In Cracow, Bandera met many of his comrades-in-arms. At that time, the city became the main center for Ukrainian nationalists. Nearly 30,000 Ukrainians, many of them young nationalists like Bandera, fled to the General Government in order to avoid a confrontation with the Soviet regime.[681] In addition, many Ukrainians released from Polish prisons and the Bereza Kartuska detention camp were staying in Cracow and other places in the General Government. The OUN was, at this time, the most popular Ukrainian organization, which, owing to the Soviet occupation of Ukraine, “nourished everybody’s hope,” as Klymyshyn wrote in his memoirs.[682] While staying in Cracow, OUN members observed an anti-Jewish pogrom, which took place in the city in December 1939.[683]

In Cracow, the Germans established the Ukrainian Central Committee (Ukraїns’kyi Tsentral’nyi Komitet, UTsK), a welfare and relief agency, which set up a network of Ukrainian cooperatives, schools, and youth organizations in the General Government. The UTsK was headed by Volodymyr Kubiiovych, a geographer, who was not a member of the OUN but empathized with its older generation. Like many other Ukrainians, he had experienced ethnic discrimination in the Second Polish Republic and regarded Germany as the most important partner of the Ukrainians, sharing with the Nazis many political convictions, including antisemitism and other racism. On 18 April 1941, he petitioned General Governor Hans Frank to purge “Polish and Jewish elements” from the ethnic Ukrainian territories within the General Government.[684]

While in Cracow, Bandera first lived in one of the five camps erected for Ukrainians on Loretańska Street. He later moved into an apartment on Straszewskiego Street together with his brothers Vasyl’ and Bohdan.[685] At a military course in Cracow in late September, Klymyshyn met Bandera for the first time since his escape from prison. Bandera looked thin and had longer hair than usual. According to Klymyshyn, Bandera was dressed in clothes that he had taken from the prison. They went shopping together the next day between the market square and the university. Bandera bought a grey suit, and Klymyshyn a black one. Grey was Bandera’s favorite color of cloth and was also one of his aliases.[686]

During his stay in Cracow, Bandera met the female OUN member Iaroslava Oparivs’ka (1917–1977) who had studied at the Lviv Polytechnic before the war.[687] Bandera married her either on 3 June 1940 in Cracow or on 5 June in Sanok.[688] Klymshyn remarked in his memoirs that the wedding ceremony was very modest; no more than ten people were present.[689] Iaroslava took on Stepan’s surname and became Iaroslava Bandera. In late 1940 they moved to Warsaw, where they lived until early 1941 for security reasons, in an apartment arranged by Lebed’.[690] Their first child Natalia was born on 26 May 1941 in Sanok. In 1939 or 1941 Bandera had an operation on his nose in Berlin. His nasal septum was either broken or damaged when he was force-fed through the nose during the hunger strike in the Święty Krzyż prison.[691]

The Split in the OUN

Bandera wrote in his autobiography that in November 1939 he went for a cure for two weeks to a spa in Piešťany in Slovakia, where he met several other OUN members.[692] He went from there to Vienna, where he met more comrades-in-arms, among them Volodymyr Tymchii (Lopatyns’kyi), the current leader of the homeland executive of the OUN. Bandera and Lopatyns’kyi agreed on a joint visit to Rome, in order to hold a discussion with the new leader of the OUN and PUN, Andrii Mel’nyk. The problems to be discussed included misunderstandings and lack of cooperation between the homeland executive and the leadership in exile, and between the OUN in Ukraine and the PUN, as these organizations were called at this time. Having arrived in Rome

Fig. 10. Bandera in the 1940s. Poltava, Zhyttia Stepana Bandery, 25.

during the first half of January 1940, Bandera met his brother Oleksandr, who had been living in Rome since 1933 and had completed a doctorate in political economy.[693]

