Yaroslav Stetsko was born on 19 January 1912 and died on 5 July 1986
He was a Ukrainian political leader, ideologue of the revolutionary Ukrainian national liberation movement, and a gifted interpreter of political and social phenomena, world affairs and the dynamics of international relations. He studied at the Faculty of Law in Poland (Cracow University) and at the Faculty of Humanities in western Ukraine (Lviv University).
He joined the underground Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO), and when the UVO merged with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929, he became one of the OUN's leading members in the 1930s: ideological and field instructor of the OUN Youth Branch and editor of its journal "Youth"; and editor of the "Bulletin of the OUN Homeland Executive". He became a member of the Central Executive of the OUN in 1938.
For his underground activities he was arrested several times in the 1930s by the Polish occupation authorities in western Ukraine.
In 1940 he became one of the leading members of the Revolutionary Leadership faction of the OUN headed by Stepan Bandera (OUN (B)). At the OUN (B) Grand Assembly held in early 1941 in Cracow, Poland, he was elected Bandera's second-in-command.
On the eve of the German-Soviet war (which erupted on 22 June 1941) he participated in the organization of the OUN Expeditionary Groups tasked to penetrate all regions of Ukraine to actively promote and organize "in the field" the struggle for Ukraine's independence. As the head of one such group he reached the City of Lviv, where at the National Assembly of Ukrainian community and Church representatives the restoration of Ukrainian statehood was officially proclaimed by the "Act of 30 June 1941". Yaroslav Stetsko was elected by the National Assembly to be the Head of the Ukrainian government, called the Ukrainian State Administration.
As extant documents in Ukraine's state archives attest to, the Act of Proclamation of the Restoration of Ukrainian Statehood on 30 June 1941 and the Ukrainian government headed by Yaroslav Stetsko were supported by the people at spontaneous meetings and rallies in THOUSANDS of locations across Ukraine.
For refusing to rescind the Act of Proclamation, Stetsko was arrested by the Nazis in Lviv on 12 July 1941. He was first taken to Berlin and then incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp along with Stepan Bandera and many other leading members of the OUN (B) resistance movement.
After the arrest of Stetsko and Bandera and/or arrest and execution of most members of the Ukrainian State Administration, the Germans unleashed in the Fall of 1941 a massive crackdown against the Ukrainian Liberation Movement citing the following reason in the order of 25 November 1941 to Nazi security forces: "…the Bandera organization is preparing an uprising in
Reichkommissariat Ukraine with the aim of establishing an independent Ukrainian state. All members of Bandera's organization must be arrested and ... executed....".
The resistance movement led by the OUN and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), commanded by Deputy Minister of Defense in the Stetsko government, General Roman Shukhevych, fought first against the Nazis and then against the Soviets - precisely to uphold and defend their latest attempt at establishing an independent Ukrainian State on 30 June 1941. That historical event has also been recognized by the Ukrainian state authorities of today’s independent Ukraine and the Ukrainian people at large as a daring attempt at nation-building.
In the Fall of 1944 Stetsko and Bandera were transferred from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to Berlin in an unrelenting effort to force them to cooperate with the German war effort. Still they refused.
During an Allied bombing raid on Berlin in early 1945 , Stetsko and Bandera managed (with the assistance of the OUN network in Germany) to escape from Gestapo custody, go underground, and eventually make their way to Ally-controlled parts of Western Europe.
After World War II Yaroslav Stetsko settled in Munich, West Germany, joined the Central Executive of the OUN (B) and became active in the world anticommunist movement: In 1946 he became the founding member of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) and its lifelong leader. He became a founding member of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) in 1971 and the founder of the European Freedom Council (UFC) in 1967 and honorary member of its leadership.
At the Fourth Grand Assembly of the OUN (B) in 1968, he was elected head of its Central Executive, a post he held until his death.
Yaroslav Stetsko's interpretation of what the Ukrainian version of nationalism is and of what a nation is had always been: "Ukrainian nationalism is homegrown... not an imitation of extraneous doctrines and theories... Ukrainian nationalism, for example, rejects as a matter of principle, the racist component of the (former) German nazism. That is to say, it does not link the idea of a nation with particular physical and racial attributes of its members. But it always lends primacy to the spiritual core of a given nation".
On the international stage Yaroslav Stetsko earned the respect of a statesman who advocated relentlessly the national interests of Ukraine and all other captive nations under Soviet Russian and communist domination. He met and established personal relationships with up to 30 world leaders on all continents.
Shortly before his death on 5 July 1986 he accurately foresaw that the Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 would mark the beginning of the demise of the Soviet Russian empire - the USSR.
During his political lifetime Yaroslav Stetsko was repeatedly the target of Soviet "active measures": several failed assassinations and kidnapping attempts, provocations, and disinformation campaigns.
Yaroslav Stetsko shared his political activism with his dedicated wife Anna Yevhenia Muzyka (Slava Stetsko, b 1920 - d 2003) - a charismatic personality, an able political organizer, a skilled politician and diplomat in her own right. Together they travelled the world to promote freedom and independence for the captive nations under Soviet Russian and communist rule.
Yaroslav Stetsko's collected writings on ideological, political and social issues, and world affairs have been published in 3 volumes in Ukraine, along with his memoirs "30 June 1941". A volume of his selected writings was also published in English.
