Maksym Bernatsky: Murdered for His Convictions, Deserving Justice

“Shot and stripped of all property confiscated during the search” — this was the sentence handed down on March 2, 1945, by the NKVD military tribunal of the Voroshilovgrad region, in the name of the USSR, to Maksym Ivanovich Bernatsky: a Ukrainian patriot and underground member of the OUN(b).

Maksym Bernatsky was born in 1889 in the Cherkasy region into a peasant family. He studied at a seminary and later at the Vinnytsia Teachers’ Institute. In 1915, he was mobilized into the army and sent to serve in Simferopol. At that time, Bernatsky became captivated by the ideas of Ukrainian national liberation, and in 1917, the young teacher, without hesitation, joined the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

However, his academic career did not end there. Bernatsky studied at and graduated from Kyiv University. After the defeat of the UNR, he miraculously escaped repression and even had the opportunity to continue his work in science and teaching.

Science eventually brought him to Voroshilovgrad — present-day Luhansk. In 1935, Bernatsky became the head of the Ukrainian language department at the Voroshilovgrad Pedagogical Institute (now Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University). Maksym Ivanovich devoted himself almost entirely to his work. He even received his doctoral degree without defending a dissertation, based solely on a collection of published works.

Meanwhile, World War II broke out. Back in 1939, Brigadier General Krivoshein and General Guderian shook hands during a Soviet-German military parade in Brest, Poland, and by 1941, German troops were already beating their former Soviet “comrades.” Shortly before the Germans arrived, Maksym Bernatsky was evacuated to Tashkent. However, the professor of Ukrainian philology did not find a place for himself there and returned to Voroshilovgrad. Soon, the Soviet authorities left the city, and the German administration replaced them. During the occupation, Professor Bernatsky joined the ranks of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

For some, it may come as a surprise: where did the OUN come from in Donbass? Today, however, as the archives of Soviet special services are being declassified, the true scale of Ukrainian nationalist activity is becoming clear. Documents already made public show that, for example, in Mariupol, the OUN underground numbered up to 300 people; in Slovyansk, about 100; in Kramatorsk, 120. In the Dnipropetrovsk region alone, nearly one and a half thousand Ukrainian nationalists were arrested in just six months of 1944.

In the Luhansk region, the coordinator of Ukrainian nationalist activities was Yevhen Stakhiv. He introduced Maksym Bernatsky to the propaganda materials of the Bandera faction and explained the main goal of the OUN: the creation of a united, independent Ukrainian state. These ideas strongly resonated with Bernatsky, and he joined the ranks of the OUN(b). He was tasked with becoming the editor of a German-occupation newspaper and using it to publish nationalist materials.

The occupation newspaper Nove Zhyttya, edited by Maksym Bernatsky, was under strict German censorship. Yet he managed not only to publish Ukrainian patriotic content but also to recruit new members for the nationalist underground. He organized the documents of freelance correspondents for two fellow underground members, and five more people joined the newspaper’s editorial staff.

In addition to patriotic publications in the German newspaper, Bernatsky organized courses for Ukrainian language teachers. There, OUN underground members met students, communicated with them, and recruited them into the movement. Thus, Maksym Bernatsky became one of the key figures in the nationalist underground in Voroshilovgrad.

Meanwhile, the German Drang nach Osten campaign failed. Bernatsky had to leave Voroshilovgrad because falling into Soviet hands meant certain death. Eventually, he settled in Pervomaisk, in the Odessa region, where he became the regent of a church choir.

The Soviet special services arrested Maksym Bernatsky on August 8, 1944. He then endured almost half a year of imprisonment and endless interrogations. Investigation protocols indicate that Soviet authorities were exclusively interested in his participation in the OUN underground.

The text of the sentence handed down to Maksym Bernatsky on March 2, 1945, states:

“Bernatsky is a convinced Ukrainian nationalist… Between 1930 and 1942, he was a member of the counter-revolutionary nationalist society ‘Prosvyta,’ which stood for the creation of a single, independent Ukrainian state. He was arrested for nationalist activities in 1930 by the OGPU authorities. In August 1942, he was recruited by Yevhen Stakhiv into the counter-revolutionary organization ‘OUN,’ received underground OUN literature from him, received instructions on using the fascist newspaper ‘Nove Zhyttya’ in the interests of Ukrainian nationalists, and recruited new members into the OUN.”

As they say, there is nothing more to add.

Thus, Maksym Ivanovich Bernatsky, working under the German administration, carried out the orders of the head of the OUN underground in Voroshilovgrad. Serving as editor of the occupation newspaper New Life, he used every opportunity to expand the underground network of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. For this, he was executed by the Soviet “competent authorities.” Had he been exposed earlier, he would have been executed by the German authorities. It is worth noting that during the Nazi occupation of Donbas, more than 100 Ukrainian underground members were executed by German punitive forces.

After Ukraine gained independence, the question of Maksym Bernatsky’s posthumous rehabilitation arose. However, according to the resolution of the Luhansk Regional Court on December 19, 1991, Bernatsky was deemed “rightfully convicted and not subject to rehabilitation.”

In reality, this shameful ruling meant that the court of independent Ukraine refused to rehabilitate a man who gave his life for an independent Ukrainian state. This injustice affects not only Maksym Bernatsky, but also all participants in the national liberation struggle who were executed or repressed by Soviet punitive bodies.

For the Soviet totalitarian regime, there was no distinction between a traitor and an OUN underground member. But the Soviet government is gone. The USSR has passed into history. Those unjust sentences handed down to Ukrainian patriots by red totalitarianism must also be consigned to history.

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