The negotiations with Mel’nyk did not lead to a compromise. Bandera demanded that Mel’nyk remove Iaroslav Baranovs’kyi and Omelian Senyk from the leadership. Bandera suspected the former of cooperation with the Poles.[694] Furthermore, he demanded that Mel’nyk include in the leadership new members he had proposed. Bandera and Lopatyns’kyi also asked the current OUN leader to leave for Switzerland and stay there. The motive behind this request was to marginalize Mel’nyk’s role within the OUN.[695]

In his autobiography from 1959, Bandera also wrote that he demanded that the policies of the OUN should be less dependent on outside factors, by which he meant cooperation with Nazi Germany.[696] This claim from 1959, however, corresponds neither with the OUN-B’s actions in 1940–1941, nor with what Bandera expressed in an undated letter to Mel’nyk, written in August 1940, when he was outraged at the rumor spread by Baranovs’kyi that Bandera was hostile to Nazi Germany.[697]

Mel’nyk did not agree with Bandera’s demands and assumptions. He offered Bandera the post of an adviser to the leadership and requested absolute obedience from Lopatyns’kyi. In reaction, Bandera, and other OUN members such as Stets’ko, Ianiv, Lenkavs’kyi, and Shukhevych—members of the homeland executive in 1933–1934 when Bandera was its leader—gathered in Cracow on 10 February 1940 and proclaimed a Revolutionary Leadership (revoliutsiinyi provid). Bandera became the leader of this new political body.[698] This faction subsequently became known as the OUN-B (for Bandera) in order to distinguish itself from the older or actual OUN, which was known as the OUN-M (for Mel’nyk) from this point on. Lopatyns’kyi took this news to Ukraine but was killed on the German-Soviet border by Soviet guards.[699]

Until Bandera met with Mel’nyk again on 5 April 1940, the two groups hoped to arrive at an agreement. On that day, however, Bandera and Stets’ko gave Mel’nyk their own letters, which informed him about the existence of the Revolutionary Leadership of the OUN.[700] The letters must have outraged Mel’nyk, because he put Bandera and Stets’ko before the Revolutionary Tribunal on 8 April. The same day, Bandera and Stets’ko published an announcement in which they informed all OUN members that the Revolutionary Leadership had decided that Mel’nyk was no longer the leader of the organization, and that the new leader of the OUN was Stepan Bandera.[701] On 27 September, the Revolutionary Tribunal removed Bandera from the OUN.[702] Stets’ko stated in retrospect that Mel’nyk ordered the assassination of Bandera and himself, which was the reason why they moved temporarily to Warsaw.[703]

The details of the split reveal interesting information as to how Bandera and his comrades dealt with opponents. In a longer letter to Mel’nyk from 10 September 1940, Bandera informed the leader of the PUN and leadership in exile that, on 10 February, he “had to regulate the matters in the leadership because those who were responsible for it did nothing.”[704] Bandera argued that he had had to do it, not for his own personal sake but because nationalists who honored his name expected it from him.[705] He claimed that Mel’nyk did not listen to people who tried to give him constructive advice, but justified his decisions with the authority of his position. Bandera implied that Mel’nyk was a puppet in the hands of Senyk and Baranovs’kyi, both of whom Bandera regarded as traitors. As a result, “the atmosphere of denial, duplicity, falsehood and suspicion remains in the leadership.”[706] Furthermore, Bandera informed Mel’nyk that the late Lopatyns’kyi had refused to use the fascist salute “Glory to the Leader!” (Vozhdevi Slava!), because he was disappointed by Mel’nyk and argued that the OUN did not have a leader. The greeting “Glory to the Leader!” had been mandatory since the Second Great Congress in Rome on 27 August 1939.[707]

In the letter to Mel’nyk, Bandera also explained that on 10 February 1940 the Revolutionary Leadership of the OUN “ceased discussing and began to act,” because Mel’nyk did not want to cleanse the PUN, that is to remove Senyk and Baranovs’kyi. The Revolutionary Leadership knew that it did not have the reputation and authority of the PUN, but it had on its side “truth, pure cause [chysta sprava], faith, and the indestructible will to lead the matter to a successful end.”[708] Writing about Stsibors’kyi, who remained in the OUN-M, Bandera used antisemitic arguments to discredit this leading member of the OUN. He claimed that Stsibors’kyi had to be excluded from the OUN, because he was living with a “suspicious Russian Jewish woman” and because he was “a traitor and a Bolshevik agent.”[709]

According to Bandera, Mel’nyk was surrounded by traitors such as Baranovs’kyi, and “treacherous Bolshevik agents” such as Stsibors’kyi, and did not do anything to demonstrate that he was the appropriate leader. Mel’nyk had become a leader because he inherited the position from Konovalets’, which was arranged by the PUN. Bandera argued that Mel’nyk and the PUN expected that everyone would accept Mel’nyk in this position. This did not come about, however, because the traitors Baranovs’kyi and Senyk made Mel’nyk into a puppet, which meant according to Bandera’s logic that the organization was controlled by “enemies” and “Bolshevik agents.”[710] Logically, Bandera felt that this obliged him to take over control of the OUN and “cleanse” it of “traitors” and “enemies.”[711]

As indicated in chapter 1, the split of the OUN into OUN-B and OUN-M was the result of a disagreement between two generations. It was determined by the difference in experience and expectations of the two generations and by the nomination of Mel’nyk to the leadership of the OUN and the PUN at the Second Great Congress in Rome on 27 August 1939, as a result of a will allegedly left behind by Konovalets’. The nomination of Mel’nyk for the position of leader was the sign for the younger generation to seize power in the organization. Mel’nyk did not have the authority of Konovalets’ and was less vigorous than him. In the 1930s he had worked as manager of Sheptyts’kyi’s estate and was barely known in the OUN. According to Knysh, some days after the beginning of Second World War, Ivan Harbusevych and Riko Iaryi, financial officer of the leadership in exile, had discussed the plan to take power in the OUN, with Bandera, Shukhevych, Lebed’, and Stets’ko.[712] After the split the OUN-B soon became much more powerful than the OUN-M, because its leaders had better connections to the OUN underground in eastern Galicia and Volhynia. The numerous young Ukrainians who had escaped to Cracow, after the German attack on the Soviet Union, decided to join the OUN-B.[713]

In terms of extreme nationalism, violence, fascism, and antisemitism, the two factions did not differ greatly from each other. During an interrogation in 1948, OUN-B member Volodymyr Porendovs’kyi stated that, at the time of the German invasion of Poland, the Ukrainian nationalists were “true fascists whose gods were Hitler, Mussolini, Dontsov, and similar personalities.”[714] In an article published on 8 May 1939, the leading OUN-B member Stets’ko claimed that Jews were “nomads and parasites,” a nation of “swindlers, materialists, and egoists … devoid of heroism, and lacking an idea that could inspire them to sacrifice.” They were only interested in “personal profit” and were determined “to corrupt the heroic culture of warrior nations.” Stets’ko stated that Ukrainians had therefore separated themselves from the Jews centuries ago in order to achieve “the purity of their spirituality and culture.”[715]

The split of the OUN into the OUN-B and OUN-M was also the next significant step in the rise of the political cult and myth of Stepan Bandera. The majority of OUN members, mainly young Ukrainians, joined the OUN-B faction. They were called Banderites after their leader Bandera. The word was in use at least from late 1940 onward.[716] Members of the OUN-M were called Melnykites.[717] This kind of identification with the leader of an organization or party was common in East Central European political and military movements. In Poland, for example, the adherents of Marshal Piłsudski were called piłsudczycy. A word derived from “Bandera” was used in several languages (Ukr. banderivtsi, Pol. banderowcy, Rus. banderovtsy, Ger. Bandera-Leute or Banderowzi). The OUN-B members were not only called by others Banderites but also called themselves Banderites. The Ukrainian teacher Oleksandr Povshuk wrote in his diary on 5 October 1941:

Now we have war. Our leadership split into two groups, Banderites and Melnykites, and each does harm to the other. The nation becomes split into two parts. Banderites—this is the OUN under the leadership of Stepan Bandera, and Melnykites—who have not defined themselves till now—under the leadership of Mel’nyk.[718]

