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THE

HADOW

ITLER

under Polish rule, illegal nationalistic organizations of school youth

were created. These organizations, as well as the mass national move-

ment among Ukrainians in Galicia, were founded to counter the policy

of the Polish government, which promoted the Polish language as the

main vehicle of education for Ukrainians and attempted to polonize

the Ukrainian regions that had fallen under its jurisdiction.

In the 1920s, the first illegal political organizations such as ‘The

Group of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth’, ‘The Organization of Upper

Classes of Ukrainian Gymnasia’, and ‘The Union of Nationalistic

Ukrainian Youth’ (Soyuz Ukrains’koi Natsionalistychnoi Molodi)

were established. Many of the members of these organizations were

students at Ukrainian Galician gymnasiums. In the mid-1920s,

Stepan Ohrymovych, who was a friend of Bandera and one of the

most active participants of the political youth movements in Galicia,

drew him into political activity. In 1927, Stepan Bandera graduated

from the gymnasium and applied to the Ukrainian Academy of Rural

Economy in Pod

brady (Czechoslovakia). Although he was accepted

by the Academy, Bandera did not receive the documents necessary to

cross the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia and was unable

to take up his studies. Consequently, he returned to his native village

where, in addition to household and agricultural activities, he became

involved in cultural and organizational work in the local Ukrainian

community. In 1928 he traveled to L’viv and began to study in the

Department of Agronomy at the University of L’viv Polytechnic.

Immediately following his arrival in L’viv, Bandera was involved in

intellectual and political activity. In particular, he was a member of

the Ukrainian nationalist student organizations Osnova and Prosvita

as well as some sporting organizations created by Ukrainian students

engaged in the political life of L’viv. Nevertheless, the most important

influence upon the young Bandera that was to be highly significant

in the formation of his political views, resulted from his membership

of the OUN, which was already well known amongst Ukrainians as

the political organization with the most radical nationalistic ideas and

programme.

The development of the OUN was a result of several overlap-

ping factors. Most important was the perceived failure of Ukrainian