Petro Fedun

Petro Mykolaiovych Fedun (Ukrainian: Петро Миколайович Федун; 23 February 1919 – 23 December 1951), also known by the literary pseudonym of Petro Poltava (Ukrainian: Петро Полтава), was a Ukrainian revolutionary writer, journalist, and politician. Ideologically a Ukrainian nationalist and social democrat, he was one of the leaders of the reformist faction of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists' Banderite wing from 1945 until his 1951 death in battle against officers of the Soviet Ministry of State Security. Born in rural Galicia, Fedun joined the OUN as a teenager. He was conscripted into the Red Army following the Soviet annexation of Eastern Galicia and Volhynia, and captured during Operation Barbarossa. After being released, Fedun soon returned to the OUN (now split between anti-Nazi and collaborationist wings), and was involved in the group's anti-Nazi underground in the cities of Lviv and Brody. After the German defeat in Galicia, Fedun rapidly rose through the ranks of the OUN, being appointed director of the Main Propaganda Cell in 1946. With the beginning of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's anti-Soviet insurgency, Fedun became an ideologue for reformist OUN members opposed to the leadership of Stepan Bandera, writing influential works on social democracy and democratic socialism. He became the leader of the reformists in December 1951, but was killed the same month.