Although the term “Banderites” became popular only after the split of the OUN in 1940, it had existed since the trials in Warsaw and Lviv at the latest. The NKVD agent Sierov used the term “Banderites” in his reports from 1940 to refer not only to the OUN-B in 1940 but also to those OUN members who had opposed Konovalets’ in 1935, by whom Sierov meant the young generation in the OUN.[719] In connection with the young OUN members, Stsibors’kyi used the term “bandery” in an article on 21 June 1936 in Ukraїns’ke slovo about the defendants in the Warsaw and Lviv trials.[720] Because the term “Banderites” was colloquial rather than official, and because of the violence employed by OUN-B, the term soon acquired a negative connotation, especially among Jews and Poles. OUN-B members used it less regularly than its victims or opponents did.

After the split, the two factions fought against and vehemently discredited each other. In autumn 1940, the OUN-M published a “White Book of the OUN: About the Diversion-Revolt Bandera-Iaryi” in which it explained how Bandera, Iaryi, and Stets’ko illegally tried to seize power in the organization, and how Mel’nyk and other leading OUN-M members tried to prevent this, thereby protecting the organization against such vicious individuals with low morality as the authors of the “White Book” characterized the “rebels.”[721] The editor of the “White Book” was Stsibors’kyi.[722]

The OUN-B responded to this publication in May 1941. Stets’ko wrote a longer piece, entitled “Why the Purge in the OUN Was Necessary.” He legitimized the OUN-B decision to split from the OUN, whose leadership, according to Stets’ko, was full of traitors, did not care about the organization, and was not able to organize a revolution. Stets’ko also protected Iaryi, whom the OUN-M called a “Mongolian Jewish crossbreed” and a “Soviet agent.” The OUN-M claimed that the best proof for this was the fact that Iaryi was married to a Jewish woman. Furthermore, Stets’ko applied the same antisemitic strategy as the OUN-M to discredit Stsibors’kyi. He claimed that the author of the “White Book” was a traitor to the cause because he was married to a Jewish woman.[723] In June or July 1941, in response to Stets’ko’s publication, the OUN-M published “The Black Book of the Revolt: Iaryi-Bandera-Horbovyi.” The OUN-M depicted the OUN-B as “Bolshevik agents” who were preparing a “Marxist Jewish revolution.” It claimed that Iaryi “and his Jewish wife are living on our money.”[724]

Stsibors’kyi, and other OUN-M members whom Bandera accused of betrayal or relationships with Jews, were murdered during the war, in all likelihood by the OUN-B; Stsibors’kyi and Senyk on 30 August 1941 in Zhytomyr, Baranovs’kyi on 11 May 1943 in Lviv.[725]

 

From 31 March to 3 April 1941 in Cracow, the OUN-B held the Second Great Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists, at which it “legalized” itself and “delegalized” the OUN-M. The OUN-B gave its congress exactly the same name as the older generation had called the congress on 27 August 1939 in Rome—the “Second Great Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists.” The resolutions passed at the congress in Cracow were documented in the booklet “Resolutions of the Second Great Congress of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.”[726] The argument in the booklet in terms of the split resembles very much the one in Bandera’s letter to Mel’nyk. It begins with the statement that “the factual control of the OUN abroad drifted, after the death of Colonel Ievhen Konovalets’, into the hands of people who harmed the OUN.” This was, for the authors of the booklet, a “danger for the Ukrainian National Movement.” It was therefore necessary to “cure the organization,” because Mel’nyk did not do so, and thereby not only “demonstrated a complete inability to lead the revolutionary movement,” but also “openly took the side of traitors to and destroyers of the organization.”[727]

