Galician partisans. Review of: Petro Rositsky. Ukrainian People's Self-Defense in Galicia (1943): Formation, Structure, Combat Operations: Monograph / National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, I. Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Lviv, 2025. 360 p.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2025.161.11

Abstract

Readers are offered a review of one of the latest books on domestic military history, published in 2025. The creation and activities of the Ukrainian National Self-Defense (UNS) in Galicia, which became the basis for the deployment of the UPA-West (UPA-Zakhid) at the turn of 1943–1944, unfortunately remained in the shadow of research on the activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Volhynia in 1943 for many decades. The author of the reviewed monograph, Petro Rositsky, has filled this historiographical gap. It is important to emphasize that the researcher highlighted the process of formation and activities of the UNS in the broader context of social relations within the Ukrainian community of Galicia, relations between Ukrainians and the German occupation administration in the region, and the activities of the Soviet partisan movement and the Polish underground. It should also be noted that the monograph is supplemented by a very solid source block, which contains twenty-six archival documents on the history of the UNS. Such a documentary appendix allows interested readers to verify the accuracy of the author's citations of sources in the main text and to familiarize themselves with the full content of the historical source.