Andriy Melnyk (Ukrainian military leader)

Andriy Atanasovich Melnyk (Ukrainian: Андрій Атанасович

Andrii Melnyk or Andrij
Ме́льник) (12 December 1890 – 1 November 1964) was a
Ukrainian military and political leader. Melnyk

Андрій Ме́льник

Contents
Life
See also
Notes
References

Life
Melnyk was born near Drohobych, Halychyna, into a peasant
family. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of
Agriculture in Vienna. With the outbreak of the First World War,
Melnyk served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army as a
volunteer commanding a company of the Ukrainian Sich Young Melnyk in officer's uniform
Riflemen. Due to his kind demeanor, he was referred to
Born 12 December 1890
affectionately as "Lord Melnyk" by fellow Ukrainian and Austrian
Drohobych povit,
officers, who felt that he embodied the English concept of a
gentleman, which at that time had been an ideal in Central Galicia, Austria-
Europe.[1] Melnyk was taken prisoner by the Russians in 1916. In Hungary
captivity, Melnyk became a close associate of Yevhen Konovalets Died 1 November 1964
and joined the Ukrainian independence movement. (aged 73)
Clervaux,
During the Ukrainian–Soviet War, Melnyk supported Symon
Luxembourg
Petliura and was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Ukrainian
People's Republic army. Together with Yevhen Konovalets Allegiance  Austria-
Melnyk and several others founded the Organization of Ukrainian Hungary
Nationalists (OUN) in 1929. Between 1924 and 1928 Melnyk was  Ukraine
imprisoned for terrorist activities by the Polish government. During
Service/ Austro-Hungarian
the 1930s, however, his career was much quieter than that of his
branch Army
colleagues. He basically retired from politics,[2] refrained from
Ukrainian People's
terrorist activities and worked as an engineer and as the director of
forests on the huge estates of the Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Army
Greek Catholic Church, Andrey Sheptytsky. More friendly to the Years of 1914–1915
Church than any of his associates (the Organization of Ukrainian service 1917–1919
Nationalists was generally anti-clerical), Melnyk even became the
Rank General,
chairman of Orlo, the Galician Catholic youth organization that
Commandant,
was regarded as anti-Nationalist by many OUN members.[1]
Chief of Staff
After the assassination of OUN leader Konovalets in 1938, the Unit Sich Riflemen
principal OUN leadership abroad could not choose a leader from Commands Sich Riflemen
amongst themselves and therefore asked Melnyk to become leader
held
of OUN in 1939.[2] He was chosen by the leadership in part
because of the hope for more moderate and pragmatic leadership Battles/wars World War I
and by the desire to repair strained ties with the Catholic Ukrainian Civil War
Church.[1] The group that had chosen Melnyk as their leader Ukrainian–Soviet
admired aspects of Benito Mussolini's fascism but condemned War
Nazism.[3] In 1940 a more radical faction of the OUN led by Other work Politician, co-
Stepan Bandera and based in Ukraine broke away from the OUN creator of the UVO
led by Melnyk in exile. The two rival organizations became
and OUN
known as Melnykites (Melnykivtsi) and Banderites (Banderivtsi).

After 1938 Melnyk and Bandera were recruited into the Nazi
Germany military intelligence Abwehr for espionage, counter-
espionage and sabotage.[4] Their goal was to run diversion
activities after Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. Melnik
was given code name 'Consul I'. This information is part of the
testimony that Abwehr Colonel Erwin Stolze gave on 25
December 1945 and submitted to the Nuremberg trials, with a
request to be admitted as evidence.[5][6]

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union he declared his Members of the last supreme command of
own independent Ukrainian government in Rivne, competing the Sich Riflemen. Melnyk is sitting,
with Bandera supporters for influence in western Ukraine. second from the left.
Initially, Melnyk's more conservative and moderate supporters
enjoyed support against Bandera's radicals from both the
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and German military authorities. However, his position was
contradictory. A conservative Catholic who maintained the officer's personal code of honor, Melnyk was at
odds with aspects of the ideology of his own organization. His reluctance to assert dominance and engage
in a ruthless pursuit of power disadvantaged him versus his younger and more violent rivals in the Bandera
camp.[1] Many of Melnyk's close associates were killed by Bandera's Ukrainian Insurgent Army between
1941 and 1944 and Bandera's movement came to completely dominate the Ukrainian nationalist political
milieu in most of western Ukraine. In 1944 Melnyk was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo during a
crackdown against the Ukrainian independence movement.

After the war, Melnyk escaped to the West and lived in Luxembourg, West Germany, and Canada. He
remained politically active and headed a number of Ukrainian émigré organizations. He died in Clervaux,
Luxembourg, at the age of 73, and was buried at Bonnevoie cemetery, Luxembourg. In late 2006, the Lviv
city administration announced the future transfer of the tombs of Andriy Melnyk, Yevhen Konovalets,
Stepan Bandera and other key leaders of the OUN and UPA to a new area of Lychakivskiy Cemetery
specifically dedicated to the Ukrainian national liberation struggle.[7] However this was not implemented.

See also
History of Ukraine
Stepan Bandera

Notes
 1. John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp.
36-39
2. The History We Don’T Know. Or Don’T Care To Know?. Kost Bondarenko | Topic Of The
Week | Politics (http://www.mirror-weekly.com/ie/show/387/34310/)
3. "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists" (http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/O/R/
OrganizationofUkrainianNationalists.htm). Retrieved 16 January 2016.
4. Мельник Андрей (http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/bio_m/melnik.html)
5. "Nuremberg - The Trial of German Major War Criminals (Volume VI)" (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20100324213957/http://nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-06/tgmwc-06-56-12.html).
Archived from the original (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-06/tgmwc-06-56-12.
html) on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
6. Mueller, Michael (2007). Canaris (https://books.google.com/books?id=9WGAexVXyHwC&q
=Erwin+Stolze+bandera&pg=PA322). ISBN 9781591141013. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
7. "Lviv to bury the remains of NKVD victims at the Lychakivsky Cemetery on 7 November" (htt
p://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1161553853). Retrieved 16 January 2016.

References
Andrii Melnyk biography in Encyclopaedia of Ukraine (http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.co
m/pages/M/E/MelnykAndrii.htm)
"The History we don't know. Or don't care to know?" [Історія, якої не знаємо. Чи не хочемо
знати?], available online (https://dt.ua/SOCIUM/istoriya,_yakoyi_ne_znaemo_chi_ne_hoche
mo_znati.html)

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