FEBRUARY 3, THE 87TH ANNIVERSARY SINCE THE FOUNDING THE ORGANISATION OF UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS

February 3, 1929 in Vienna at the congress of representatives of Ukrainian nationalist organizations was announced the creation of a unified nationalist organisation - the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

The OUN has included itself the members of the Ukrainian Military Organisation, the National Union of Ukrainian Youth, the League of Ukrainian Nationalists and other groups of Ukrainian nationalist youth. The OUN concept was based on the primacy of the interests of Ukrainian nation, which was considered a supreme value. Creation of the Unified Ukrainian Independent State was proclaimed as the main goal of the organization. 

The OUN was an underground organisation. Its members were mostly young people, who passed a military and ideological trainings. The main direction of the OUN activity was aimed to prepare a revolutionary uprising, which the nationalists carried through the political education of local population as well as through deployment of military operations against the occupiers on ethnic Ukrainian lands and constant branching and structural strengthening of its network.

Proclamation the Act of resumption of the Ukrainian state in Lviv in June 30, 1941 is a striking example of the OUN activities.

In autumn 1942, on the initiative of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists was created the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Among the leadership of the OUN were such prominent people as: Yevhen Konovalets, Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych, Andriy Melnyk, Mykola Lebid, Yaroslav Stetsko, Olexander Gasyn, Stepan Lenkavsky.