Ukrainian Revolutionary Democratic party

Ukrainian Revolutionary Democratic party (Українська революційно-демократична партія; Ukrainska revoliutsiino-demokratychna partiia, or УРДП; URDP). An émigré political party dedicated to the overthrow of the Soviet regime and the building of an independent and democratic Ukrainian state. It was founded officially in Regensburg, Germany, in August 1947 by émigrés from Soviet Ukraine who embraced the ideals of the Ukrainian national renaissance of the 1920s and by former members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists who supported Ivan Mitrynga. Charter members included Ivan Bahriany, Hryhory Kostiuk, Ivan Maistrenko, Borys Levytsky, Semen Pidhainy, and Roman Paladiichuk. Its first president was Kostiuk, who in 1948 left the party with Maistrenko, Levytsky, Paladiichuk, and others to form the Left URDP. This faction published the monthly Vpered (Munich) and, eventually, dissolved. Bahriany was president for the longest term (1948–63); he was followed by Fedir Haienko (1963–7), Mykola Stepanenko (1967), Vasyl I. Hryshko (1967–75), and Mykhailo Voskobiinyk (after 1975). Some of the leading members of the party were V. Bender, Petro Volyniak, Vsevolod Holubnychy, Yurii Lavrinenko, I. Dubylko, O. Konoval, I. Korniichuk, A. Lysy, Fedir Pigido, and A. Riabyshenko. Stepanenko led a group that established a separate Right URDP in 1979. The URDP helped found the Ukrainian National Council, in which it participated until 1968, and the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance. Its members played key roles in the founding of the Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian Communist Terror, the Symon Petliura Legion, and the Ukrainian Democratic Youth Association. Today the party has national offices in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, Australia, and Argentina, which sponsor or support a variety of publications. The official voice of the URDP is the irregular magazine Nashi pozytsiï (1948–). In 1990 the URDP changed its name to Ukrainian Democratic Republican party.

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