Andriy Melnyk | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait,c. 1940 | |
| Native name | Андрій Мельник |
| Born | (1890-12-12)12 December 1890 |
| Died | 1 November 1964(1964-11-01) (aged 73) |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance |  Austria-Hungary Ukraine |
| Branch | Austro-Hungarian Army Ukrainian People's Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1916 1918–1920 |
| Rank | Colonel Major Lieutenant Standard-bearer |
| Unit | Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen Sich Riflemen |
| Commands | Sich Riflemen |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Silver Military Merit Medal (Signum Laudis) |
| Spouse | Sofiya Fedak-Melnyk (b.1901) |
| Other work | Politician, co-creator of theUVO andOUN |
Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk[a] (Ukrainian:Андрій Атанасович Мельник; 12 December 1890 – 1 November 1964) was a Ukrainian military and political leader best known for leading theOrganisation of Ukrainian Nationalists from 1938 onwards and later theMelnykites (OUN-M) following a split with the more radicalBanderite faction (OUN-B) in 1940.
A veteran of theFirst World War and a senior officer in thearmy of theUkrainian People's Republic during theUkrainian War of Independence, Melnyk went on to cofound theUkrainian Military Organisation in 1920 that continued the armed struggle againstPoland inWestern Ukraine and which later formed theOrganisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929.
Melnyk was selected to lead the OUN in 1938 after the assassination ofYevhen Konovalets by theNKVD and directed the OUN-M tocollaborate withNazi Germany during theSecond World War on theEastern Front. However, Melnyk was placed under house arrest inBerlin from mid-1941, though he would continue to advocate forcollaboration, and later transported toSachsenhausen concentration camp in July 1944.
He was released in October and taken to Berlin in order to negotiate support for the retreatingGerman Army, assuming a leading role in brokering a common stance between a broad spectrum ofUkrainian nationalist groups represented under theUkrainian National Committee. However, with the war nearing its end and Nazi officials still rejecting demands for the recognition of an independent Ukrainian state, Melnyk and his supporters withdrew from the committee and travelled west in early 1945 to meet theAllied advance.
Melnyk continued to lead the OUN-M in exile until his death in 1964.
Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk was born in Volya Yakubov, a village nearDrohobych,Galicia, to Maria Kovaliv (d.1894/7) and Atanas Melnyk (d.1905), a public figure who at a relatively young age becamevillage head and set up a local branch of theProsvita society.[1][2] Melnyk graduated from agymnasium inStryi in 1910.[3]
Both his parents died prematurely oftuberculosis, 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.[2][1] Between 1912 and 1914 he studiedforestry at theHigher School of Agriculture inVienna, though his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of theFirst World War.[2][4]
In 1914, Melnyk volunteered in the newly formedLegion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (USS) where he commanded acompany that was engaged insabotage, rising from akhorunzhyi to the rank oflieutenant.[5][6] He later fought in theBattle of Makivka[ru] and received the silverSignum Laudis medal in late 1915 during an awards ceremony byArchduke Karl.[7][b]
He was reportedly referred to as "Lord Melnyk" by his fellow Ukrainian and Austrian officers who felt that he embodied theEnglish concept of a gentleman, which at that time had been an ideal inCentral Europe.[9] In early September 1916, Melnyk was wounded and taken prisoner by theRussians during the Battle on Mount Lysonia[ru] alongside several hundred USS soldiers.[10][11]
Melnyk and his comrades in the USS (includingRoman Sushko and Fedir Chernyk[ukr]) were transferred between severalprisoner-of-war camps, including briefly one inTsaritsyn, before they were moved to a lightly guardedinternment camp in the village ofDubovka as of March 1917.[2][12][13][c] Melnyk became a close associate ofYevhen Konovalets, a Ukrainiansecond lieutenant captured in 1915 who was held in the Tsaritsyn camp and from whom Melnyk learned of thedevelopments in Ukraine surrounding theFebruary Revolution andthe abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.[2]
TheCentral Rada was initially reluctant to form aregular army and, out of fear of being accused ofAustrophilism, refused to accept former members of theAustro-Hungarian army from Galicia into the firstUkrainised regiments.[15]
Melnyk worked with his fellow USS officers in the internment camp to organise a system of lecture courses for their fellowprisoners-of-war onpolitical economy, thehistory andgeography of Ukraine, and military affairs in preparation for joining theUkrainian War of Independence.[16][15] Historian Yuriy Shapoval notes a reported account of a conversation Melnyk had with a Russian general who asserted his belief in the existence of theAll-Russian people to which Melnyk responded that the nameRus' had been appropriated byPeter the Great.[2] Former Austrian soldiers were later permitted into Ukrainian ranks and Konovalets, who was working to organise a military unit,[d] sent word to the Dubovka camp whereafter Melnyk and his fellow officers made their escape in late December 1917, joining Konovalets inKyiv in early January 1918 in the early stages of theRussian Civil War.[18][19]
On arriving in Kyiv, Melnyk assumed the position ofchief of staff in theGalician-Bukovinian Kurin of the Sich Riflemen, commanded by Konovalets, under theUkrainian People's Republic (UPR).[2][20] Amid a lack of coordination among nationalist forces, Konovalets and Melnyk developed anoperation plan to quell the 1918Kyiv Arsenal January Uprising in which the Sich Riflemen distinguished themselves and played a key role in liberating the city.[21][2] Melnyk held the position ofotaman in theUkrainian People's Army (UNA) and in recognition of his contribution was conferred the rank ofmajor as of March and later the rank ofcolonel.[22] Kyiv wascaptured in February by theBolsheviks, themselves dislocated by theGerman army in March following the collapse of the frontlines and aided by the Sich Riflemen per theBread Peace.
