Ivan Babii

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Ivan Babii (March 5, 1893 – July 25, 1934) was a Ukrainian educator and military officer. He was one of the main organizers of the "Ukrainian Youth for Christ" festival and a proponent of coexistence between Ukrainians and Poles in Galicia as an integral part of Poland. Babiy was assassinated on the orders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). [1]

Ivan Babiy
Ivan Babiy
BornMarch 5, 1893
Dobromirka, Zbarazh Raion, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine
DiedJuly 25, 1934 (aged 41)
Lviv, Ukraine
NationalityUkrainian
Occupation(s)Educator, military officer
Known forOrganizing the "Ukrainian Youth for Christ" festival

Biography edit

He was born on March 5, 1893, in the village of Dobromirka (now in Zbarazh district of Ternopil region, Ukraine) into a peasant family.

Babii graduated in 1911 from a high school in Tarnopol,[2] then studied classical philology at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów. Following the start of World War I in 1914 he was called into the Austro-Hungarian Army, where he served in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. In 1918–1919 he fought against Poland in the Ukrainian Galician Army and in 1920 participated as an officer of the Ukrainian People's Army in the Kyiv offensive of the joint Polish-Ukrainian forces.

Later, he became a principal of a high school in Brzeżany, then, in 1931, took the post of principal of a Ukrainian high school in Lwów. He organized the Youth for Christ festival in western Ukraine.[3] Babij openly criticized the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which resulted in death sentence, passed by the Revolutionary Tribunal of the OUN.[4] He was murdered by OUN's activist Mykhaylo Car.[1] The assassination was publicly condemned by the Ukrainian Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky.

The revolutionary tribunal of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists sentenced him to death. In this regard, on July 27, 1934, an OUN militant killed Babii in Lviv. As it turned out, Babii was assigned police protection, and when the attacker realized that he would not be able to escape, he tried to shoot himself. In the hospital, the militant regained consciousness and confessed that he was a member of the OUN and his name was Mykhailo Tsar, originally from Pozdymyr. On August 17, the killer died of his wound.[5]

Sources edit

  • Andrzej Chojnowski, Jan Bruski − "Ukraina", Warszawa 2006, ISBN 978-83-7436-039-5

References edit

  1. ^ a b Mirchik, Petro. Нарис історії ОУН [History of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army]. НАРИС ІСТОРІЇ ОУН (in Ukrainian). Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Archived from the original on 2009-03-10. Retrieved 2014-06-16.
  2. ^ "Zvit Direkcii C. K. Gimnazii Franc-Josifa I v Ternopoli za rik skilnyj 1910/11 - Podkrapacka Digital Library". www.pbc.rzeszow.pl. Retrieved 2023-07-03.
  3. ^ Myroslav Shkandri. (2015). Ukrainian Nationalism: Politics, Ideology, and Literature, 1929-1956. New Haven: Yale University Press. pg. 30
  4. ^ "Смерть директора гімназії Івана Бабія". bandera.lviv.ua. 2015-04-02. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2024-03-25.
  5. ^ Петро Мірчук. Нарис історії ОУН. Том 1. V частина. Розділ 5. Archived 2009-03-10 at the Wayback Machine Вбивство Івана Бабія.