Slava Stetsko, nationalist leader, Verkhovna Rada deputy, dies at age 83 (03/16/03)

Slava Stetsko, nationalist leader, Verkhovna Rada deputy, dies at age 83

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukrainian National Deputy Yaroslava Stetsko, perhaps the most prominent Ukrainian female political leader of the 20th century, died in Munich, Germany, on March 12 after a short illness.

Last week Mrs. Stetsko, 83, had flown to Munich, which she had called home for more than 40 years, after Ukrainian doctors failed to successfully treat a heart ailment. She died of heart failure four days after being hospitalized there.

She was a founder and chairman of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (CUN), the political party that was established in Ukraine on the basis of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which she also led for the last decade. In addition, she was a former leader of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) during the Cold War.

Mrs. Stetsko, whom friends and close associates referred to as Slava, was the oldest member of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, which twice gave her the honor of leading newly seated lawmakers in taking the oath of office, in 1998 and 1992. She was first elected to the Ukrainian Parliament in 1994, three years after returning to Ukraine after spending 40 years in both forced and self-imposed exile.

Ukrainian political leaders, including President Leonid Kuchma, mourned the loss of a person who most agreed could exhibit a sweet grandmotherly personality, but could also show an equally steely disposition when it came to matters of principle - especially political matters.

"I always thought of her as the most outstanding Ukrainian woman. I sat next to her in this new Parliament and can still feel our elbows touching," said National Deputy Volodymyr Yavo-rivskyi, a member of the Our Ukraine faction. "She was the most important Ukrainian woman of the 20th century," he added.

Fellow lawmaker Lilia Hryhorovych said Mrs. Stetsko had a very European quality to her in her dress and her manner. The national deputy from the Rukh party said that Mrs. Stetsko could be tough and unmoving on political matters, but also liked to laugh and enjoy herself.

Ivan Pliusch, former chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, said on Ukrainian Television that he was certain a proper memorial to Mrs. Stetsko would be erected in Kyiv.

Ironically, current Parliament Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn informed the Verkhovna Rada of Mrs. Stetsko's death during an afternoon parliamentary hearing on the state of the Ukrainian language in the country. Mrs. Stetsko and her political organization were among the most ardent and committed supporters of strengthening the use of the Ukrainian language and reinvigoraing the Ukrainian culture in the country.

Mrs. Stetsko was born Hanna Yevhenia Muzyka on May 14, 1920, in the village of Romanivka, Ternopil Oblast, which was then considered a part of Poland. In 1938, at the age of 18, she became a member of the OUN, the revolutionary organization founded by Yevhen Konovalets as the Ukrainian Military Organization and led at the time by Andrii Melnyk. When a schism occurred within the organization in 1940, she went with the more radical element of the OUN led by the young Stepan Bandera and a top assistant, Yaroslav Stetsko, whom she eventually wed.

Mrs. Stetsko was incarcerated in July 1941, days after an aborted effort at an independent Ukrainian state, which the OUN-Bandera faction declared in Lviv on June 30, 1941. She spent several years in a Nazi prison, while her husband and Mr. Bandera were sent to Nazi concentration camps.

She remained in Germany as an émigré after her release in 1944. She became active in developing a Red Cross organization for the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the underground military force that fought both the Nazis and Soviet troops during World War II and continued a liberation struggle in the mountains of western Ukraine against Soviet occupation forces after the war ended.

She wrote extensively for various OUN publications and eventually became editor of the Ukrainian Review and the German edition of ABN Correspondence. After the war she became a member of the central committee of the ABN and its chairman after the death of her husband in 1986. At that time she also became an executive member of the World Anti-Communist League.

Mrs. Stetsko returned to Ukraine to live in July 1991 - a month before the country declared independence from the crumbling Soviet Union. The following year she formed the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. She was elected to the Verkhovna Rada for the first time in 1994 as one of several members of the CUN political party. In the 2002 elections she was 11th on the Our Ukraine slate.

The Ukrainian government has already approved Mrs. Stetsko's burial at Baikove Cemetery. Final viewing will take place on March 15 at the historic Kyiv Teachers Building. Funeral arrangements are not yet complete, but the current intention is to have the funeral liturgy at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church located at Askoldova Mohyla.

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