“OBIEDNANNIA” (OUN-NORTH) was an underground Ukrainian organization that emerged in 1956 in the city of Inta, Komi ASSR. It consisted of young political prisoners who had just been released from imprisonment into exile or who had returned to Komi after visiting Ukraine, where they were denied residency permits and employment. It was based on the principles of the OUN. It had a charter and a program. Its goal: to facilitate the overthrow of the occupying Bolshevik authorities and the creation of a Ukrainian Independent and Unified State. Methods of operation: informational work, clandestine seminars, distribution of leaflets, educational collections, pamphlets, etc. The organization had a homemade portable printing press, built by Vasyl Buchkovsky. Members of the organization traveled to Ukraine, creating a correspondent network to distribute leaflets and establishing cells in the Lviv, Rivne, Kirovohrad, and Poltava oblasts.
On June 29, 1959, the organization’s leader, Yaroslav Hasiuk (who conceived the idea for the organization), was arrested, followed by other members. In October 1959, the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR sentenced Y. Hasiuk and Volodymyr Leoniuk to 12 years of imprisonment, Bohdan Khrystynych to 10 years, Volodymyr Zatvarsky to 8, and Yaroslav Kobyletsky to 5 years. Even earlier, members of the Kirovohrad cell had been sentenced: Anton Bulavsky to 10 years, Yosyp Slabyna to 7, Kyrylo Banatsky to 7 (plus 8 unserved years from a previous sentence), and Hryhoriy Riabchun and Stepan Olenych to 3 years. None of them pleaded guilty to “treason against the Motherland.” All of them served their sentences in full. They were rehabilitated in 1992.
Note: In 1947, in the Vorkuta camps, Mykhailo Soroka created the underground organization “OUN-North” (also known as the “Polar Command of the OUN”). It fought for the rights of political prisoners, helped them survive, preserve their identity, and prepared strikes and uprisings. This became one of the reasons for the segregation of political prisoners from common criminals, by order of the USSR MVD dated February 28, 1948. With the arrest of M. Soroka on December 15, 1952, “OUN-North” was not completely exposed. “Obiednannia” can be considered one of its successors.
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Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group