Andriy Melnyk

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Working from their bases in Berlin and Kraków, both factions of the OUN formed marching groups and planned to follow the Wehrmacht into Ukraine during the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union in order to recruit supporters and set up local governments. As soon as the collaborationalist Nachtigall Battalion entered Lviv on June 30, the group of Banderites, directed by Bandera from Kraków, proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state, though the German military authorities caught wind of this and cracked down upon the OUN-B. Bandera was arrested on the eve of the proclamation and the crackdown on the OUN-B was later expanded after the assassination of two Melnykite Provid members in Zhytomyr in August. On 6 July, Melnyk and his fellow former officers of the UNA submitted an appeal addressed to Adolf Hitler through the Abwehr:

Andriy Melnyk a adăugat o fotografie

acum 11 ore

R.I.P
Andriy

Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk (Ukrainian: Андрій Атанасович Мельник; 12 December 1890 – 1 November 1964) was a Ukrainian military and political leader best known for leading the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists from 1938 onwards and later the Melnykites (OUN-M) following a split with the more radical Banderite faction (OUN-B) in 1940. Born in Austrian Galicia, Melnyk volunteered in the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen at the outbreak of the First World War and was later captured by the Russians in 1916. He escaped captivity in late 1917 and served as a senior officer in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic during the Ukrainian War of Independence, rising to the rank of colonel. Melnyk went on to cofound the Ukrainian Military Organisation (UVO) in 1920 that continued the armed struggle against Poland in Western Ukraine and which later formed the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929. Following his time in prison between 1924 and 1928 in connection with the Olha Basarab case, he largely stepped back from active engagement in the UVO–OUN underground. After the assassination of Yevhen Konovalets by the NKVD, Melnyk was selected to lead the OUN and collaborated with Nazi intelligence to plan the largely aborted OUN…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a adăugat o fotografie

acum 11 ore

R.I.P
Andriy

Early life and education Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk was born in Volya Yakubov, a village near Drohobych, Galicia, to Maria Kovaliv (d.1894/7) and Atanas Melnyk (d.1905), a public figure who at a relatively young age became village head and set up a local branch of the Prosvita society. Melnyk graduated from a gymnasium in Stryi in 1910. Both his parents died prematurely of tuberculosis, leaving him to be raised by his remarried father's widow, Pavlyna Matchak, who paid for two surgeries relating to his own struggle with the disease between 1910 and 1912, removing two ribs. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied forestry at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna, though his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War.

Andriy Melnyk a adăugat o fotografie

acum 11 ore

R.I.P
Andriy

In 1914, Melnyk volunteered in the newly formed Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (USS) where he commanded a company that was engaged in sabotage, rising from a khorunzhyi to the rank of lieutenant. He later fought in the Battle of Makivka and received the silver Signum Laudis medal in late 1915 during an awards ceremony by Archduke Karl. He was reportedly referred to as "Lord Melnyk" by his fellow Ukrainian and Austrian officers who felt that he embodied the English concept of a gentleman, which at that time had been an ideal in Central Europe. In early September 1916, Melnyk was wounded and taken prisoner by the Russians during the Battle on Mount Lysonia [ru] alongside several hundred USS soldiers.

Andriy Melnyk a adăugat o fotografie

acum 11 ore

R.I.P
Andriy

Captivity Melnyk and his comrades in the USS (including Roman Sushko and Fedir Chernyk) were transferred between several prisoner-of-war camps, including briefly one in Tsaritsyn, before they were moved to a lightly guarded internment camp in the village of Dubovka as of March 1917. Melnyk became a close associate of Yevhen Konovalets, a Ukrainian second lieutenant captured in 1915 who was held in the Tsaritsyn camp and from whom Melnyk learned of the developments in Ukraine surrounding the February Revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

The Central Rada was initially reluctant to form a regular army and, out of fear of being accused of Austrophilism, refused to accept former members of the Austro-Hungarian army from Galicia into the first Ukrainised regiments. Melnyk worked with his fellow USS officers in the internment camp to organise a system of lecture courses for their fellow prisoners-of-war on political economy, the history and geography of Ukraine, and military affairs in preparation for joining the Ukrainian War of Independence. Former Austrian soldiers were later permitted into Ukrainian ranks and Konovalets, who was working to organise a military unit, sent word to the Dubovka camp. Melnyk and his fellow officers made their escape in late December 1917, joining Konovalets in Kyiv in early January 1918 in the early stages of the Russian Civil War.

