Olha Ilkiv

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Faustinivna and the family name is Ilkiv.
Olha Ilkiv
Ukrainian
OccupationResistance fighter
Known forLiaison officer of Roman Shukhevych (1947-1950)
Spouse
Volodymyr Lykota
​
​
(m. 1943; died 1948)​
Children2
AwardsOrder of Princess Olga

Olha Faustinivna Ilkiv (

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), partisan and signaller of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.[1][2][3] She is best known in Ukraine for being the signaller of Ukrainian Insurgent Army Commander-in-Chief Roman Shukhevych.[1]

Ilkiv was also a former

Soviet prisons.[1] In 2008 she was awarded the Order of Princess Olga, 3rd class.[1]

Biography

Ilkiv was born on 21 June 1920 in Stryi (Polish: Stryj), then part of the Second Polish Republic after the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw.[4] Her parents were Faustin Ilkiv and Rosalia-Caterina (née Kotsur).

After her parents' divorce in 1934, Ilkiv went with her mother to live in

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 30 June 1941.[3] After the German invasion of the Ukraine, Ilkiv fled to Zhytomyr, where she found a job on the railway.[3] There she used her documents to get train tickets and hand them over to Ukrainian insurgents.[3] In addition, Ilkiv's responsibilities included recruiting people to form an OUN women's network.[3]

In April 1943, Ilkiv married Volodymyr "Danylo" Lykota, a member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.[3] They had two children, Zvenislava (born 1946) and Volodymyr (born 1947). In early 1947, when their daughter was three months old, Ilkiv was tasked with hiding Roman Shukhevych, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.[3] It was believed that the young family would provide a perfect cover.[3] In order to produce a more secure cover for Shukhevych, Ilkiv fictitiously married Shukhevych's bodyguard Lubomyr Polyuha [uk], who also had false documents. Ilkiv's husband Volodymyr died in battle on 17 March 1948,[3] never having met his son.[3]

Imprisonment

The OUN command decided to send Ilkiv and her children to

psychotropic substances.[6]

Ilkiv was sentenced in 1952 to 25 years for "participation in an

anti-Soviet gang."[4][3] Her children were taken to an orphanage in Pohulyanka, their names were changed to Vira and Andriy Boyko,[6] and they were brought up like models of "Homo Sovieticus".[3]

After the death of

USSR who did not repent – Olha Ilkiv, Kateryna Zarytska [uk; ru; pl], Halyna Didyk [uk] and Daria Husyak [uk; ru].[3] All of them were Roman Shukhevych's liaisons. They were placed in one cell so that they would not incite their cellmates. Fourteen years later, Ilkiv was released after her request for pardon.[3] In 1953, following the death of Stalin, the director of the orphanage of Ilkiv's children, Valentina Antipova, responded to Ilkiv's letter at her own risk, so her children found out that their mother was alive.[3]

Later life

Ilkiv in 2007

From September 1964, Ilkiv worked as a kiosk maker, cloakroom attendant and nurse at the Lviv Regional Hospital, and from 1966 as a janitor.[4] From 1972 until her retirement in 1976, she worked at the Lviv Historical Museum and in the department of funds of the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life (1977–1979).[4]

Ilkiv took part in the constituent assembly of the KUN in Kyiv (1992) and the OUN in Ukraine (1993).[4] From 1995 to 2000, she was the deputy chairman of the All-Ukrainian League of Ukrainian Women.[4]

In 2008, Ilkiv was awarded the Order of Princess Olga, 3rd class.[1]

Ilkiv died in Lviv on 6 December 2021, aged 101.[1]

References

  1. ^
    Ukrayinska Pravda
    (6 December 2021)
  2. ^ "У Львові на 102-му році життя померла зв'язкова УПА Ольга Ільків".
  3. ^
    Istorychna Pravda
    (29 November 2021)
  4. ^
    Ukrayinska Pravda
    (21 June 2021)
  5. ^ Kentiy, A. Roman Shukhevych. Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2013
  6. ^ a b Former UPA liaison officer receives copy of her criminal case as recorded by Soviet NKVD, Euromaidan Press (24 September 2017)

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olha_Ilkiv&oldid=1182705429"