Ukrainian Press Service

Ukrainian Press Service [Українська пресова служба; Ukrainska presova sluzhba; German: Ukrainischer Pressedienst]. An information bureau established in 1931 in Berlin by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to inform the Western world, particularly the German government and public, about the Ukrainian question and the Ukrainian national movement. The director was Riko Jary. It published bulletins in Ukrainian (for the Western Ukrainian and émigré press) and German under the editorship of Mykhailo Seleshko (1931–4) and Volodymyr Stakhiv (1937–41). Editors at the service included A. Lutsiv, Orest Chemerynsky, Bohdan Kordiuk, and Myroslav Prokop. The service maintained contacts with similar bureaus and offices maintained by the OUN in New York, Geneva, London, Paris, Rome, Prague, Madrid, Brussels, Vienna, and Kaunas (see Press and information bureaus abroad). In 1938 it was renamed the Nationalist Press Service, and after the outbreak of the Second World War it was moved to Rome, where it was directed by Yevhen Onatsky until 1943.

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