Zinoviy Knysh.It Strikes Twelve: Memories and Materials on the OUN’s Activities. Toronto, [n.d.]

“Few, if any, in the world longed for war as the Ukrainians did in 1941.”

Zinoviy Knysh. It’s Almost Twelve: Memoirs and Materials on the OUN’s Activities on the Eve of the German-Soviet War of 1941 / Cover by Ivan Keivan.

Toronto: Sribna Surma, [n.d.]. — 384 p.: illus., portraits. — With index of names. Printed at the Kyiv Printing House, 686 Richmond St., Toronto, Ont. Print run not stated.

In a softcover edition: brown textured background; the author’s name, title, and publisher’s name, “Sribna Surma,” printed in yellow-orange; centered oval composition featuring the silhouette of a city in flames above hills with a fence. Back cover plain, cream-colored, with brown spots and darkening. Light rubbing along the edges and corners of the front cover; bottom left corner bumped; blue ink mark near the bottom left edge. Paper uniformly yellowed, foxing along the edges, stain on the title page and at the top of the table of contents; loose binding thread visible on the spread of pp. 368–369. Handwritten inscription in red ink and pencil notation on the title page. Condition: good.

Lifetime edition. The book has historical and cultural value and is of collector’s interest.

INFORMATION

An account from within the Ukrainian nationalist movement, rather than an outside overview: in 1940–1941, Zinoviy Knysh was a member of the OUN leadership, worked in the secretariat of the PUN, and headed the office of the Ukrainian Central Committee. In the preface, he reminds readers that everyone longed for war, but for Ukrainians, 1941 represented their only hope for freedom and statehood. The book combines memoirs with documents in eleven chapters—from the global situation before the conflict in the East and Ukraine’s prospects through organizational work in the General Government and the nationalist movement in France and Germany to the “five minutes before twelve,” the march “east, toward the sun, toward Ukraine,” and the “honorary arrest.” Illustrations include portraits of PUN figures (Andriy Melnyk, Oleh Olzhych, Roman Sushko, Mykola Stsiborskyi, and others) and a group photograph of forcibly mobilized translators before a fort in Prokocim, near Kraków.

Zinoviy Knysh (1906–1999) was a lawyer, political activist, and historian born in Kolomyia. Doctor of Law, Lviv University (1930); member of the UVO from 1924; arrested three times in interwar Poland and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in 1931. In 1944, he went to Vienna; in 1946, to Paris; from 1949, he lived in Canada, where he served as the first deputy chairman of the PUN and general judge of the OUN.

Knysh himself organized and funded the Sribna Surma publishing house; this book was printed at the Kyiv Printing House in Toronto, and the cover was designed by graphic artist Ivan Keivan. Thematically, it is related to Knysh’s other collection, “Rizbrat: Memoirs and Materials on the OUN’s Split in 1940–1941.”