Zybachynsky, Orest

Zybachynsky, Orest [Зибачинський, Орест; Zybačyns'kyj; pseudonym: Орлан; Orlan], b 15 May 1912 in Chernivtsi, Bukovyna, d 13 September 1993 in Sydney, Australia. Political activist and publicist. He studied law at Chernivtsi University. In 1934–40 he oversaw all activity of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in Bukovyna, Bessarabia, and the Maramureş region in Romania. He participated in the OUN expeditionary groups of the OUN (Melnyk faction) and co-organized the Bukovynian detachment that was active in Southern Ukraine, OUN forces in the Donets Basin (1941–2) and in Volhynia and Polisia (1942–3), and the military wing of the Oborona Ukrainy organization (1943). He emigrated to Munich in 1945, where he was main founder of the political organization Freedom International and acted as its general secretary in 1946–9. In 1949 he moved to Sydney, Australia. He published collections of political essays, including Svobodarnist' ([combination of svoboda and solidarnist'] Freedom and Solidarity, 1955), Integral'na revoliutsiia (The Integral Revolution, 1960), Renesans—Reformatsiia—Revoliutsiia (Renaissance, Reformation, Revolution, 1968), Svobodarnyi manifest (Manifesto of Freedom and Solidarity, 1978), Mech dukha (Sword of the Spirit, 1980), Misteriia svobody (The Mystery of Freedom, 1985), and Volia do svobody (The Will to Freedom, 1988).

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