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A Banderite or BanderoviteAlso referred to as ''Banderivets'', ''Banderovets'', ''Banderovtsy'', ''Benderovets'', ''Banderite'', ''Bandera'', or ''Banderlog''. ( uk, бандерівець, bandеrivets; pl, Banderowiec; russian: бандеровец, bandеrovets) was a member of
OUN-B The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization esta ...
, a faction of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization estab ...
, nicknamed "Bandera's people". The term, used from late 1940 onward, derives from the name of
Stepan Bandera Stepan Andriyovych Bandera ( uk, Степа́н Андрі́йович Банде́ра, Stepán Andríyovych Bandéra, ; pl, Stepan Andrijowycz Bandera; 1 January 1909 – 15 October 1959) was a Ukrainian far-right leader of the radical, terr ...
(1909–1959), head of this faction of the OUN. Because of the brutality utilized by OUN-B members, the colloquial term Banderites quickly earned a negative connotation, particularly among Poles and Jews. By 1942, the expression was well-known and frequently used in
western Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine ( uk, Західна Україна, Zakhidna Ukraina or , ) is the territory of Ukraine linked to the former Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austria ...
to describe the Ukrainian Insurgent Army partisans, OUN-B members or any other Ukrainian perpetrators. The OUN-B, had been engaged in various atrocities, including murder of civilians, most of whom were ethnic
Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
,
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
and
Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
people. Bandera was not personally engaged in the atrocities but some historians have noted that the term "Banderites" was used by Bandera’s followers themselves during
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
and the
massacres of Poles A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
that resulted in the deaths of 80,000–100,000 Poles and 10,000–15,000 Ukrainians. The survivors of these atrocities also frequently defined the perpetrators as Banderites. The term was also a key propaganda term for the post-war Soviet state and more recently for Russia, often used as pejorative term for Ukrainians.


History

The
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization estab ...
(OUN) was a
Ukrainian nationalist Ukrainian nationalism refers to the promotion of the unity of Ukrainians as a people and it also refers to the promotion of the identity of Ukraine as a nation state. The nation building that arose as nationalism grew following the French Revol ...
organisation founded in 1929 in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
. Bandera joined it that year, and quickly climbed through the ranks, becoming the second in command of OUN in Galicia in 1932–1933, and the head of the OUN national executive in Galicia in June 1933. The OUN carried out the June 1934
assassination of Bronisław Pieracki The assassination of Bronisław Pieracki was a target killing of Poland's top politician of the interwar period, Minister of Interior Bronisław Pieracki (1895-1934), by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). OUN was formed in Poland ...
, Poland's Minister of the Interior. The then 25-year-old Bandera provided the assassin with the murder weapon, a 7.65 mm calibre pistol. His subsequent arrest and conviction turned Bandera into an instant legend among the militant Ukrainian nationalists of the
Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...
. Bandera, who escaped from prison after the
German invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...
in September 1939, offered his services to
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in exchange for ongoing financial and logistical support. Since 1939, the OUN had been led by
Andriy Atanasovych Melnyk Andriy Atanasovich Melnyk ( uk, Андрій Атанасович Ме́льник; 12 December 1890 – 1 November 1964) was a Ukraine, Ukrainian military and political leader. Life Melnyk was born near Drohobych, Galicia (Central Europe), Halyc ...
, a founder member. He had been chosen for his more moderate and pragmatic stance; his supporters admired Mussolini's fascism but condemned Nazism. However, a younger and more radical Nazism-supporting faction of the OUN were dissatisfied. On 10 February 1941, a conference for OUN leadership was held in
Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
, Poland. The radical contingent refused to accept Melnyk as head of the OUN and instead named Bandera. This led to the split of the OUN in the spring of 1941 into two groups: OUN-B (Banderites), who were more militant, younger and supported Bandera, and OUN-M (Melnykites), who were generally older and more ideological. In February 1941, Bandera became the leader (''Providnyk'') of the OUN-B faction or the Banderivtsi. After the start of the
Axis An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to: Mathematics * Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis *Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinate ...
invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
), the OUN-B in the person of
Yaroslav Stetsko Yaroslav Semenovich Stetsko (; 19 January 1912 – 5 July 1986) was a Ukrainian politician, writer and Nazi collaborator, who served as the leader of Stepan Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), from 1968 until his death. Dur ...
declared an independent Ukrainian state on 30 June 1941 in occupied
Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
, while the region was under the control of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, pledging to work closely with Germany, which was presented as freeing Ukrainians from Russian oppression. In response, the Nazi authorities suppressed the OUN leadership. In July 1941, Bandera himself was arrested and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. He was imprisoned there until 1944. In October 1942 the OUN-B established the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army ( uk, Українська повстанська армія, УПА, translit=Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During World ...
(UPA). The OUN-B formed Ukrainian death squads that carried out
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s and massacres, both independently and with support from the Germans. To ensure the maximum impact of the systematic ethnic cleansing campaign in the contested territory, the OUN-B faction spread antisemitic, racist, and fascist propaganda among the ordinary peasants and other Ukrainians. Aided by Stetsko, Shukhevych, and Lenkavskyi (OUN-B propaganda chief), Bandera wrote a manifesto entitled "Ukrainian National Revolution" that called for the annihilation of so-called ethnic enemies. The manifesto informed the locals how to behave and included specific instructions about the killing of Jews, Poles, and Ukrainian opponents of fascism. "OUN leaflets appeared on the city streets. They read: "Exterminate the Poles, Jews and communists without mercy. Do not pity the enemies of the Ukrainian National Revolution!" Bandera did not participate in
pogroms A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
; he remained in the area of occupied ''Kholmshchyna'' (Polish
Chełm Land Chełm Land or Kholmshchyna ( pl, ziemia chełmska or ''Chełmszczyzna'', uk, Холмщина ''Kholmshchyna'') is a historic region (''ziemia'') of eastern Poland and the adjacent areas of present-day Ukraine and Belarus. In the Polish–Lith ...
) further north-west. The vast majority of pogroms carried out by the Banderites occurred in
Eastern Galicia Eastern Galicia ( uk, Східна Галичина, Skhidna Galychyna, pl, Galicja Wschodnia, german: Ostgalizien) is a geographical region in Western Ukraine (present day oblasts of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil), having also essential h ...
and
Volhynia Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. Th ...
, but also in
Bukovina Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter BergerT ...
. The most deadly of them was perpetrated in the city of Lviv by the people's militia formed by OUN with direct participation of civilians, at the moment of the German arrival in the Soviet-occupied eastern Poland. There were two
Lviv pogroms The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive pogroms and massacres of Jews in June and July 1941 in the city of Lwów in German-occupied Eastern Poland/Western Ukraine (now Lviv, Ukraine). The massacres were perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists (sp ...
, carried out in a one-month span, both lasting for several days; the first one from 30 June to 2 July 1941, and the second one from 25 to 29 July 1941. The first pogrom took the lives of at least 4,000 Jews. It was followed by the killing of 2,500 to 3,000 Jews by the ''
Einsatzgruppe C (, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...
'', and the "Petlura Days" massacre of more than 2,000 Polish Jews by the Ukrainian militants.


