Turning the pages back...
October 15, 1959
October 15, 1959, marks the day Stepan Bandera was assassinated by Soviet security agent Bohdan Stashynsky in Munich, Germany. The following is an excerpt taken from the Ukrainian Encyclopedia entry on Stepan Bandera.
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Born on January 1, 1909, in Uhryniv Staryi, Galicia, ... Bandera was a revolutionary, politician and ideologue of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Bandera took an active part in community affairs, joining the youth association Plast while in high school ... and later became a member of the Ukrainian Military Organization in 1927 and of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1929, in which he soon attained positions of high authority.
In 1931 he became chief of propaganda in the OUN national executive, in 1932-1933 he was second in command, and in June 1933 he became head of the national executive in Galicia. During his tenure Bandera expanded the OUN's network in western Ukraine, directing its struggle both against Poland and against Soviet Russian imperialism. ...
On the eve of the German-Soviet war Bandera initiated the formation of the Ukrainian National Committee in order to consolidate Ukrainian political forces. He cultivated German military circles favorable to Ukrainian independence, initiated the formation of a Ukrainian military legion, organized expeditionary groups and prepared the proclamation of a Ukrainian state in Lviv on June 30, 1941. For his refusal to rescind the proclamation, Bandera was arrested and spent the period from July 1941 to September 1944 in German prisons and concentration camps. ...
He was killed by the Soviet agent [Bohdan] Stashynsky. At Stashynsky's trial in the Federal Republic of Germany (October 8-19, 1962), it was established that the assassination had been directed personally by the head of the KGB [Aleksandr] Shelepin.
In the memory of his followers Bandera became a symbol of the revolutionary struggle for a Ukrainian state. His political positions were defined in a series of articles collected in a posthumously published book.
Source: "Bandera, Stepan," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Volume II. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 14, 2001, No. 41, Vol. LXIX
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