Ponypalyak A. Life, political and military activities of Vasyl Kuk (1913 – 1954)

The dissertation is a study of the life and military and political activity of Vasyl Stepanovych Kuk (1913 ‒ 2007), who was one of the key figures of the Ukrainian liberation movement in the middle of the twentieth century, and who served as its chief leader from 1950 to 1954. V. Kuk occupied the highest-ranking positions in the institutions of the Ukrainian liberation movement: he was the Chairman of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Revolutionaries (OUN(b)) in Ukraine, the General Secretary of the Main Ukrainian Liberation Council (MULC/UHVR – in Ukr.), and the Chief Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA/UPA – in Ukr.). The relevance of this research stems from the acute need for an examination of the figures who guided, determined and directed the struggle of the Ukrainian nation for its independent statehood. In this dissertation, V. Kuk’s life and activities are studied in the context of his time and circumstances. Particular attention is given to the influence of political systems, and the national, social, and cultural environment in which V. Kuk grew up, was formed, studied, lived, and worked. His person is considered in the historical context of Ukraine and of Central-Eastern Europe as a whole at the beginning and during the First World War, during the First Ukrainian Liberation Movement (1917-1921), in the interwar period of the Second Polish Republic, during the Second World War, and at the time of the establishment and operation of the Soviet regime in Ukraine in the first post-war decade.