OUN member offers stirring account of underground resistance movement (01/13/02)

OUN member offers stirring account of underground resistance movement

by Areta Pawlynsky

EAST HANOVER, N.J. - Maria Savchyn Pyskir held an audience captive on November 17, 2001, with her keen memories of participating in the Ukrainian underground resistance from 1939 until 1953. At the age of 14, Ms. Pyskir became involved in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) out of a desire to know more about Ukraine. Even at such a young age, she sensed Ukraine's potential as an independent country and felt that through the OUN she could get a strong grasp of history, something essential to attain freedom.

Her involvement grew to active participation in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's (UPA) grueling struggle beginning in 1944, wherein she sacrificed contact with her family, her husband and two sons. She was captured for the second and final time in 1953, several months after Stalin's death.

A memoir of Ms. Pyskir's life was published in Ukrainian as part of the expansive, multi-volume Litopys UPA in 1995. This year, a condensed version was published in English under the title "Thousands of Roads." Ms. Pyskir recorded seminal facts merely a few months after arriving in the United States in 1955 under political asylum, and then continued to work on it for years. Fear of the ramifications for family members in Ukraine delayed the memoir's release until several years after Ukraine's independence was proclaimed in 1991.

A heart-wrenching chapter from "Thousands of Roads," describing the KGB's 1947 discovery of her hiding with an infant son at a Polish rectory, was read aloud at the beginning of the evening. This was followed by the author's description of the partisan spirit, and a lengthy question and answer period.

Ms. Psykir articulated the importance of the partisan spirit and the influence of its struggle on Ukraine's national consciousness. She pointed out the tremendously difficult role carved out for her generation - a generation marked by growing up under three different political occupations and enduring two world wars.

Contrary to being characterized as unrealistic, Ms. Pyskir believes that the resistance gradually realized that a military war could not be won against the Soviets but felt it could win Ukraine's soul. The partisans felt compelled to make each day count, due to the uncertainty of the future. She believes that they put everything into their struggle, wanting desperately to create history, and described the movement as a cult of life, not death. This tremendous drive was recognized by the Soviets, who worked steadily to crush the resistance.

Ms. Pyskir said she believes that the resistance's influence has endured in Ukraine's national consciousness and, thus, ultimately played a role in the creation of Ukraine's sovereignty. For example, its visceral grip can still be felt in the popularity of that era's songs and the pride that many towns and villages have expressed post-1991 by erecting tall burial mounds to honor those in the UPA who fell in battle. She is critical, however, of today's Ukraine for not having enough feeling of a national soul. The psychological scars of a policy promoting Russian superiority for hundreds of years are still clearly visible, she noted.

The evening was organized by the Ukrainian American Professionals and Businesspersons Association of New York and New Jersey (UAPBA). Efforts are being undertaken to reprint the Ukrainian-language version of Ms. Pyskir's memoirs to make the book available to young people and others in Ukraine who are wholly unfamiliar with what the UPA was and what it did. Anyone interested in supporting this project financially may contact the UAPBA's vice-president, Bohdan Vitvitsky, via e-mail [email protected].

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