OLEKSANDR YASHCHENKO: THE TRAGIC FATE LIEUTENANT COLONEL OF THE ARMY OF THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

The article is devoted to the military and public activities of lieutenant colonel O. Yashchenko, a native of Warsaw, whose hometown from childhood was Zhytomyr. The article, based on declassified archival documents of special services stored in the Branch State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, reconstructs the main pages of the military biography and civilian life of this until recently unknown figure, both in national history and in local history literature. It has been traced that military service in the tsarist army for O. Yashchenko began after graduating from the Cadet Corps in Oryol and the Kyiv Military Infantry School. With the beginning of the Great War, he was at the front, fought in Galicia, in the Carpathians, and had awards. With the beginning of the Ukrainian revolution, he supported the processes of Ukrainization of the army, during the Hetmanate he was appointed commandant of the Katerynoslav district, later as a lieutenant colonel of the headquarters of the Chief Quartermaster Department of the Ministry of War of the Ukrainian People's Republic, he worked in Lutsk and Warsaw. It was found out that after the internment, O. Yashchenko connected his life with the Volyn Voivodeship: he worked as an artist of the traveling theater in Kovel, was a teacher, a member of the Ukrainian Central Committee Ostroh branch. In 1932, he withdrew from public work, bought land and started farming, established an apiary on a hamlet near the town of Tuchyn, Rivne District. The initial period of the Second World War and the arrival of Bolshevik power in the region did not affect the former lieutenant colonel of the UNR Army: living alone on a farm, he did not come under the crosshairs of the NKVD authorities. The increasing brutality of the Nazi occupation regime forced the lieutenant colonel to seek protection among the Ukrainian rebels. Sharing the plans of the UPA (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army), he moved to the territory of the left bank of the Horyn, which was controlled by the UPA-North group. The work of Oleksandr Yashchenko («Khust») as a translator for the political department of the UPA-North headquarters, headed by Yakiv Busel («Galyna»), is highlighted. Nazi terror against the insurgents forced O. Yashchenko to return to the farm, where he was arrested by the NKVD in 1944. The lieutenant colonel’s own testimony is analysed, his behaviour during his arrest is traced, and his sentencing to death by the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Kyiv region is examined Keywords: Oleksandr Yashchenko, Hetmanate, UNR Army, Volyn Voivodeship, UPA, NKVD.