United Ukrainian War Veterans in America

United Ukrainian War Veterans in America (Об’єднання бувших вояків українців в Америці; Obiednannia buvshykh voiakiv ukraintsiv v Amerytsi, or ОБВУА; OBVUA). The largest Ukrainian veterans’ association in the United States of America, formed in New York on 9 October 1949 out of the Ukrainian War Veterans’ Association of the USA (est 1924) and Ukrainian veterans who had recently arrived in the United States. Its head office is in Philadelphia. In 1964 it had 17 branches with a membership of 850, consisting of former soldiers of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic, the Ukrainian Galician Army, and of foreign armies, and of members of the autonomous Brotherhood of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. By 1990 there were 6 branches remaining, with approximately 200 members. The OBVUA has set up the Combatants’ Welfare Service (1953) to help needy Ukrainian veterans and is a copublisher, with the Brotherhood of Former Soldiers of the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army, of the quarterly Visti kombatanta. Other veterans’ organizations, such as the Former Members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Brody-Lev, the Ukrainian War Veterans’ Association of Canada, and the Ukrainian American Veterans, maintain friendly relations with the OBVUA. The presidents of the association have been Dmytro Halychyn (1949–53), Volodymyr Galan (1953–80), Y. Vyshnevetsky (1980–6), and O. Trush (1986–).

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