Dissatisfied with disruption caused by thesocialist agrarian reforms of the Central Rada, the German military authorities supported acoup d'état in April and installed theUkrainian State in its place.[23] Melnyk accompanied Konovalets to a meeting withHetmanPavlo Skoropadskyi on 29 April, with the Sich Riflemen forced to disband on 1 May after refusing to recognise Skoropadskyi's authority.[24] Alongside Konovalets and other senior officers, Melnyk met with Skoropadskyi in late July and was part of a delegation on 31 August that swore anoath of allegiance to the Hetman in return for the reinstatement of the Sich Riflemen.[25][26] He subsequently participated in the formation of a new Sich Riflemen unit inBila Tserkva under the authority of the Hetman.[2]
Melnyk and Fedir Chernyk travelled to Kyiv on 30 October to meet with representatives of thesocialist Ukrainian National Union, includingVolodymyr Vynnychenko andYuriy Tyutyunnyk, for preliminary discussions about an uprising against the Hetmanate.[27][28] The Sich Riflemen subsequently supportedSymon Petliura'sDirectorate in the November 1918Anti-Hetman Uprising, incited by a proposed federal union withWhite Russia.[2] With thedissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that same month, thePolish-Ukrainian War simultaneouslybroke out for control ofWestern Ukraine. Hetman Skoropadskyi was successfully ousted and the UPR re-established in Kyiv in December.[2] Amid the intensification ofanti-Jewish pogroms in January 1919, Melnyk, briefly acting as commander of the Siege Corps,[e] issued an order tocourt-martial and administer the "most severe punishment" to anyone caught agitating for or spreading rumours about the possibility of pogroms.[31][f] Historians generally agree that such orders typically achieved little in the way of restoringdiscipline among Petliura's forces.[32] Melnyk attended a conference in Kyiv on 16 January as a representative of the Rifle Council,[g] alongside other pro-independence parties.[34] At the conference, the Riflemen put forward a proposal to reform the government into a temporarytriumviratemilitary dictatorship consisting of Petliura, Konovalets, and Melnyk on the basis that it would enable them to better meet the demands of thestate-building process, though this was rejected by the other parties present including Petliura and the Directorate.[34] Melnyk assumed the position of chief of staff of the wider UNA from March to June and assistantcommandant of the Sich Riflemen from July to August.[2]
Following thefall of Kyiv and amid ableak strategic position, the regular army was dissolved in December 1919 upon the switch topartisan warfare.[36][37] That month, Melnyk fell ill from atyphus epidemic; soon after he was captured byPolish troops at a train station and taken to a hospital inRivne.[38][2] He recovered and was released in January 1920 during negotiations pertaining to theTreaty of Warsaw that would in April cede most ofWestern Ukraine toPoland in return for an alliance and Polish recognition of the UPR.[38] Travelling fromWarsaw in February, Melnyk delivered funds to improve the living conditions of Sich Riflemen who were interned by the Poles in Rivne andLutsk.[39] In March, Melnyk was appointedmilitary attaché of the UNA inCzechoslovakia, based inPrague, intending to assist Konovalets in setting up a new unit to aid theKyiv offensive fromZUNR soldiers interned inJablonné v Podještědí and Ukrainianprisoners-of-war in Europe.[40] However this failed to materialise due to discontent among West Ukrainians and members of theUkrainian Galician Army and became irrelevant with the subsequent collapse of the Polish-Ukrainian lines.[41]
Following aRed Army counteroffensive and theBattle of Warsaw in August, the polyfactional conflict culminated in the 1921Peace of Riga that partitioned Ukrainian territory, placing much of Ukraine in the hands of the Bolsheviks, who would go on toeffectively repress Ukrainian nationalist and cultural movements, and the west under Polish control, withTranscarpathia andBukovina annexed by Czechoslovakia andRomania respectively.[42][43][44]
Alongside Konovalets and former Sich Riflemen in August 1920, Melnyk was a founding member of theUkrainian Military Organisation (UVO), an underground militant group that continued the armed struggle against Poland and engaged in acts ofterrorism and assassinations.[2] Having completed his forestry studies in Prague andVienna, Melnyk moved toLviv in September 1922 upon which he was briefly arrested.[2][45] Melnyk assumed the position of head of the UVO Home Command in early 1923 and set about rebuilding its base into a conspiratorial underground.[46] In April 1924, he was arrested in connection to theOlha Basarab case and imprisoned in Lviv for intelligence activities against the Polish state.[2][47][48]
