Ukrainians march to honor 105th birthday of Stepan Bandera (1909-1959)

Thousands of people in Lviv and Kyiv held torchlight marches on Jan. 1 in honor of the 105th birthday of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera (1909-1959). 

Bandera remains one of the most divisive and controversial figures in Ukrainian history. The Ukrainian nationalist was born in 1909 in a region of western Ukrainian that was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. He went on to lead the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists that fought for national independence - and against all perceived enemies of this goal, including Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Jews.

Bandera declared Ukraine an independent state on June 30, 1941, just nine days after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in World War II. On July 6, 1941 he was arrested and later imprisoned by Nazi Germany and released only in September 1944. A Soviet KGB agent assassinated him on Oct. 15, 1959 when Nikita Khrushchev was in charge.

The Associated Press wrote this about his political entanglements:

"Bandera did collaborate with the Nazis and receive German funding for subversive acts in the USSR as German forces advanced across Poland and into the Soviet Union at the start of the war. He fell out with the Nazis in 1941, after the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists declared Ukraine's independence, and he was sent to a concentration camp.Bandera won back Germany's support in 1944, and he was released. The German army was hoping the Ukrainian insurgents could stop the advance of the Soviet army, which had regained control over much of eastern Ukraine by then. Bandera set up a headquarters in Berlin and oversaw the training of Ukrainian insurgents by the German army."

Just before leaving office in 2010, President Viktor Yushchenko posthumously honored Bandera as a Hero of Ukraine, an award rescinded by court order the next year.

While many Ukrainians consider him a hero, he remains vilified by others as a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite.