The life of Slava Stetsko, who died last week aged 83, encapsulated the evolution of Ukrainian nationalism from underground struggle in pre-war Poland, through collaboration with the Third Reich against the Soviet Union and post-war anti-communism, to democratic politics in an independent state
The funeral of Rada Deputy Yaroslava Stetsko in Kyiv on March 16 drew 10,000 mourners and a broad spectrum of the country’s most prominent politicians, including former President Leonid Kravchuk, Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn and opposition leaders Yulia Tymoshenko and Oleksandr Moroz.
Addressing the mourners, former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, whose Our Ukraine bloc includes Stetsko’s Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists party, described Stetsko’s decades spent in exile and her triumphant return to an independent Ukraine, and identified the credo that ran through her entire life: “Ukraine above all.”
“Thanks to Slava Stetsko, millions of Ukrainians love Ukraine,” Yushchenko said. “She is an example of how to work toward great goals.”
But even now Stetsko, who died in Munich on March 12 at the age of 83, remains a controversial figure, partly because of her “Ukraine above all” brand of patriotism, often identified with chauvinistic nationalism.
Moreover, the appeal of this form of patriotism has been largely confined to Western Ukraine, meaning Stetsko was either relatively unknown or actively disliked in the center and east of the country.
Rebellious youth
Stetsko, whose maiden name was Hanna Muzyka, was born into a Ukrainian family in the town of Romanivka in what is now Ternopil Oblast in 1920. She later recalled how as a teenager she quickly came to recognize the discrimination directed against Ukrainians by the Poles, who controlled the region between the two world wars.
The Poles’ imprisonment of her older brother, a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, inspired her to join the underground organization as a 19-year-old in 1938.
“In high school, together with other Ukrainian students, I organized and established cells comprised of three or five members each,” Stetsko said in an interview in the English-language weekly The Day in 1998. “We studied Ukrainian history, read Ukrainian authors and told stories about Ukraine to some of the younger students.”
With the outbreak of World War II and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Eastern Europe between the Nazis and Soviets, the Red Army moved into Western Ukraine in 1939. Muzyka, then a student at Lviv Polytechnic Institute, joined an underground OUN cell carrying out anti-Soviet activities.
At this time, she came into contact with a fellow OUN activist named Yaroslav Stetsko. On June 30, 1941, as the advancing German army drove the Soviets out of Western Ukraine, the OUN established an independent Ukrainian government in Lviv in which Yaroslav Stetsko became prime minister. After only a week, however, the Germans disbanded the government and imprisoned Stetsko.
As the tide of the war turned and the Red Army began pushing the Germans out of Eastern Europe, the OUN sent Muzyka first to Vienna and then to Munich. She was joined there in 1945 by Stetsko, who was entrusted with the task of negotiating with the Germans to raise a Ukrainian army. But with the Soviets set to capture Berlin, it was too late.
“The Third Reich was finished, and one had to look for other methods,” Slava Stetsko told The Day.
Muzyka and Stetsko remained in Munich, where they married in 1945. Stetsko adopted not only her husband’s surname but his first name as well, shortening it from Yaroslava to Slava, “to avoid misunderstanding.”
The couple helped organize and lead the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations as a means of continuing the fight for Ukrainian independence.
While Yaroslav Stetsko died in 1986 without seeing Ukraine regain its independence, Slava Stetsko returned to Lviv in 1991 for the 50th anniversary of the declaration of independence.
Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, Stetsko moved to Ukraine, claimed citizenship and, eventually secured a seat in the Rada from an Ivano-Frankivsk oblast constituency.
Her election victory would appear to have been the fulfillment of Stetsko’s life aspirations. But, as she said, she wasn’t done yet.
“I disagree with those who referred to this event as an ‘honorable culmination,’” she said. “I want to work further for the good of my Ukraine.”
Part of Stetsko’s work lay in gaining acceptance for her ideas in a Ukraine dealing with the legacy of Soviet rule. A sizeable share of the population in the country spoke Russian or considered themselves to be Russian, while Ukrainian nationalism – particularly the imported variety – was widely viewed with suspicion.
Chaos erupted on the floor of the Rada in May 1998, when Stetsko, as its eldest member, took to the podium to swear in her fellow depuites and officially open the 14th session. The Communist faction refused to take the oath and staged a walkout in protest against Stetsko’s presence.
Evolving nationalism
Oleksy Haran, director of the School of Policy Analysis at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, said that at least in some ways, Stetsko was successful in giving a voice to Ukrainian nationalism.
“Even six or seven years ago it would have been impossible to think that her death would have been so widely mourned by so many different political forces here,” Haran said. “But now things have changed.”
Outlining the evolution that led from the pre-war OUN to the present day KUN, Haran pointed in particular to the OUN’s third congress – held secretly in 1943 – when it changed direction by rejecting so-called “integral nationalism” in favor of a less-extreme “democratic nationalism.”
Haran said the organization continued to evolve in the postwar period and that Stetsko continued that evolution after her return to Ukraine.
“When she came here and created KUN, it still had some connections to the past, but it was also a new organization that began to participate in a parliamentary manner and that was not using underground but legal means to achieve its goals,” Haran said. “While KUN can now be described a conservative or right-wing force, it is not on the extreme right.”
That evolution helped Stetsko and KUN to be accepted within the ranks of the more mainstream national-democratic Our Ukraine bloc in 2002.
Our Ukraine’s decision to accept KUN into the bloc was criticized on the basis of continuing nationalist stereotypes, particularly in the Russian-language press, Haran said. But he said that with Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc already popular in Western Ukraine and competing for popularity with Our Ukraine, Yushchenko opened up to Stetsko.
“I don’t think KUN has had a very substantial influence on Our Ukraine,” he said. “But the inclusion of Stetsko in the bloc was an important symbol and a connection with the national liberation movement, which is important for Western Ukraine.”
Haran also said one reason nationalist parties have not fared better since independence is that some of their policies, including the promotion of the Ukrainian language and advocacy of democracy, have been incorporated into mainstream political platforms.
Volodymyr Kulik, a fellow at the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies in Kyiv and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, said the broad participation in Stetsko’s funeral reflected a changing public attitude toward the country’s past.
“First of all this sad event was a good opportunity for many Ukrainian politicians, journalists and public figures to reconcile themselves with the tradition of Ukrainian nationalism, something they had previously been unwilling to do because of its inherited negative anti-Soviet connotations,” Kulik said.
Kulik agreed with Haran that nationalism and public attitudes towards it have undergone an evolution in recent years. This was apparent in the scale in Stetsko’s funeral as well as the manner in which it was covered in the media.
“This presentation of Stetsko as an integral part of Ukrainian history shows how the nationalists have become more accepted,” Kulik said. “Even the Russian-language and Russia-oriented media, which Stetsko criticized, are presenting her as a fighter for independence and a valuable figure in Ukrainian politics.”
Kulik said that nationalist parties such as KUN, rarely covered in mainstream media before Stetsko death, and even more rarely in a positive light, will likely drop from sight again soon.
Meanwhile, life will go on for the KUN, according to management-board member Serhy Zhyshko. Decisions about the party’s future direction and the election of a new leader will be made at a meeting March 22 and at a congress next month.