Following his release from prison in September 1928, Melnyk largely stepped back from direct involvement in the UVO underground and married Sofiya Fedak in February 1929. Sofiya was the daughter of lawyer Stepan Fedak, one of the wealthiest men in Galicia, whose sister had married Konovalets andwhose brother had attempted to assassinate PolishChief of StateMarshalPiłsudski in 1921.[8][49][50] Earlier that month the UVO had merged with severalfar-right nationalist student movements to form theOrganisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) with Yevhen Konovalets at its head.[51][4] Melnyk turned down an offer by Konovalets to head the OUN Home Command; instead in the early 1930s Melnyk chaired the National Senate, a collegiate body that coordinated the activities of the Home Command and the UVO.[i][52] During this time, Melnyk worked on the large estates of theCatholic Metropolitanate of Galicia, headed byMetropolitanAndrey Sheptytsky.[53][2][4] From 1933 onwards, he served as chairman ofOrly ('Eagles'), a Galician Catholic youth organisation that was considered to be anti-nationalist by much of the OUN youth in the area.[54][49]
On hearing of Konovalets's assassination by theNKVD outside aRotterdam cafe in May 1938, Melnyk and his wife travelled to Vienna though 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 toRome to meet Konovalets's widow (Melnyk's sister-in-law).[55] 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 theProvid) could not agree on a leader from amongst themselves and were considering asking Melnyk to become leader of the OUN.[55][56]
Melnyk travelled to theFree 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[j] whereafter he accompanied Senyk to Vienna and was elected head of the PUN on 14 October.[57][58] 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 theUkrainian Greek Catholic Church.[54] Andrey Sheptytsky had sharply denounced the OUN for inciting acts of violence against Ukrainians that disapproved of its methods and its radical nationalism and had charged the organisation with morally corrupting the youth.[59]
Melnyk took over the leadership in the midst of theSudetenland Crisis and the OUN's opportunistic support ofCarpatho-Ukraine with the organisation initially directing, in his own words, "all [their] forces and means at [their] disposal" to aid them.[60] Melnyk despatchedOleh Olzhych toTranscarpathia 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.[61] Melnyk later refined the OUN's support to cultural figures and experienced military specialists on the request of Carpatho-Ukrainian leaderAvgustyn Voloshyn who had become aware that a number of nationalists, some of whom he derided in his correspondence as "revolutionary shouters", were planning acoup d'état.[62]
Following on from the November 1938First Vienna Award, itself part ofthe broader partition ofCzechoslovakia, the autonomous region declared its independence from theSecond Czechoslovak Republic in March 1939, thoughNazi Germany failed to respond to appeals for recognition and the short-lived state was thusinvaded and annexed by theKingdom of Hungary a day later.[63] In the aftermath of this defeat Melnyk privately announced his intention to resign as head of the PUN, officially going on leave until a congress was convened to select a new leader. However he later withdrew his resignation, likely yielding to intense persuasion according to historian Roman Wysocki.[64]
Melnyk was present inVenice in July for the formalisation of cooperation and recognition between the OUN and the government of Carpathian Ukraine, with the events of the past months dealing an initial blow to Ukrainian nationalists' hopes that Hitler's Germany would support their ambitions in the event of an anticipated conflict against theUSSR, compounded by theNazi-Soviet non-aggression pact a month later.[65][66][63] According to historian Myroslav Shkandrij, the younger generation within the OUN felt that the PUN had failed to provide Carpatho-Ukraine with the necessary support and had overrelied on support from Germany.[67]
At the Second Great Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists inRome on 27 August 1939, Melnyk was formally ratified as leader of the OUN and reaffirmedits ideology[k] as continuing in the vein ofnatsiokratiia[l] (literally translating to 'natiocracy'), which has been characterised by scholars as a Ukrainian form offascism[70][71] and[72]/orintegral nationalism,[73][74] itself sometimes characterised asproto-fascist,[75] or more broadly asextreme or radical nationalism influenced byfascist movements.[76] At the conference, Melnyk was styled under the titlevozhd in theFührerprinzip tradition.[77][78][79] In a May 1939 letter to German Foreign MinisterJoachim von Ribbentrop, Melnyk had claimed that the OUN was "ideologically akin to similar movements in Europe, especially toNational Socialism in Germany andFascism in Italy".[78][80]
Melnyk and his supporters within the OUN were generally more conservative and less inclined towards the radicalanti-clericalism and terror that had characterised the organisation prior, highly regarding the ideology ofVyacheslav Lypynsky while often distancing themselves fromDmytro Dontsov's ideology in public.[81][82] 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 World War, and a younger, more bellicose generation heavily inspired by the works of Dontsov that demanded a more charismatic and radical leader and which had begun to coalesce aroundStepan Bandera.[83][84] Bandera had attained notoriety following his role inthe assassination of Polish Interior MinisterBronisław Pieracki and the publicity that arose from the 1935Warsaw and 1936 Lviv trials.[85]
According toJohn Alexander Armstrong, Melnyk "refused to raise the nation to the level ofthe absolute" which was likely taken as sign of weakness by much of the more radicalised younger generation.[86] Armstrong posits that taken together with his association with the Church and his calm and dignified disposition that had little resonance among these members, this made Melnyk incapable of managing the generational divide that had been up until then skillfully and largely successfully managed by Konovalets.[86]
From 1938 onwards, Melnyk was recruited into theAbwehr 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 abortedOUN Uprising of 1939 and was assigned the codename 'Consul I'.[87][88] Following theNazi–Soviet Pact, Melnyk met with the head of the Eastern Department of theGerman Foreign Office inBerlin 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.[89]
Wilhelm Canaris later gave the order to ready theOUN 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.[90][91] Melnyk instructedRoman Sushko, who was to lead an expedition into Poland, to follow the doctrine of 'building a state from the first village' and transmitted broadcasts from a military radio station in Vienna calling on Ukrainians not to resist theWehrmacht and to welcome them as liberators.[m][93][90][94]
Sushko's legion was activated on 12 September and, in mid-September, Melnyk joined OUN members atSambir from where they intended to move their nascent headquarters toLviv at the earliest opportunity.[90][95] However, OUN members retreated westwards with theGerman Army after the USSR commencedtheir invasion on 17 September.[96] The draft constitution was completed in 1940 byMykola Stsiborskyi, the OUN's chief theorist and organisational officer,[n] and encompassed the establishment of a totalitarian state under avozhd (to be Col. Melnyk) with theUkrainian-Jewish population singled out for distinct and ambiguous citizenship laws.[91]
In January 1940, and following his release from prison during theNazi-Soviet partition of Poland thatunified Ukrainian lands under theSoviet Union, Bandera travelled toRome to present Melnyk with a series of demands, among them the replacement of certain members of the Provid with members of the younger generation[o] though this was rejected by Melnyk. Bandera subsequently made a challenge to the PUN on 10 February by establishing a 'revolutionary' Provid inNazi-occupiedKraków, turning down Melnyk's offer to allow him an advisory position in the PUN.[97][98][99]
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'.[98][100] 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.[99][101] The OUN subsequently fractured into two rival organisations: theMelnykites (Melnykivtsi or the OUN-M) and theBanderites (Banderivtsi or the OUN-B) while the tribunal officially removed Bandera from the OUN (effectively now the OUN-M) on 27 September.[4][102]
Avgustyn Voloshyn praised Melnyk for having an ideology based inChristianity and for not placing the nation above God whileauxiliary bishop of theUkrainian Catholic Archeparchy of LvivIvan Buchko declared that nationalists possessed an outstanding leader in Melnyk.[103] In July 1940 Melnyk travelled from Italy to Germany intending to return, with his base being in Rome, but his requests for a visa were denied— historian Yuriy Shapoval asserts the view that this was on the initiative of the German authorities.[2][104] From 1940 onwards, Melnyk and his wife lived in a Berlin apartment nearKurfürstendamm, rented from the German generalHermann Niehoff.[105]
In April 1941, the Banderite faction held a Second Great Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists inNazi-occupiedKraków where Bandera was proclaimedprovidnyk of the OUN (technically the OUN-B), having declared the original 1939 Second Great Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists that had officially ratified Melnyk as leader to have been arear of internal laws.[58] The bulk of the Galician youth defected to the Banderites, however the OUN-M retained the support of Ukrainian nationalists inNorthern Bukovina.[106] Though Melnyk received widespread support among Ukrainian émigrés abroad, Bandera's position on the ground in Western Ukraine and the demographics of his base meant that he gained control of the vast majority of the local apparatus in the region.[107] In late June and July, Melnyk made several conciliatory overtures to the Banderites, calling for unity and signalling that their views would be heard at a Third Great Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists if they came back into the fold.[108]
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Working from their bases inBerlin and Kraków, both factions of the OUN formed marching groups and planned to follow theWehrmacht into Ukraine during the June 1941German invasion of the Soviet Union in order to recruit supporters and set up local governments.[111] As soon as thecollaborationalistNachtigall Battalion entered Lviv on June 30, the group of Banderites, directed by Bandera from Kraków,proclaimed anindependent 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 inZhytomyr in August.[112][113] On 6 July, Melnyk and his fellow former officers of the UNA submitted an appeal addressed toAdolf Hitler through the Abwehr that reads thus:
"The Ukrainian people, whose century-old struggle for freedom has scarcely been matched by any other people, espouses from the depths of its soul the ideals of theNew Europe. The entire Ukrainian people yearns to take part in the realisation of these ideals. We, old fighters for freedom in 1918-1921, request that we, together with our Ukrainian youth, be permitted the honour of taking part in the crusade against Bolshevik barbarism. In twenty-one years of a defensive struggle, we have suffered bloody sacrifices, and we suffer especially at present through the frightful slaughter of so many of our compatriots. We request that we be allowed to march shoulder to shoulder with the legions of Europe and with our liberator, the German Wehrmacht, and therefore we ask to be permitted to create a Ukrainian military formation."[114]
Having travelled several times between Berlin and Kraków to oversee preparations for the OUN-M expeditions, Melnyk had his movements restricted to Berlin in late July under house arrest andGestapo surveillance.[105][115][4] On 28 July, Melnyk sent a letter toHeinrich Himmler protesting the annexation ofGalicia into the territory of theGeneral Government.[115] The OUN-M formed the Bukovinian Battalion under the Abewehr in August which, alongside OUN-M members in theUkrainian Auxiliary Police, would go on to be implicated in the implementation ofthe Holocaust— Melnyk's own reaction and proximity to this is underesearched in the scholarship.[116][117][118][119] In contrast to the OUN-B, Melnyk and his supporters meanwhile avoided making any unilateral proclamations, competing with Bandera's supporters for influence in Western Ukraine and intent on cooperating and gaining favour with theSS and the Wehrmacht in pursuit of a military-political arrangement similar to that ofTiso's Slovakia andUstašaCroatia.[2][120][121][q] In response to the assassination ofMykola Stsiborskyi and Omelian Senyk in August, Melnyk refused to countenance violent reprisals against the Banderites.[122]
The OUN-M based its Ukrainian headquarters inKyiv with the founding of the Ukrainian National Council (UNRada)[r] on 5 October, intended to serve as the basis for a future Ukrainian state.[123][124] Initially, Melnyk's supporters enjoyed support against the Banderites from the German military authorities, with some Melnykites informing on OUN-B members.[113] However, alarmed at the OUN-M's growing strength in Eastern and Central Ukraine and taken together with the incompatibility of Ukrainian statehood withNazi designs on the region, theSS and government officials overruled the Wehrmacht and ordered a crackdown on the organisation with the UNRada dissolved in November 1941, the Melnykite newspaperUkrainian Word puppeted in December, and many OUN-M members arrested or executed by theSD from November onwards.[125][121][s] From Berlin, Melnyk sent letters to Nazi officials protesting the change in policy and attempted to secure the release of arrested and persecuted members, periodically receiving information of further crackdowns upon OUN-M members in Ukraine.[t][105]
Melnyk declared in a 1 January 1942 pamphlet:
"In the German soldiers, we see those who, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, drove the Bolsheviks out of Ukraine; we are obliged to consciously and organisedly assist them in the crusade against Moscow, regardless of any difficulties... We are living at the time of the birth of a new order in Europe. In a Europe that is renewed and consolidated under the leadership of National Socialist Germany, Ukraine must take its place side-by-side with other nations. It is tasked with responsibilities dictated by its geopolitical position and its historical traditions."[121]
With their letters going unanswered, the OUN-M leadership resolved to write an appeal toAdolf Hitler in December 1941 'on behalf of all Ukrainians' in which they expressed dissatisfaction at the state of German-Ukrainian cooperation, framing their criticisms of German policy as being intended to notify Hitler "about the real state of affairs in Ukraine".[121] Thememorandum was sent on 14 January 1942, bearing the signatures of Melnyk, chairman of the dissolved UNRadaMykola Velychkivsky,Catholic Metropolitan of Galicia and Archbishop of LvivAndrey Sheptytsky, President of theUPR in exileAndriy Livytskyi, and chairman of the UNAémigré veterans' General Council of CombatantsMykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko.[121][126] In a letter to Sheptytsky dated 7 July 1942, Melnyk wrote:
"As always before, I am now ready to meet as far as possible in carrying out the initiatives of Your Excellency to eliminate disagreements within our people, which especially at this time needs the greatest possible unity to achieve the ideal of the Nation under the single current political factor in Ukraine— the OUN...
In my experience so far, when I have given so much evidence of my best will and understanding for both human weaknesses and ambitions, and for the peculiar situations and demands of the wave, including the disposition of my own person, I have an unshakable conviction of the right path: not to indulge the disaster, but to fight the disaster. My only regret is that all our citizens did not follow this path at once."[127]
On being relayed the decisions of the May 1942Pochaiv Conference that began to chart an independent course away from cooperation with Germany, Melnyk assessed the decisions as being those that "went in a direction that the Organisation had not yet defined or formulated".[128] Melnyk continued to lobby German officials for the creation of an armed Ukrainian unit and the prospect for recognition of a Ukrainian state, sending a lengthy memorandum toGeneralfeldmarschallWilhelm Keitel on 6 February 1943 arguing that Ukrainians would do everything in their power to fight the Bolsheviks if they thought it would lead to statehood.[u][129] According toTimothy Snyder, where the OUN-B perceived an "urgent need for independent action" in response to theGerman defeat at Stalingrad, the OUN-M saw an opportunity for more productive collaboration with the Germans.[130]
Melnyk maintained semi-official contacts with OUN-M activists in Ukraine, intermittently being able to despatch directives, though his proximity to decision-making on the ground in the context of theGalicia-Volhynian massacres of Polish civilians, principally perpetrated by the UPA while the OUN-M was practically marginalised, and pertaining to theUkrainian Legion of Self-Defense is less clear.[105] Historian Yuri Radchenko asserts that "the PUN did not have clear centralised control over its rank-and-file members" with the OUN-M being "fairly decentralised" during the war.[121] According to Snyder, the OUN-M were "in principle committed to the same ideas" as the OUN-B with regards to an ethnically homogenous state while historian Yuriy Shapoval citesPolish intelligence sources from 1927 to 1934 that characterise Melnyk as holding hostile views towards Poles.[131][2] However, Snyder also asserts that the OUN-M didn't see the massacres as feasible nor desirable while historians Yuri Radchenko and Andrii Usach note that individual Melnykite activists opposed theethnic cleansing of Poles, suggesting that this may have been concentrated around Melnyk's second-in-commandOleh Olzhych.[131][132]
In late 1943, and amidAllied bombing raids, Melnyk moved with his wife to Vienna in an attempt to restore contact with OUN-M members in occupied Ukraine, though, following a brief trip to Berlin where he likely tried to re-establish connections with Nazi officials, he and his wife were arrested by the Vienna Gestapo in late January 1944 and taken back to the capital.[105] The following day, Melnyk was moved to adacha inWannsee where he was frequently interrogated by Gestapo chiefHeinrich Müller and SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Wirsing[ukr].[105] Melnyk was permitted to meet OUN-M member Yevhen Onatsky, a representative of the OUN in Italy and one of its ideologists,[v] at a dinner where they were joined by Gestapo agents and obligated to speak German.[105][133][134] Melnyk was subsequently moved on the turn of March to the alpine settlement ofHirschegg where he was held as aSonderhaftling (special prisoner) at the Ifen Hotel.[105] Fellow political prisoner and formerFrench ambassador to GermanyAndré François-Poncet, with whom he would attend the local church service on Sundays,[105] wrote of him in his diary:
[Friday 3rd March] "This Melnyk isintelligent, distinguished, very polite, with very good manners; his wife, a small brunette, with lively eyes, delicate facial features, and uses alorgnette. Both seem indignant at the deprivation of freedom they must endure. They might become pleasant companions in suffering."[2][135]
François-Poncet stated in an interview following Melnyk's death:
"The late Colonel was always sad and taciturn. When we met him in the morning, he radiated great dignity and gentlemanliness. He was the first to greet everyone with a smile and always asked about my health. And he never talked about himself... However, I remember that there were moments when the late Colonel Melnyk came out of his reserve and became talkative. This happened when he remembered the liberation struggle of Ukraine."[2][136]
In July 1944, Melnyk was moved first to Berlin where on 23 July he was accused of holding political conversations with fellow arrested persons and trying to establish contact with the OUN-M in occupied-Ukraine.[105] On trying to establish contact with OUN-M members in Ukraine, Melnyk was charged on two counts: attempting to obtain information about occupied-Ukraine from UkrainianOstarbeiter and refusing to sign a statement-declaration saying that he would stop attempting to establish contact with OUN-M members.[105] Subsequently he and his wife were taken toSachsenhausen concentration camp where they were held in a fenced house that had a housekeeper.[105] Melnyk was later moved on 4 September to aZellenbau isolation cell, near where Bandera was also being held and from whom he learned of the death ofOleh Olzhych, the acting head of the OUN-M, through the passing of clandestine notes.[105]
In autumn 1944,Ukrainian nationalist political leaders were taken to Berlin to negotiate support for the retreatingGerman Army, who at this point were suffering from manpower shortages, whereby they sought political concessions pertaining to Ukrainian independence under the auspices of theUkrainian National Committee (UNC).[63][105] Melnyk was released on 18 October alongside a number of OUN-M members and taken toHotel Esplanade in Berlin.[105] Having failed to locateBandera's proposed candidate for negotiations, SS-ObersturmbannführerFritz Arlt turned to Melnyk who was successful in negotiating a common stance among Ukrainian nationalists, including themonarchistHetmanites underPavlo Skoropadskyi, thesocialistPetliurites underMykola Livytskyi, and the OUN-B under Bandera.[137][138]
In response to a proclamation byAndrey Vlasov'sCommittee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) claiming to represent all peoples of the Soviet Union, Melnyk signed a petition prepared by ten non-Russian national political groups on behalf of Ukrainian nationalists, appealing toAlfred Rosenberg who subsequently sent a protest toAdolf Hitler concerning Vlasov's committee.[139] In concert with the UNC, Melnyk prepared a declaration pledging the establishment of a Ukrainian state, calling for no subordination to Vlasov's KONR, and demanding that theSS Galicia Division form the basis of a Ukrainian army, while also preparing concessions that would have seen Galicia remain in the Germansphere of influence.[138] Though Nazi officials nominally granted the demand for aUkrainian National Army, the nationalists' demand for statehood was rejected.[140][138] Historian Paweł Markiewicz posits that Ukrainian nationalists engaged with this process in spite of Nazi Germany's bleak strategic position in late 1944 in the hopes of strengthening their émigré bases with there being over two million Ukrainians under German control at the time, including over a millionOstarbeiter.[141]
Dissatisfied with the progress and value of these negotiations, Melnyk and his supporters withdrew from the committee and instead organised a meeting in Berlin in January 1945 whereupon it was decided that OUN-M members would meet theAllied advance and seek to familiarise theWestern Allies with the Ukrainian independence movement.[115] Melnyk left forBad Kissingen in February, with the town occupied byAmerican troops on 7 April whereafter Melnyk sent congratulatory telegrams toPresidentHarry S. Truman,GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower, andPrime MinisterWinston Churchill.[138][115] According to the Cultural Department of the OUN-M[w] (founded by Olzhych) and its archives, a group of senior Melnykites, in coordination with Melnyk, submitted a memorandum to the U.S. military administration whereby it was understood that displaced Ukrainians were to be afforded the right to be separated from Poles and Russians and allowed to display theblue-and-yellow flag.[142][143] This was general policy fordisplaced persons after the war.[144] According to historian Jan-Hinnerk Antons, the Western Allies created purely Ukrainian DP camps due to the number of conflicts arising between Ukrainians and Poles and the fear that remaining mixed would hurt general repatriation efforts.[x][144]
After the war, Melnyk remained inthe West and lived with his wife inClervaux,Luxembourg, having become acquainted withPrince Félix when he was working on the estates of the Lviv Metropol, as well as later living inWest Germany andCanada.[2]
Melnyk remained politically active and continued to lead the now-exiled OUN-M, authoring several historical articles on the Ukrainian independence movement, and was instrumental in the founding of the Ukrainian Coordinating Committee in 1946.[4] At the Third Great Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1947, Melnyk was elected head of the OUN-M for life.[145] Joined in the effort by President of theUPR in exileAndriy Livytskyi, Melnyk played an instrumental role in reconstituting the Ukrainian National Rada in July 1948 which thereon served as the legislative body of the UPR in exile and sought to unify Ukrainianémigré organisations in Europe for further consolidation with the Pan-American Ukrainian Conference that had been formed in November 1947. However, the Union of Hetman Statesmen objected to the associations with theUPR and the OUN-B left in 1950 after demanding a more central role.[146][147] In 1954, Melnyk contributed a collection of eulogies of OUN and OUN-M members to a book marking the 25th anniversary of the creation of the OUN.[148][149]