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Ukrainian War of Independence (1918–1920) On arriving in Kyiv, Melnyk assumed the position of chief of staff in the Galician-Bukovinian Kurin of the Sich Riflemen, commanded by Konovalets, under the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR). Amid a lack of coordination among nationalist forces, Konovalets and Melnyk developed an operation plan to quell the 1918 Kyiv Arsenal January Uprising in which the Sich Riflemen distinguished themselves and played a key role in liberating the city. Melnyk held the position of otaman in the Ukrainian People's Army (UNA) and in recognition of his contribution was conferred the rank of major as of March and later the rank of colonel. Kyiv was captured in February by the Bolsheviks, themselves dislocated by the German army in March following the collapse of the frontlines and aided by the Sich Riflemen per the Bread Peace. Dissatisfied with disruption caused by the socialist agrarian reforms of the Central Rada, the German military authorities supported a coup d'état in April and installed the Ukrainian State in its place. Melnyk accompanied Konovalets to a meeting with Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi on 29 April, with the Sich Riflemen forced to disband on 1 May after refusing to recognise Skoropadskyi's authority. Alongside Konovalets…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Melnyk and Fedir Chernyk travelled to Kyiv on 30 October to meet with representatives of the socialist Ukrainian National Union, including Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Yuriy Tyutyunnyk, for preliminary discussions about an uprising against the Hetmanate. The Sich Riflemen subsequently supported Symon Petliura's Directorate in the November 1918 Anti-Hetman Uprising, incited by a proposed federal union with White Russia. With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that same month, the Polish-Ukrainian War simultaneously broke out for control of Western Ukraine. Hetman Skoropadskyi was successfully ousted and the UPR re-established in Kyiv in December. Amid the intensification of anti-Jewish pogroms in January 1919, Melnyk, briefly acting as commander of the Siege Corps, issued an order to court-martial and administer the "most severe punishment" to anyone caught agitating for or spreading rumours about the possibility of pogroms. A January decree from Petliura to stem the violence was ineffectual and failed to restore discipline among UNA troops. Melnyk attended a conference in Kyiv on 16 January as a representative of the Rifle Council, alongside other pro-independence parties. At the conference, the Riflemen put forward a proposal to reform the government into a temporary triumvirate military dictatorship consisting of Petliura, Konovalets, and Melnyk on the…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Following the fall of Kyiv and amid a bleak strategic position, the regular army was dissolved in December 1919 upon the switch to partisan warfare. That month, Melnyk fell ill from a typhus epidemic; soon after he was captured by Polish troops at a train station and taken to a hospital in Rivne. He recovered and was released in January 1920 during negotiations pertaining to the Treaty of Warsaw that would in April cede most of Western Ukraine to Poland in return for an alliance and Polish recognition of the UPR. Travelling from Warsaw in February, Melnyk delivered funds to improve the living conditions of Sich Riflemen who were interned by the Poles in Rivne and Lutsk. In March, Melnyk was appointed military attaché of the UNA in Czechoslovakia, based in Prague, intending to assist Konovalets in setting up a new unit to aid the Kyiv offensive from ZUNR soldiers interned in Jablonné v Podještědí and Ukrainian prisoners-of-war in Europe. However this failed to materialise due to discontent among West Ukrainians and members of the Ukrainian Galician Army and became irrelevant with the subsequent collapse of the Polish-Ukrainian lines. Following a Red Army counteroffensive and the Battle of Warsaw in…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Alongside Konovalets and former Sich Riflemen in August 1920, Melnyk was a founding member of the Ukrainian Military Organisation (UVO), an underground militant group that continued the armed struggle against Poland and engaged in acts of terrorism and assassinations. Having completed his forestry studies in Prague and Vienna, Melnyk moved to Lviv in September 1922 upon which he was briefly arrested. Melnyk assumed the position of head of the UVO Home Command in early 1923 and set about rebuilding its base into a conspiratorial underground. In April 1924, he was arrested in connection to the Olha Basarab case and imprisoned in Lviv for intelligence activities against the Polish state. Following his release from prison in September 1928, Melnyk largely stepped back from direct involvement in the UVO underground and married Sofia Fedak in February 1929. Sofia was the daughter of lawyer Stepan Fedak, one of the wealthiest men in Galicia, whose sister had married Konovalets and whose brother had attempted to assassinate Polish Chief of State Marshal Piłsudski in 1921. Earlier that month the UVO had merged with several far-right nationalist student movements to form the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) with Yevhen Konovalets at its head. Melnyk turned down…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Leader of the OUN (1938–1940) On hearing of Konovalets's assassination by the NKVD outside a Rotterdam cafe in May 1938, Melnyk and his wife travelled to Vienna. However, due to a delay in conveying the news, they were unable to reach Rotterdam in time for the funeral five days later and instead travelled from Vienna to Rome to meet Konovalets's widow (Melnyk's sister-in-law). On returning to Lviv in June, Melnyk learned that the Leadership of Ukrainian Nationalists (the OUN's executive command in exile and hereon the PUN or the Provid) could not agree on a leader from amongst themselves and were considering asking Melnyk to become leader of the OUN. Melnyk travelled to the Free City of Danzig where he met in September with Provid member Omelian Senyk who informed him that Konovalets's oral will stated him as his preferred successor whereafter he accompanied Senyk to Vienna and was elected head of the PUN on 14 October. He was chosen by the Provid in part because of the hope for more moderate and pragmatic leadership and due to a desire to repair strained ties with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Sheptytsky had sharply denounced the OUN for inciting acts of…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Support for Carpatho-Ukraine Melnyk took over the leadership in the midst of the Sudetenland Crisis and the OUN's opportunistic support of Carpatho-Ukraine with the organisation initially directing, in his own words, "all [their] forces and means at [their] disposal" to aid them. Melnyk travelled to Prague to meet with the Czech government and despatched Oleh Olzhych to Transcarpathia to represent the PUN, as well as sending others on diplomatic missions, while as many as 2,000 young radicals from Galicia crossed the border. Melnyk later refined the OUN's support to cultural figures and experienced military specialists on the request of Carpatho-Ukrainian leader Avgustyn Voloshyn who had become aware that a number of nationalists, some of whom he derided in his correspondence as "revolutionary shouters", were planning a coup d'état. Following on from the November 1938 First Vienna Award, itself part of the broader partition of Czechoslovakia, the autonomous region declared its independence from the Second Czechoslovak Republic in March 1939, though Nazi Germany failed to respond to appeals for recognition and the short-lived state was thus invaded and annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary a day later. In the aftermath of this defeat Melnyk privately announced his intention to resign as…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Formal ratification as leader At the Second Great Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists in Rome on 27 August 1939, Melnyk was formally ratified as leader of the OUN and reaffirmed its ideology as continuing in the vein of natsiokratiia (literally translating to 'natiocracy'), which has been characterised by scholars as a Ukrainian form of fascism and/or integral nationalism, itself sometimes characterised as proto-fascist, or more broadly as extreme or radical nationalism influenced by fascist movements. At the conference, Melnyk was styled under the title vozhd in the Führerprinzip tradition. In a May 1939 letter to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Melnyk had claimed that the OUN was "ideologically akin to similar movements in Europe, especially to National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Italy". Melnyk and his supporters within the OUN were generally more conservative and less inclined towards the radical anti-clericalism and terror that had characterised the organisation prior, highly regarding the ideology of Vyacheslav Lypynsky while often distancing themselves from Dmytro Dontsov's ideology in public. The elevation of Melnyk to the position of leader exacerbated a generational divide within the organisation between an older, more cautious generation, many of whom had fought in the conflicts surrounding the First…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

