Melnyk, Andrii

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Melnyk, Andrii

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Melnyk, Andrii [Мельник, Андрій; Mel’nyk,

Andrij], b 12 December 1890 in Volia
Yakubova, Drohobych county, Galicia, d 1
November 1964 in Köln, Germany. Military
figure and political activist. His studies at the
Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna
(1912–14) were interrupted by the outbreak of
the First World War, when he volunteered for

the Legion of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. A

company commander, he fought in the battles
of Makivka and Lysonia before being taken
prisoner in September 1916 by Russian forces
and interned in Tsaritsyn and other locations.

In captivity Melnyk became a close confidant

of Yevhen Konovalets. After escaping
imprisonment toward the end of 1917, he was
one of the organizers of the Galician-
Bukovynian Battalion of Sich Riflemen (the original formation of the Sich
Riflemen) in Kyiv and held senior positions in it (from battalion commander to second-in-
command). From January 1919 he was chief of staff of the Army of the Ukrainian National
Republic. After a short period as a Polish prisoner of war, he became a military attaché for
the Ukrainian National Republic and lived in Prague and Vienna (1920–1), where he
finished his forestry studies. From 1922 he lived in Galicia.

Melnyk assumed the home command of the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) in
Galicia in 1922, after Yevhen Konovalets had left the country and set up its command center
abroad. In the spring of 1924 Melnyk was arrested and sentenced to five years' imprisonment
for his UVO activities. He was freed toward the end of 1928, partly as a result of the efforts of
the president of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic, Andrii Livytsky. He
served as head of the Orly Catholic Association of Ukrainian Youth in 1933–8, was involved
with the Moloda Hromada society, and maintained his underground nationalist connections

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Melnyk, Andrii

and activity. After the assassination of Konovalets in 1938, Melnyk went abroad to head the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). His position was formally ratified in August
1939 at the OUN's Second Grand Assembly in Rome, but he could not retain the allegiance of
the entire OUN membership. In 1940 a faction led by Stepan Bandera broke from the OUN to
pursue a more radical course of action. The respective groups became known as Melnykites
and Banderites.

From 1941 Melnyk was kept under house arrest by the Germans until he was finally
imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, in 1944. During this period Melnyk
assigned the co-ordination of OUN activities on Ukrainian soil to his deputy, Oleh Olzhych.
Together with other leading Ukrainian activists (Mykola Velychkivsky, Metropolitan Andrei
Sheptytsky, Andrii Livytsky, Gen Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko), Melnyk submitted a
memorandum to Adolf Hitler in January 1942 demanding an end to German destructiveness
in Ukraine. After the war he worked toward a consolidation of Ukrainian political and
community life in the West. He was instrumental in the founding of the Ukrainian Co-
ordinating Committee in 1946 and the Ukrainian National Council in 1947. He proposed the
idea of a world congress of Ukrainians in 1957; it was realized in 1967 with the founding of
the World Congress of Free Ukrainians. Melnyk was also the author of historical articles on
the Ukrainian independence struggle. From 1945 he lived in Luxembourg, where he is buried.
A memorial book in his honor, edited by Marko Antonovych, was published in 1966. A
monograph on his life, edited by Zynovii Knysh, appeared in 1974, and a collection of
memoirs about him appeared in 1991 in Lviv.

Volodymyr Yaniv

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]

List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Melnyk, Andrii entry:

1 Army of the Ukrainian National Republic

2 Bandera, Stepan
3 History of Ukraine

4 Konovalets, Yevhen
5 Melnykites
6 Nationalism
7 Olzhych, Oleh

8 Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

9 Proclamation of Ukrainian statehood, 1941

10 Stsiborsky, Mykola
11 Sushko, Roman
12 Ukrainian Military Organization

13 Ukrainian National Committee

A referral to this page is found in 13 entries.

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Melnyk, Andrii

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