She was under the supervision of the KGB from the age of 12: the story of the daughter of UPA corporal Roman Shukhevich
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Daughter of Roman Shukhevich, a political and military figure, commander-in-chief of the UPA, Maria Trilyovska-Shukhevich grew up in an orphanage, her mother and brother spent a long time in prisons.
At a young age, due to the conditions in which she grew up and the constant surveillance of the special services, Maria considered herself a Soviet person for a long time and spoke only Russian.
Only at the age of 19 did she learn the truth about her origin and whose daughter she is. Currently, the 83-year-old woman lives in Lviv.
According to Maria, the figure of her father has been troubling Russia for almost 80 years. She talked about this, as well as her difficult life, in an interview with Tvoemisto.tv.
| Maria Trilyovska-Shukhevich grew up in an orphanage |
“Like Bandera, Shukhevych is for them, one might say, a red rag that they shake before the eyes of their viewers, scare them with. He spread the idea of the Ukrainian liberation struggle not only in Galicia, but also throughout Ukraine. Because of this, they call us fascists and free us from ourselves“, says Maria Trilyovska-Shukhevich.
The woman says: she hardly remembers her father.
“On Christmas Day 1943, when I was not even three years old, my father went underground. He knew that they were being disbanded, and he ran away because he would have been arrested, like Bandera and Stetska.
I remember one moment when I am sitting in the kitchen by the window and playing with his curly white hair. I don’t remember the face, I only remember that hair. I think he was saying goodbye to me then“, Shukhevych’s daughter recalls.
At the age of five, Maria Shukhevich ended up in an orphanage, she was taken from Lviv to Donbas. Nataliya Berezynska-Shukhevich’s mother (1910–2002), Maria’s grandmother and brother Yuriy Shukhevich (1933–2022) were arrested.
“In fact, at the age of five, I and my family were arrested by the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVS). I remember how we were traveling by train, some soldiers were driving us, they said something to me, but I didn’t answer anything. They laughed at me because I was five years old and could not speak“, Ms. Maria recalls her difficult childhood.
Maria’s brother tried to steal her from the orphanage, he was 15 years old at the time. And in 1948 he was arrested. He actually served time only for being Shukhevych’s son, because he did not do anything against the Soviet government.
“I remembered, knew that I had a brother Yurko. And I had a thought: when I grow up, I will definitely find him“, says the woman.
The woman admits that she spoke Russian at school and technical school. She studied Ukrainian as a subject.
At the same time, in her youth, she was constantly watched by the special services.
“I regularly felt that I was under surveillance. Even when she was in the orphanage in Sloviansk. It was, maybe, the fourth grade. I was called to the director. A military man was sitting in the office. He started talking, asking me if I remember my father and mother. He asked how I study.
From the age of 12, I realized that I was under surveillance. Then they met me at a technical school, institute, invited me to the KGB (State Security Committee of the USSR)“, the woman recalls.
About the fact that her father was the commander of the Ukrainian insurgent army, Maria Trilyovska-Shuhevich accidentally read in a newspaper, which had an article about the people of Bandera. In it, according to her, Shukhevych was depicted in “black tones”.
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| Roman Shukhevich. ALL PHOTOS: Tvoemisto.tv |
“I read it and then spoke to those who took care of me: “You see, they write that he produced“, says the woman.
Mrs. Maria admits that it was her brother Yurko who reeducated her, opened her eyes to the truth.
“He wrote to me every time: “Do you believe that the Soviet government is so wonderful? Then look at how people live: poverty, queues. And how they sing to us on the radio, in all performances. So why do you believe them, but not us?“, the woman continues.
Maria’s mother returned from prison in 1956, when she was 46 years old. She didn’t have a residence permit, she couldn’t get a job. According to Maria, the woman survived thanks to the help of the diaspora – when people found out that the wife of the Chief Commander of the UPA was in critical condition, they created a fund in the States and Canada. They sent her handkerchiefs, selling which the woman survived, because they could not transfer the money. She died at the age of 92.
“And they prescribed my mother as early as the 1960s, during the Khrushchev “thaw” it was possible to do it for money. But then she was already of retirement age. What happened to her already? She didn’t have a pension, until then they gave her some kind of help, and even then the Union of the Repressed spoke out for her to be given that help“, says Mrs. Maria.
Maria Trilyovska-Shukhevich herself lives modestly, has an ordinary pension. The woman wants only one thing: justice in commemorating her father.
“Olesya Isayuk published a book about Shukhevych, in which she writes: his colossal merit was that he enabled the UPA to become legal. Of course, someone suffered because of it, left, then came back. But they took that idea with them.
My mother categorically refused to leave Lviv. Father spread the idea of struggle throughout Ukraine. Maybe older, not so much, but the younger generation accepted it thanks to him – that it is possible to fight this enemy, that it is worth doing it. We want to live in our country – let’s fight!“, the woman concludes.
We will remind you that on the first day of 2024, as a result of a night drone attack in Lviv, the museum of Roman Shukhevich was completely destroyed.
His surviving bronze bust was recovered from the ruins of the museum.
Read also: What do you know about UPA and the myths surrounding it? TEST
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