Roman Ilnytskyi. A Leader of the Democratic Wing of the OUN, Who Could Have Met the Same Fate as Lev Rebet

A closer look at declassified documents from the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine reveals unknown chapters of history, which show that the plans of the gpu/nkvd/kgb of the ussr to physically liquidate active figures of the Ukrainian national liberation movement abroad included not only Yevhen Konovalets, Andrii Melnyk, Stepan Bandera, Lev Rebet, Mykola Kapustianskyi, and Yaroslav Stetsko, but also several other prominent figures. One of the targets of such efforts was the talented journalist, publicist, publisher, and civic and political activist Roman Ilnytskyi.

R. Ilnytskyi’s name is mentioned repeatedly in documents from the 1940s–1950s, which describe the split within the OUN-Revolutionary faction led by Stepan Bandera and the formation of a democratic opposition led by Lev Rebet and Zenovii Matla. As a result of a series of internal party conflicts, some activists broke away from the OUN-Revolutionary and, in 1954, formed a new organization – the OUN za kordonom (OUN-z) (OUN-Abroad – Transl.). Given the presence of two prominent leaders in this wing of the OUN, they were dubbed “dviykari (the “Two” – Transl.).  At the same time, there was a third active, progressive, and modern-minded figure in the new organization who caught the attention of the chekists, and they opened an operational case file on him.

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