Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists Abroad (OUN za kordonom, or OUNz) [Організація Українських Націоналістів за кордоном] – a political organisation whose goal was the establishment of an independent Ukrainian state; founded after the Second World War as a result of a conflict within the OUN (Banderivtsi), or OUN(B), outside Ukraine.
After the formation, in 1946, of the OUN(B) Foreign Units, political differences arose between two groups of the organisation’s leading members. In February 1954 the group led by Lev Rebet and Zynovii Matla formed a Political Council of the OUN(B) Foreign Units, separate from the Foreign Units leadership headed by Stepan Bandera. In 1956 the Rebet and Matla group adopted a new name, the OUN Abroad (OUN za kordonom, or OUNz). Members of this organisation also became popularly known as dviikari (from dviika, meaning ‘twosome’).
The UK branch of the OUNz was formed in 1956 in Manchester. Among its founder members was Anatol Kaminsky, a member of the OUNz Political Council. The branch initially had 126 members, mainly former members of the OUN(B), and in 2004 the number was 38. Local sub-branches were formed in Bolton, Derby, Leicester, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Oldham, Reading, Rochdale, Stockport and Wolverhampton. In the period before 1991 some descendants of post-war Ukrainian immigrants to the UK joined the organisation. After the establishment of independent Ukraine the OUNz did not extend its activities to the territory of Ukraine, but continued its existence in the Ukrainian diaspora. The UK branch existed until at least the early 2010s.
The OUNz in the UK was led by the following heads of the branch’s Political Council: Wolodymyr Waszkowycz, Andrew Cherwinsky and Svyatoslav Wasylko.
Bibliography
Krychevskyi, R., OUN v Ukraini, OUNz i ZCh OUN: prychynok do istorii ukrainskoho natsionalistychnoho rukhu (New York – Toronto, 1962)
Yurkevich, M. ‘Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists’, in Encyclopedia of Ukraine, volume III (L-Pf), ed. by D. Husar Struk (Toronto, 1993), pp. 708-710
Panchenko, O., Orhanizatsiia Ukrainskykh Natsionalistiv za kordonom v konteksti ukrainskoho derzhavotvorennia (Hadiach, 2003)
Patryliak, I.K., ‘Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv’, in Entsyklopediia istorii Ukrainy, vol. 7, Ml-O (Kyiv, 2010), pp. 610-618