The 20th and 21st volumes of Litopys UPA (“Chronicle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army”) have been presented in Ternopil. The new publications comprise secret materials on the 1940-1950 national liberation struggle in Ternopil oblast. The 20th volume is a collection of documents on UPA activities in Ternipil’s military district Lysonia. The publication makes use of materials from the Central State Archive of the highest governmental bodies, the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the SBU Ternopil oblast branch, and the Ternopil State Archive. The collection consists of several chapters that supply full information on UPA actions on the territory of Ternopil oblast. The presented documents and letters make it possible to trace the relations between UPA commanders and rank-and-file fighters as well as between the UPA and the populace. Chapter 1 displays orders, leaflets, and other important documents from the central command which guided the national liberation struggle and UPA units in Ternopil oblast.
“The first chapter is about the UPA military headquarters,” the volume editor or, historian Serhii Volianiuk, says. “In the second chapter, you can see reports of the military headquarters and the units to the higher command. And the third chapter is about some concrete units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Armt.”
Mykola Posivnych, Candidate of Sciences (History), president of the Litopys UPA Foundation, emphasizes that not so many Ukrainian academics research the period of the national liberation movement. The academic explains that a profound study of the OUN-UPA historical period requires about 500-600 researchers. At present, about 30 Ukrainian academics focus on the national liberation movement subject. Accordingly, they only tackle the topic of UPA leading fighters, while many heroes who fought for an independent Ukraine, still remain in the shadow,
For this reason, the Litopys UPA publishing house will continue to research the UPA history. “It is in the plans of our publishing house to put out a big-size book on the OUN Kremenets area. We would like to find one to research the Berezhansky, Chortkivsky, and other raions. We want to show the entire scope of the OUN-UPA armed struggle. About half a million people went through this national struggle. Our chief goal is to honor the memory of UPA rank-and-file fighters, the heroes who have gone down in our history as ‘Banderaites’ and, well before that, ‘Petluraites’ and ‘Mazepaites’,” Posivnych says.
According to public figure Yevhen Fil, the publication of Litopys UPA allow knowing more about such Ternopil region heroes as Osyp-Diakiv Hornovyi, Yaroslav Starukh, et al. “Serhii Volianiuk worked in the state archives of Ukraine and complemented the old UPA chronicles. It is very important and pleasant that Ternopil’s young academics are studying the role of the national liberation movement in the making of an independent Ukrainian state,” Fil noted.