With this in mind, the authors of the “Resolutions” booklet decided that “Colonel Mel’nyk became the leader of the OUN in an unlawful way” and the “Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists that took place on 27 August 1939 did not correspond with the requirements of the principles of the OUN.”[728] Furthermore, they claimed that the testament of the Leader (Vozhd’) Konovalets’, which nominated Mel’nyk to the leadership of the OUN, was an “invention of Iaroslav Baranovs’kyi” and that the act of 10 February 1940, which established the Revolutionary Leadership of the OUN, was a “historical necessity.” This act and the Second Great Congress in 1941 rescued the organization from “opportunism and decomposition” and “the danger of decay of the Organization.” All members who took part in Mel’nyk’s activities against the Revolutionary Leadership were traitors who would be excluded from the OUN.[729] Finally, the authors of the booklet forbade Mel’nyk to carry out any actions under the name of the OUN and urged all nationalists to leave the OUN-M and join the “ranks of the revolutionary liberation movement of the OUN under the leadership of Stepan Bandera.”[730]

The “Resolutions” also reveal important information as to how the OUN-B perceived itself. In the first paragraph, the organizers of the congress in Cracow wrote: “the idea of an Independent United Ukrainian State became, in our century, the notion of the new Ukrainian worldview and the new political movement, the nationalist movement, which, in the fire of the fight against the occupiers, took the shape of the political organization—the organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.”[731] They were thereby pointing out that nationalism was the only tolerable Ukrainian political movement and that the OUN was the only Ukrainian organization to embody this movement. This approach to politics was an essential principle of fascist systems. It stipulated that one nation can be governed only by one radical nationalist party, which is represented by only one person, who symbolizes the whole nation, for instance, the Führer in Germany, the Duce in Italy, and the Caudillo in Spain. In another document from this time, the OUN-B wrote: “Odyn narid, odyn provid, odna vlada,” a Ukrainian version of the concept of “One nation, one party, one leader” (Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer).[732]

In the second paragraph of the booklet, the authors introduced their own history. First, they referred to Mikhnovs’kyi as the father of the kind of nationalism that they would like to have in their state. The authors obviously did not state that Mikhnovs’kyi provided them with ideas such as “Do not marry a foreign woman, because your children will be your enemies,”[733] just as they never referred to themselves as fascists or racists, always emphasizing the national, patriotic, local, and heroic side of their movement. They referred to Konovalets’, the UVO, and the First Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists in Vienna, and not to the Second Great Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists in Rome.[734] They introduced themselves as the “new generation of nationalist revolutionaries” who grew up in “enemy prisons and partisan forests” and “in the midst of successes and failures of the revolutionary struggle against the enemies of Ukraine.”[735] Nevertheless, they were honest enough to state that their struggle against the Soviet Union had been, due to outside factors, less successful than against Poland.[736] But they denied that the tradition of Konovalets’ included any kind of collaboration with non-Ukrainian organizations or countries, and argued that the OUN “counted on the strengths of the Ukrainian nation and refused, in principle, orientation on foreign powers.”[737]

Concerning the resolutions of the congress, the authors of the booklet wrote that “the struggle for the strength and the good of the Ukrainian nation is the basis of our worldview” and that “only on the path of revolutionary struggle against the invaders will the Ukrainian nation achieve its state.” In the part concerning the social order in the future OUN state, they claimed that the OUN struggles for “the equality of all Ukrainians in terms of rights and obligations toward the nation and the state.” The non-Ukrainians in the “Ukrainian territories,” where the OUN state would be established, were not mentioned, but it is known from other documents that the OUN planned to expel or kill them.[738] However, the authors specified that “the Ukrainian Nation and its State” would become “the owner of all ground and waters, under and over earth resources, industry, and communication roads.” They also regulated what belongs to whom: “The Ukrainian land is for Ukrainian peasants, the factories and plants for the Ukrainian workers, Ukrainian bread for the Ukrainian people.” They did not however explain in this official document what would happen to the hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians, and many other non-Ukrainians, who were owners of land and factories and conducted trade in Ukraine or ate “Ukrainian bread.”[739]

