Ukrainian National party

Ukrainian National party (Ukrainska natsionalna partiia, or UNP; Українська національна партія). The only legal Ukrainian political party in Romania after the Ukrainian section of the Social Democratic Party of Bukovyna was disbanded. Continuing the traditions of the Ukrainian National Democratic party from the time of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bukovyna, the UNP was centered in Chernivtsi, where it was active in 1928–38. It protested against the forced Romanianization of the Ukrainian population, demanded that Ukrainian be taught in schools and used in churches, and promoted wide-ranging cultural and national development as well as agrarian reform. Its efforts to expand into Bessarabia and the Maramureş region were stymied by administrative edicts and by a lack of organization. The UNP drew on an electoral base of approx 32,000 voters, but because of Romanian proscriptions it had to enter into coalitions with Romanian parties (which it did with the national-peasant party, the liberal party, and the radical-agrarian party). It maintained good relations with parties that represented other minority groups in Romania, including Jews, Germans, and Hungarians. UNP representatives, particularly its leader Volodymyr Zalozetsky-Sas, participated in the Minorities Section of the League of Nations and spoke out about the oppression of Ukrainians under Romanian, Polish, and Soviet rule. Yurii Serbyniuk was party secretary; other parliamentary representatives were Vasyl Dutchak, D. Maier-Mykhalsky, and Orest Shkraba. Other activists included Teodor Ivanytsky, Lev Kohut, A. Kyryliv, Yurii Lysan, Ivan Stryisky, M. Syvy, M. Vitan, R. Yasenytsky, and I. Zhukovsky. The UNP's official organ was the periodical Rada (Chernivtsi); periodicals affiliated with the party included Ridnyi krai (Chernivtsi), Chas (Chernivtsi), Narod, and Narodnia syla. The UNP was banned in 1938 along with all political parties in Romania.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kvitkovs’kyi, D. ‘Politychni partiï i rukhy,’ in Bukovyna, ïï mynule i suchasne, ed D. Kvitkovs’kyi et al (Paris–Detroit–Philadelphia 1956)
Zhukovs’kyi, A. ‘Rumuns’kyi period, 1918–40,’ in ibid

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]