SPILKA UKRAINSKOYI MOLODI HALYCHYNY [“UNION OF UKRAINIAN YOUTH OF HALYCHYNA"]

 285319.11.2006

This was an underground youth organization which appeared in January - February 1972 in the village of Pechenizhen in the Kolomiya district of the Ivano-Frankivsk region.  The initiative for founding the group came from Dmytro HRYNKIV.  The Union considered itself to be the followers of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in changed circumstances.  It was organized on the model of fighting units of the Ukrainian Resistance Army (UPA), with illegal meetings in the forest or mountains, with each member of the organization having a codename. The Union’s objective was to create an independent socialist state (like those in Poland or Czechoslovakia). They planned to achieve this through ideological struggle, although, depending on circumstances, they did not exclude the possibility of using arms. They sought links with similar organizations in other areas and republics.

The Group consisted of 12 members, workers and students, who held 10 meetings (somewhat specific seminars),  obtained several items of various types of weapons, even holding training sessions in shooting in the forest, collected literature of the OUN and reminiscences about them and resistance songs. Dmytro HRYNKIV and engineer Dmytro DEMYDIV prepared a charter and program for the Union which they did not have time to even adopt.  The “Spilka ukrainskoyi molodi Halychyny” was discovered by the KGB and in March and April 1973 D. HRYNKIV, M. Motryuk, V-I. Shovkovy, R. Chupriy and D. DEMYDIV were arrested and tried.