Emulating the Nazis and other racist movements, the authors used the category of race. Exactly as in Nazi ideology, the OUN wanted to have a strong and healthy “Ukrainian race”: “The OUN struggles for a systematic organization of the national health by the Ukrainian state authority, and the growth and strength of the Ukrainian race.” As in every proper völkisch state, the “Ukrainian race” should be protected by its organization “against the communist worldview, against internationalism and capitalism, and against all thoughts and structures that weaken the vital forces of the nation.” To establish this state, the OUN-B claimed to struggle “for a destruction of the slavery, for the decay of the Moscow prison of nations, for the decay of the entire communist system” and “the freedom of all nations that are enslaved by Moscow and their right to life in their own state.” For this purpose, the OUN-B wanted to “unite all Ukrainians in one liberating front of the “Ukrainian National Revolution,” which could conduct a military uprising, achieve a Ukrainian state, and rule it.” In terms of tradition, it argued that it is “going to fight to realize the legacy of the Great Prophet of Ukraine Taras Shevchenko, following the revolutionary path of Konovalets.’”[740]

Confident that it had the spirits of Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, Taras Shevchenko, Mykola Mikhnovs’kyi, and Ievhen Konovalets’ on its side, the OUN-B wanted not only to found a state for the “Ukrainian race” but also to struggle for other “nations of Eastern Europe and Asia enslaved by Moscow, for a new order on the ruins of the Moscow Empire, the USSR.” For this reason, the “Ukrainian National Revolution” was planned to take place not only in the “living space” of the “Ukrainian race.” The OUN-B also wanted to inspire a number of other “nations enslaved by Moscow” and involve them in the “liberation struggle” against the Soviet Union. This was to take place under the slogan: “Freedom for the Nations and the Individual!”[741]

Because the OUN-B knew that it would be too weak to combat the Soviet Union alone, it wanted to ally itself with other similar movements. This idea goes back at least to Stsibors’kyi’s Natsiokratiia from 1935.[742] The collaboration with radical right movements that were rooted in other republics of the USSR, and with states that were threatened by the USSR, was strategically very profitable for the Ukrainian nationalists because it weakened their main enemy. The OUN-B was particularly interested in cooperation with “Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Byelorussia.”[743] When the Soviet Union would be defeated, the OUN-B expected other nations to establish right-wing dictatorships in which, as in the OUN-B state, the particular movements would “take hold of … all parts of social life.”[744]

Additionally, the authors gave assurances that they would combat and destroy all Ukrainian democratic parties and organizations, which they called “opportunistic.”[745] These parties were expected to disappear, just as the non-Ukrainian inhabitants of the “Ukrainian territories” were expected to vanish. The OUN-B hoped that something similar would happen in other states involved, under the leadership of the OUN, in the revolutionary struggle against the Soviet Union.[746] Therefore, the OUN planned to invent propaganda for Ukrainians and for all other “states enslaved and threatened by Moscow” that were expected to participate in the revolution.[747] The OUN-B leadership hoped that its propaganda would “control all Ukrainian groups … in particular youth in the Red Army, and workers,” and “show the nations enslaved by Moscow common interests with Ukraine.”[748]

The destruction of collective farms, the promise to provide the peasants with their own land, and the “alteration of the Bolshevik slavery economy into a free economy of the Ukrainian nation” were important arguments, which could mobilize the “Ukrainian masses” for the revolution. They would also awaken in them the wish to live in a Ukrainian state, ruled by the OUN, with Bandera as Providnyk.[749] These messages and lures, according to the authors of the booklet, were designed to reach the minds of the Ukrainian soldiers and soldiers from the “enslaved countries” who were serving in the Red Army, as well as the minds of peasants and factory workers, and to make them fight against the Soviet Union, on the side of the OUN-B and the Germans.[750]

The authors of the booklet borrowed from Dmytro Dontsov—their main teacher of extreme nationalism, antisemitism, and hatred of Russia—two interrelated antisemitic concepts. The first was that “the Jews in the USSR are the main pillar of the Bolshevik regime, and the avant-garde of the Moscow imperialism in Ukraine.” The second stated that the OUN “combats Jews as a pillar of the Moscow-Bolshevik regime.”[751] In the same paragraph of the “Resolutions” they denied the violent nature of Ukrainian nationalism and the fact that antisemitism was an integral element of this movement, while blaming the Soviet Union and Russia for the antisemitism in Ukraine and in the OUN: “The Moscow-Bolshevik government exploits the anti-Jewish sentiments of the Ukrainian masses, in order to divert their attention from the real perpetrator of evil, and in order to channel them, in times of uprising, into pogroms of Jews.”[752]

