Roman-Taras Osypovych Shukhevych (Ukrainian: Роман-Тарас Осипович Шухевич, also known by his pseudonym, Tur and Taras Chuprynka; 30 June 1907 – 5 March 1950) was a Ukrainian nationalist and a military leader of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which during the Second World War fought against the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent against Nazi Germany for Ukrainian independence. He collaborated with the Nazis from February 1941 to December 1942 as commanding officer of the Nachtigall Battalion in early 1941, and as a Hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion in late 1941 and 1942.
Shukhevych led some of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres, where tens of thousands of Polish civilians were killed. It is unclear to what extent Shukhevych was responsible for the massacres of Poles in Volhynia, but he condoned them afterwards, and directed the murders of Poles in Eastern Galicia. Historian Per Anders Rudling has accused the Ukrainian diaspora and Ukrainian academics of "ignoring, glossing over, or outright denying" OUN's role in the massacres.
Shukhevych was born in the city of Lemberg (now Lviv), in the Galicia region of Austria-Hungary (some sources claim his place of birth as Krakovets). He studied at the Lviv Academic Gymnasium, living with his grandfather, Volodymyr Shukhevych, an ethnographer. His political formation was influenced by Yevhen Konovalets, the commander of the Ukrainian Military Organization, who rented a room in Yevhen Konovalets's father's house from 1921 to 1922.
In October 1926, Shukhevych entered the Lviv Polytechnic Institute (then Politechnika Lwowska – when the city of Lwów was part of the Second Polish Republic) to study civil engineering. In July 1934 he completed his studies with an engineering degree in road-bridge speciality. He was also an accomplished musician and with his brother Yuriy completed studies in piano and voice at the Lysenko Music Institute. During his studies, Shukhevych became an active member of the Ukrainian Scouting organization Plast. He was a member of Lisovi Chorty. He organized Plast groups and founded the "Chornomortsi" (Black Sea Cossacks) kurin in 1927.
From 1928 to 1929, Shukhevych did his military service in the Polish army. As a tertiary student, he was automatically sent for officer training. However, he was deemed unreliable, and instead completed his military service as a private in the artillery in Volhynia.
Ukrainian Military Organization
In 1925 Shukhevych joined the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO). In 1926 the regional team of UVO ordered Shukhevych to assassinate the Lwów school superintendent, Stanisław Sobiński accused of "Polonizing" the Ukrainian education system. Roman Shukhevych and Bohdan Pidhainy carried out the assassination on 19 October 1926. In 1928–29 Shukhevych served his military service in the Polish Army in the artillery.
In February 1929 the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded in Vienna. Shukhevych, under the name "Dzvin" (Bell), became a representative of the Ukrainian Executive.
Shukhevych was a leader of a wave of attacks against Polish property and homes in Galicia in 1930, intended to provoke Polish authorities into retaliation and to radicalize Ukrainian society.
Shukhevych planned and also participated in terrorist activities and assassinations, including but not limited to:
the co-ordination of a series of expropriations from Polish government offices in order to fund continued insurrection in the struggle for Ukrainian national determination, i.e. bank robberies and assaults on postal offices or wagons.
the 1 September 1931 assassination of Tadeusz Hołówko, a moderate Polish politician, who advocated cultural autonomy for Ukrainians. His murder caused a shock and was condemned by both Ukraine and Poland.
the unsuccessful attempted assassination of the Soviet consul in Lviv as a protest for the Holodomor in Central Ukraine. (Mykola Lemyk mistakenly assassinated the special emissary of the NKVD, Alexiy Mayov, instead.)
the 30 November 1932 assault on the post office in Gródek Jagielloński with Shukhevych's direct participation, in which a number of civilians were killed.
Shukhevych, with Stepan Bandera, Stepan Lenkavskyi, Yaroslav Stetsko, Yaroslav Starukh, and others developed a concept of "permanent revolution". According to their manifesto, the Ukrainian people, exploited by an occupier, could only obtain freedom through continued assault on the enemy. As a result, the OUN took on the task of preparing for an all-Ukrainian revolt.
Shukhevych took an active part in developing a concept regarding the formation of a Ukrainian army. At that time two diametrically opposed arguments existed. The first proposed forming a Ukrainian army of Ukrainian emigrants; the second advocated recruiting a national army in Western Ukraine organized by Ukrainians.
After the 15 June 1934 OUN assassination of Polish Internal Affairs Minister Bronisław Pieracki, Shukhevych was arrested on 18 July and was sent to the Bereza Kartuska Prison. In December 1935 he was acquitted and released due to lack of incriminating evidence.
From 19 January 1935, Shukhevych was confined to the Brygitki prison in Lwów. He was incarcerated for his membership in the Regional executive of the OUN. The lawyer in the trial was his uncle Stepan Shukhevych. Shukhevych was sentenced to three years in jail; however, because of the 1935 amnesty he was released from jail after spending half a year in the Bereza Kartuska and two years in another prison.