Bandera sang in a choir in Kalush. His friend Mykola Klymyshyn—from the village of Mostyshche, not far from Staryi Uhryniv—often stayed next to him during rehearsals, because Bandera was adept at reading music and had a very good ear. Mykola Klymyshyn’s brother, who once visited the Bandera family, told him that they sang together at home, accompanied by one of Bandera’s sisters at the piano.[296] In addition to singing in a choir, Bandera also played the guitar and mandolin. In his brief autobiography, he wrote that his favorite sports included hiking, jogging, swimming, ice skating, and basketball. He also mentioned that he liked to play chess in his free time, and he emphasized that he neither smoke nor drank.[297]

After graduating from high school in 1927, Bandera planned to attend the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady in Czechoslovakia, but did not do so, either because he did not get a passport, as he stated in his brief autobiography, or because the Academy in Poděbrady informed him that it was closed, as he stated during an interrogation on 26 June 1936.[298] Bandera therefore applied to study at the Agricultural and Forestry Department of the Lviv Polytechnic and its branch in Dubliany, near Lviv, the former Agricultural Academy of Dubliany.[299] He began his studies in Lviv in September 1928, but never completed them, because of his involvement in the OUN, which he officially joined in February 1929. During the academic years 1928‒1929 and 1929‒1930, Bandera lived in private apartments in Lviv with Osyp Tiushka, Iurii Levyts’kyi, and other colleagues, and also at the Ukrainian Student House in Supińskiego Street (Mykhaila Kotsiubyns’koho Street), the center of OUN activism in Lviv.[300] In the academic year 1930–1931, Bandera lived in Dubliany, first in a private house and then at the student residence of the Agricultural Academy. In February 1932 he moved to Lviv again and lived together with Stets’ko in lodgings in Lwowskich Dzieci Street (Turhenieva Street) until he was arrested in March 1932. After his release from prison in June, Bandera returned to his father in Staryi Uhryniv. As a result of his arrest, he lost one academic year at the university. In October 1932 he moved back to Lviv. He lodged with different people until March 1934 when he moved back to the Ukrainian Student House, in which he shared room number 56 with Ivan Ravlyk, until Bandera was arrested on 14 June 1934. During his university life in Lviv, Bandera frequently went back to his family in Staryi Uhryniv for vacations.[301] Studying was not Bandera’s main concern, as he stated in his brief autobiography:

I invested most of my time and energy during my student years in revolutionary national-liberation activities. They captivated me more and more and pushed the completion of my studies into second place.[302]

As indicated in chapter 1, Bandera was arrested several times for nationalist activism in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The first occasion was on 14 November 1928, ten days after he and his father conducted a tenth anniversary celebration of the proclamation of the ZUNR, in the village of Berezhnytsia Shliakhets’ka. The Polish authorities regarded this event as subversive propaganda, and illegal. During the commemoration, Andrii Bandera conducted divine service at the graves of Ukrainian soldiers, during which, according to Arsenych, he described the Poles as “temporary occupiers who oppress Ukrainians and therefore should be promptly expelled from the mother territories.”[303] He also reminded the participants about Ukrainians who had fallen in the struggle for a Ukrainian state, and those who were suffering in Polish prisons because of their involvement in the struggle for national liberation. During this service, Stepan Bandera distributed leaflets with content similar to his father’s speech. The next time Andrii and Stepan Bandera were arrested together was in 1930. In 1932–1933 Stepan Bandera was arrested six times for matters such as an illegal crossing of the Polish-Czechoslovak border, smuggling illegal OUN journals to Poland, meeting with OUN members from the leadership in exile, and in connection with the killing of Constable Omelian Czechowski, who led an investigation against the OUN. The longest period Bandera spent in prison at that time was three months from March to June 1932, after Iurii Berezyns’kyi killed Czechowski.[304]