They similarly introduced a range of fascist principles and rituals, which became obligatory for all members of the movement, and which, after the establishment of the Ukrainian state, were to become obligatory for all citizens. The red-and-black flag, which symbolizes blood and soil (Ger. Blut und Boden), was one of them.[753] These colors referred to the racist and proto-fascist German blood and soil ideology, which suggests the inseparability of a people (Rasse or Volk) and their “living space” (Lebensraum) as well as an attraction to the “soil,” which acquired spiritual and mythological connotations. Furthermore, the OUN-B employed the fascist salute of raising the right arm “slightly to the right, slightly above the peak of the head” while calling “Glory to Ukraine!” (Slava Ukraїni!), the response to which was “Glory to the Heroes!” (Heroiam Slava!).[754] The greeting “Glory to the Leader!” (Vozhdevi Slava!) had already been applied to Mel’nyk since the earlier Second Great Congress of the OUN in Rome.[755]

Obligatory holidays were also proclaimed: Unification Day on 22 January, the Day of the Revolutionary Heroes on 23 March, and the Day of Struggle on 31 August.[756] The Führerprinzip was established on the notion of a Providnyk and not a Vozhd’ because the term “Vozhd’” had been reserved for Mel’nyk, since the congress in Rome.[757] At the congress in Cracow, Stepan Bandera, leader of the Banderites, was naturally and unanimously chosen to be the Providnyk of the OUN.[758] According to Danylo Shumuk, it was Myron Orlyk who proposed Bandera as Providnyk at the Cracow congress in March–April 1941.[759] The OUN-B in Ukraine, under the leadership of Lopatyns’kyi’s follower Ivan Klymiv, were not informed that the leadership had decided to use the sole title of Providnyk in relation to Bandera. During the “Ukrainian National Revolution” the OUN-B would print and display posters with Bandera titled as a Vozhd’.[760]

The young OUN-B members who officially elected Bandera as leader of the OUN-B—and thus of the future Ukrainian state they planned to establish—perceived him as a charismatic personality. However, this should not suggest that Bandera was a charismatic person in himself. It was rather the expectation of the “charismatic movement” or a “charismatic community” that perceived Bandera as a charismatic leader or that charismatized him. One should not however overlook Bandera’s oratorical abilities. OUN member Mykhailo Bilan, who met Bandera a few times in England in the 1950s, confessed in an interview that Bandera “could hypnotize a man. Everything that he said was interesting. You could not stop listening to him.”[761]

The OUN-B’s fascistization and positive attitude to Nazi Germany in 1940 and the first half of 1941 was very much affected by the proclamation of a Slovak state in March 1939, and a Croatian state in April 1941. Both states were led by organizations similar to the OUN: Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (Hlinkova slovenská ľudová strana, HSLS or Hlinka’s Party) and the Croatian Revolutionary Organization (Hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija, HRO), known as the Ustaša. Kost’ Pan’kivs’kyi, a contemporary observer of the OUN, commented in retrospect: “Of all the ‘independent’ nations, the fate of the Slovaks and Croatians was closest to ours. And we thought at that time that they were in a much better position, because both Hitler and Mussolini not only ‘recognized,’ but—to tell the truth—granted them ‘independence.’ Neither the first nor the second could achieve it by their own strengths.”[762]

After the Ustaša proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) on 10 April 1941, the leadership of the OUN-B in Cracow was very excited. It immediately sent a telegram of congratulations to Pavelić, the Croatian Poglavnik. The OUN-B politicians understood it as evidence that it might be possible to proclaim and establish a Ukrainian state. They believed or hoped that the “New Europe”—under the aegis of Nazi Germany—would need an independent Ukraine, just as it needed an independent Croatia and Slovakia.[763]