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Following an address to theUkrainian National Federation of Canada in May 1957, Melnyk began to actively lobby theUkrainian diaspora for the establishment of a pan-Ukrainian umbrella organisation capable of accommodating the fragmented landscape of diaspora organisations.[150][4] On 6 April 1958, Melnyk delivered a speech at the IX Congress of the Ukrainian National Alliance in France (UNE) inParis that was also published inUkrainian Word (Paris, est. 1948) commemorating the 40th anniversary of thedeclaration of Ukrainian independence and rallying readers and listeners to contribute to the founding of a "World Ukrainian Congress".[151] The OUN-M withdrew from the UNRada in October 1957, rejoining in 1961.[152]
Leaders of the OUN-M and OUN-B, including Melnyk, Bandera,Yaroslav Stetsko,Mykola Kapustiansky, and Dmytro Andriievsky (OUN-M) attended a ceremony at Konovalets's grave inRotterdam on 23 May 1958 to mark the 20th anniversary of his assassination.[153]
Melnyk died inCologne, West Germany, on 1 November 1964 at the age of 73, and was buried at Bonnevoie cemetery,Luxembourg.[4] Melnyk's aspiration of consolidating the diaspora was finally realised in 1967 with the founding of theWorld Congress of Free Ukrainians.[154][4]
In July 2006, a monument to Melnyk was unveiled in his native village of Volya Yakubov inDrohobych Raion.[155] In late 2006, and as a result of a meeting between modern OUN-M[y] leaderMykola Plaviuk and administration officials,Lviv City Council announced plans to transfer the tombs of Andriy Melnyk, Yevhen Konovalets, Stepan Bandera and other key leaders of the OUN and UPA to a new area ofLychakiv Cemetery specifically dedicated to the Ukrainian national liberation struggle, though this was not implemented.[156][157]
On the basis of theUkrainian decommunisation laws passed by theVerkhovna Rada in 2015, Melnyk is legally recognised in Ukraine as one of the fighters for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century.[158][159]
Following a campaign by modern OUN-Mactivists, a second monument to Melnyk was unveiled inIvano-Frankivsk in 2017.[160] In December 2020, the Museum-Estate of the Leader of the Ukrainian National Liberation Movement Andriy Melnyk was opened in Volya Yakubov to coincide with the 130th anniversary of his birth. The Museum-Estate is situated in a house that was owned by his relatives since his parents' house is no longer standing.[161][162]
As of 2023, Melnyk's grave was maintained by members of the Union of Ukrainian Women in Luxembourg.[163] Streets are named after him inDrohobych, Ivano-Frankivsk,Lviv,Rivne,Bila Tserkva,Cherkasy, and, since 2023,Kyiv.
Melnyk was not an ideologue of the OUN and didn't author works in the interwar period where he set out his views.[164] The Ideological and Political Commission of the 1939 Second Great Congress was headed byMykola Stsiborskyi.[165]Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe surmises that Melnyk "seems also to have been an adherent tofascism", referring to Stsiborskyi, Yevhen Onatsky, andDmytro Dontsov to whom he also applies the designation.[78]
Historian Yuri Radchenko describes Melnyk as "one of the fascist leaders or right-wing radical leaders of Europe, leaders of fascist movements," up until 1945, noting that such a designation is a matter of preference among historians.[166] Historian Marek Wojnar considers most of Melnyk's followers to instead fall into the 'radical right' classification inStanley G. Payne's categorisation of authoritarian nationalist groups that divides them into fascism, radical right, andconservative authoritarian right.[167][168][z]
As one of the generals of the UNA during theUkrainian independence war, Melnyk attempted to suppress theanti-Jewish pogroms. Though he notes that there are no records of him espousing an opinion on the subject, Radchenko argues that Melnyk's views on Jews underwent a radicalisation in theinterwar period, likely against the background of theSchwartzbard trial. Radchenko bases this on his belief that theantisemitic propaganda of the OUN-M in the early 1940s could not have been published without Melnyk's knowledge.[170]
Note: the head of the Department for Ethno-Political Studies at theNational Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and notthe politician.
Note: primary source cited by Markiewicz and used to clarify chronology.
[Full text for those interested.]
Note: this is an article authored by the modern leader of the OUN(m), with the listed individuals identified in a photograph of the ceremony.
Note: the head of the Department for Ethno-Political Studies at theNational Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and notthe politician.
