Today, 5 July 2026, marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Yaroslav Semenovich Stetsko, an invincible example of Ukrainian nationalism for the whole world. Stetsko was born on 19 January 1912 in Ternopil. Yaroslav studied at the Ternopil Ukrainian Gymnasium, and later studied law and philosophy at the universities of Lviv and Krakow. In 1930, he joined the OUN and became the district leader of Ternopil. At the time, he was a participant in secret meetings of the nationalist youth, where ideological, philosophical, and practical issues related to Ukrainian nationalism were discussed.
In the 1930s, he was imprisoned in Polish prisons for his revolutionary activities. During the split of the OUN in February 1940, he supported the Banderaites and joined their ranks. Since then, he was a member of the OUN(r). On 30 June 1941, in Lviv, he organised the Ukrainian National Assembly and read the Act of Restoration of Ukraine’s Independence. When the Nazis demanded that the Act be revoked, he refused, for which he was punished by imprisonment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and in the Zillenbau political bunker. He stayed there until September 1944, after which he escaped and hid in Munich. At this time, he established contacts with various emigration circles for further anti-Soviet struggle, which later played a role in the formation of the ABN (created at the OUN(b) conference on 22 November 1943), whose idea he supported and became its president on 16 April 1946. In April 1949, a demonstration was organised in Munich by order of Stetsko, which later attracted the attention of the CIA and diplomats interested in the anti-Soviet struggle.
In the first half of the 1950s, Stetsko also tried to establish contacts with the Spain of Franciszek Franko, which was successful. In Spain, Stetsko obtained support from the Catholic foundation “Obra Catolica” for the training of Ukrainian saboteurs. In Spain, there were frequent discussions about organising an anti-communist struggle with the Russian emigration, which Yaroslav Stetsko rejected very negatively, since he wanted the collapse of not only the USSR, but also Russia. In 1955, Stetsko had an audience with Franciszek Franko, achieved further support for the ABN and gave a speech on the Spanish National Radio, which, with the help of a previously created radio station, broadcast Stetsko’s speech in the Ukrainian SSR. The same year was marked by Stetsko’s first visit to Chiang Kai-shek’s China. In 1957, an ABN mission was established in Taiwan. After some time, a special radio station, “Voice of Justice,” was created, which broadcast calls for the anti-communist struggle among the peoples of Siberia and the Far East of the USSR. Stetsko also participated in establishing relations with anti-communist movements in Latin America and the United States, thereby achieving unprecedented support among the political elites of all of America.
All these contacts allowed Stetsko to create the World Anti-Communist League the following year, the first conference of which was held in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, from September 25 to October 1, 1967. It was attended by, as Grigoriy Riy writes: “…representatives of 170 anti-communist organisations from over 60 countries of the world.”
At the same time, the European Freedom Council was created at the initiative of the ABN to combat the communist threat. Thanks to this, numerous political demonstrations were held throughout Europe, aimed at winning over the governments of European states.
In 1969, the ABN negatively perceived the position of US President Nixon regarding the “solution” with the Soviet Union. Stetsko himself spoke about this policy: “It is better to die in a fire than to live under the Russian yoke!”
A new renaissance of the ABN came with the coming to power of Ronald Reagan in the USA. On 17 July 1983, Enslaved Nations Week began, which Reagan ardently supported in his speech on 19 July.
All this time, Yaroslav Stetsko was in constant activity and under stress. With his already weakened health and the development of cancer, Stetsko was hospitalised in the spring of 1986. Unfortunately, on 5 July 1986, Yaroslav Semenovich Stetsko died in Munich at the age of 74. He did not live 5 years before the collapse of the USSR…
Glory to the outstanding Ukrainian nationalist!
Glory to ABN!
Matviy Bondar