Usage in propaganda

In
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
secret records, the word “Banderites” for the first time emerged in late 1940 and began to be used in
Soviet propaganda Propaganda in the Soviet Union was the practice of state-directed communication to promote class conflict, internationalism, the goals of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the party itself. The main Soviet censorship body, Glavlit, ...
starting in late 1942. The term became a crucial element of the Soviet propaganda discourse and was used as a pejorative description of the Ukrainians, sometimes all western Ukrainians in the most negative way. Historian
Andrii Portnov Andrii Portnov (in , in , in pl, Andrij Portnow; born 17 May 1979 in Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro), Ukrainian SSR) is a Ukrainian historian, essayist, and editor. He is the Chair Professor of Entangled History of Ukraine at the European University ...
noted that "The common noun “Banderivtsi” (“Banderites”) emerged around the time of ethnic cleansing of the Polish population in Volhynia, and it was used to designate all Ukrainian nationalists, but also, on occasion, western Ukrainians or even any person who spoke Ukrainian." The term has been used by Russian state media against
Euromaidan Euromaidan (; uk, Євромайдан, translit=Yevromaidan, lit=Euro Square, ), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of Political demonstration, demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protes ...
activists to associate a separate Ukrainian national identity with the most radical nationalists. Today, in
Russian propaganda The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government of Russia. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies, and may involve using "Soviet-style 'active measures' as an element of m ...
, the word is used to refer to all in Ukraine who back the idea of sovereignty from Russia; Ukrainian nationalist collaboration with
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
is also emphasized.


See also

*
Hiwi (volunteer) Hiwi (), the German abbreviation of the word ''Hilfswilliger'' or, in English, auxiliary volunteer, designated, during World War II, a member of different kinds of voluntary auxiliary forces made up of recruits indigenous to the territories of E ...
*
Trawniki men Trawniki is a village in Świdnik County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the present-day gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Trawniki. It lies approximately south-east of Świdnik and south-east of the region ...


Footnotes


References


Further reading

*Valeriy Smoliy (1997), "Small dictionary of Ukrainian history" — Lybid. *G Demyian — "Banderivtsi" — Ternopil dictionary encyclopedia – G Iavorskiy — "Zbruch", 2004-2010, 696p. . {{Authority control Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists