How to Pronounce Stepan Bandera
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Jan 01, 1909 Staryi Uhryniv, Ivano Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine Died on 15 Oct 1959 (aged 50)
Ukrainian anti-communist
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About Stepan Bandera
- Stepan Andriyovych Bandera (Ukrainian: ?????? ?????????? ???????, Polish: Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a head of a militant wing of the Ukrainian independence movement, and a leader and ideologist of Ukrainian nationalists.Born in Austrian Galicia, into the family of a Greek-Catholic priest, he became nationalistic from an early age.
- After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary Galicia became a short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic, but was quickly annexed by Poland and was subjected to an extensive campaign of Polonization and Pacification.
- He became radicalised during this time, and after Polish authorities refused his request to leave for Czechoslovakia for studying, he enrolled in Lviv Polytechnic where he organized several nationalistic organizations.
- He was imprisoned in 1934 and was sentenced to death for orchestrating the assassination of the Polish Interior Minister, Bronislaw Pieracki, but his sentence was quickly commuted to life imprisonment.
- He escaped prison in 1939 when the Second Polish Republic collapsed after the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion and moved to the German-occupied zone. Bandera cultivated German military circles favorable to Ukrainian independence, and organized OUN expeditionary groups.
- When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union he prepared the 30 June 1941 Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood in Lviv.
- For his refusal to rescind the decree, Bandera was arrested by Gestapo, which put him under house arrest on 5 of July 1941 and later, between 1942 and 1943, sent him to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
- In 1944, with Germany rapidly losing ground in the war in the face of the advancing Allied armies, Bandera was released, in the hope that he would be instrumental in deterring the advancing Soviet forces.
- He set up the headquarters of the re-established Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council, which worked in underground.
- He settled with his family in West Germany where he remained the leader of the OUN-B and worked with several anti-communist organizations such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations as well as with the British intelligence agencies.
- Fourteen years after the end of the war, in 1959, Bandera was assassinated by KGB agent in Munich.On 22 January 2010, the outgoing President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of Ukraine.
- The European Parliament condemned the award; so did Russian, Polish and Jewish politicians and organizations.
- The incoming president, Viktor Yanukovych, declared the award illegal, since Bandera was never a citizen of Ukraine, a stipulation necessary for getting the award.
- This announcement was confirmed by a court decision in April 2010.
- In January 2011 the award was officially annulled.
- Nonetheless in December 2018 the Ukrainian parliament has moved to again confer the award to Bandera.Bandera remains a highly controversial figure in Ukraine, with some hailing him as a liberator who fought against both the Soviets and the Nazis state while trying to establish an independent Ukraine, while some others condemn him as a fascist and a war criminal who was, together with his followers, largely responsible for the killing of Polish civilians and partially for the Holocaust in Ukraine.