Collaboration with Nazi intelligence From 1938 onwards, Melnyk was recruited into the Abwehr for espionage, counter-espionage and sabotage, a relationship that had its roots as far back as 1923 pertaining to the UVO, in return for providing the organisation with financial support. The Abwehr's goal was to run diversion activities after Germany's planned attacks on Poland and the Soviet Union whereby Melnyk assisted in planning the largely aborted OUN Uprising of 1939 and was assigned the codename 'Consul I'. Following the Nazi–Soviet Pact and the German invasion of Poland, Melnyk met with the head of the Eastern Department of the German Foreign Office in Berlin on 3 September 1939 where he was told that Ukrainian armed involvement against Poland neither lay in German nor Ukrainian interests and to reserve his forces. Wilhelm Canaris later gave the order to ready the OUN group on 11 September and met with Melnyk in Vienna where he directed him to oversee the drafting of a constitution for a west Ukrainian state. Canaris congratulated Melnyk on "the successful resolution of the question of western Ukraine" and asked for a list of government officials. Melnyk instructed Roman Sushko, who was to lead an expedition into Poland,…Citește mai mult

Andriy Melnyk a lăsat un gând

acum 11 ore

In January 1940, and following his release from prison during the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland that unified Ukrainian lands under the Soviet Union, Bandera travelled to Rome to present Melnyk with a series of demands, among them the replacement of certain members of the Provid with members of the younger generation though this was rejected by Melnyk. Bandera subsequently made a challenge to the PUN on 10 February by establishing a 'revolutionary' Provid in Nazi-occupied Kraków, turning down Melnyk's offer to allow him an advisory position in the PUN. On 5 April, Melnyk and Bandera met in Rome in a final unsuccessful attempt to resolve the growing divide between the two emerging factions with Melnyk declaring the Revolutionary Leadership illegal on 7 April and appealing on 8 April to OUN members not to join the 'saboteurs'. Melnyk decided to put the members of the Revolutionary Leadership before the OUN tribunal, in response to which Bandera and Stetsko rejected Melnyk's leadership and responded in kind. The OUN subsequently fractured into two rival organisations: the Melnykites (Melnykivtsi or the OUN-M) and the Banderites (Banderivtsi or the OUN-B) while the tribunal officially removed Bandera from the OUN (effectively now the OUN-M) on 27…Citește mai mult