Ukraine repatriates remains of 20th-century military leader Yevhen Konovalets with state honors
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The remains of 20th-century military leader Yevhen Konovalets were given full state and military honors upon being brought back to Ukraine for reburial, Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy head of the President's Office, reported on Aug. 13.
As the founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Konovalets devoted his life to the cause of Ukraine's independence.
The OUN was established in 1929, amid the turmoil following Ukraine's defeat in the 1917–1921 War of Independence, which led to the country's territory being divided between the Soviet Union and Poland.
From exile, Konovalets worked to unite Ukrainians into an organized independence movement and also sought foreign support for Ukraine's cause, warning that Moscow's expansionism posed a broader threat to international security.
In 1938, an undercover Soviet agent who had been tasked with infiltrating the OUN assassinated Konovalets in Rotterdam by gifting him a box of chocolates rigged with a bomb.
According to the President's Office, the exhumation ceremony for Konovalets at Crooswijk Cemetery in Rotterdam was attended on Aug. 11 by government officials, members of the local Ukrainian diaspora, and clergy from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
Konovalets will be reburied at the National Military Memorial Cemetery just outside Kyiv.
Konovalets' repatriation was preceded by that of Andriy Melnyk, another prominent 20th-century military leader who headed the OUN-M, an offshoot of the organization that formed after Konovalets's assassination.
The return of historical leaders like Konovalets and Melnyk comes as Ukraine seeks to establish a National Pantheon to honor its heroes, past and present.
However, government officials involved with the project told the Kyiv Independent that there is no official list yet of which figures will be included — only an established protocol that will be used to decide once the bill becomes a law.
