSR," nationalists emphasized the works of Ukrainian historians V. Lypynskyi "Ukraine at the Turning Point," S. Tomashivskyi "Ukrainian History," D. Doroshenko "Outline of the History of Ukraine," which reflected a vision of Ukraine's history different from the Soviet one. All this was not liked by the German command, as the creation of an independent Ukrainian state was not part of the Nazis' plans. Instead, the active agitation and propaganda work of the nationalists was by no means beneficial to the Third Reich.
Already from January 1942, all employees of the Organization in Stalino (Donetsk) and the districts were summoned to the Gestapo, where they were offered to leave the borders of Stalino region. As a result, most participants of the OUN (b) organization were forced to leave the region. However, before this, Bolharskyi-Bulavskyi managed to leave a small group of nationalists in an illegal position, which was to become the support of the new regional leadership in the future.
With the activation of the OUN march groups towards eastern Ukraine and the beginning of the revival of the cultural-national movement of Ukrainians in Donetsk, it seemed that after liberation from the Soviet totalitarian regime, new opportunities for the development of linguistic identity and national consciousness of Ukrainians in this region were opening up. However, the Nazis continued the communist terror, particularly against nationalist activists.
From 1942, the second period of OUN (b) activity in Stalino region began. Since then, the nationalist underground was forced to go underground. Already at the end of February 1942, based on the organized illegal underground network of OUN (b), a group led by Yevhen Stakhiv and Ivan Klym began to operate.