At the initiative of the head of the Yavoriv District State Administration, Yaroslav Kominskyi, we continue to share with you the second column about the stories of people who left a big mark in the history of Ukraine and our region.
Today we will remember one of the ideologues of Ukrainian nationalism, a public figure, a writer, a doctor, the author of the Ukrainian geopolitical concept, and one of the founders of a new direction of Ukrainian medical science, Yuri Lypa. He had unlimited faith in the great future of Ukraine and its spiritual power. He was hardly the first among Ukrainian theoreticians-ideologists who professed the European way of Ukraine’s development. In his historical-philosophical works “Ukrainian Age”, “Ukrainian Race”, the famous geopolitical trilogy “The Destiny of Ukraine”, Lypa defined the mission and substantiated the geopolitical concept of Ukraine, outlined the ways of the future development of Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a great nation. Yuri Ivanovich Lypa was born on May 5, 1900 in Odessa.
Yury’s father is a famous Ukrainian writer, doctor, independent politician. Yuri Lypa studied at Odesa Gymnasium No. 4, later at Odesa University. At the age of 17, he edited the magazine “Visnyk Odesa”, wrote his first pamphlets: “Union of the Liberation of Ukraine”, “Kingdom of Kyiv according to Bismarck’s project”, “Wear your badges”, “Hetman Ivan Mazepa”, (they were printed by the publishing house “Narodniy Styag” , founded by Lypa Sr.). Before the threat of the Bolshevik coup, the young man joined the Haydamak division, became a Cossack of the first Plastun kuren and deputy commander of the Odessa “Sichi”, took part in the battles of 1918 with the Bolsheviks on the streets of Odessa. In 1920-22, Yuriy Lypa was in a camp for interned military personnel of the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and UGA in Tarnov. In 1922, he entered the medical faculty of Poznań University (Poland).
It was published in the “Literary and Scientific Bulletin” magazine. Already the first poetry collection of Yuri Lipa – “Lightness” (1925) – was highly appreciated by readers, writers and literary critics. The famous writer Yevhen Malaniuk, in particular, noted that a Ukrainian star appeared to the world, “the likes of which have never existed before.” In 1943, the Polish Home Army presented Yuri Lipa with an ultimatum demanding to leave the territory of Poland. Together with his wife, the artist Halyna Zakharyasevich, whom he married in 1937, and his daughters Ivanna and Marta, he moved to the Lviv region, to Yavorov. Takes an active part in the Ukrainian insurgent movement: organizes medical courses for the UPA and conducts training on them; writes the texts of postcards and appeals to the inhabitants of the region. Since July 1944, he has been an instructor at the UPA Senior School in the Carpathians. The figure of Yury Lipa was so significant that in 1943 his activities were noticed in the highest state leadership of fascist Germany. On Hitler’s order, Yuri Lypa was transferred to Berlin, because, according to the rulers of Germany, he was the greatest Ukrainian ideologue-statesman. He was offered to head the puppet government of Ukraine. However, Yuriy rejected this disgraceful offer with dignity.
And, surprisingly, remained alive. The patriot did not manage to escape alive from the clutches of the NKVD. Already on August 19, 1944, four Enkavedist officers drove up to the house where the Lip family lived. Yuri was told to gather, to take medical instruments with him. The wife was promised that her husband would return in two or three hours, under the “honest word of a ficer”. However, he was never seen alive again. Yury Ivanovich Lypa died at dawn on August 20, 1944 in the village of Shutov, after two days of terrible torture. On August 21, the wife found her husband’s mutilated body. How Yuriy Lypa was buried, and still in the village. The elders tell the stories to the younger ones. The coffin was carried by girls – there were no men, except very old ones. The priest was afraid to serve the memorial service, so the people served it themselves. (The cross over the grave was constantly destroyed during the “Soviet” times, but people knew who rested at this place.
On the night from October 31 to November 1, 1989, a cross and a blue-yellow flag appeared over the grave). Currently, on the slab above the grave of the great Ukrainian Yuri Lypa, there is an inscription-quotation from his poems: “There is only one holy thing in the world – the blood of brave people. The graves of those loyal to the Motherland live alone!”.
In the village of Bunovi, a memorial plaque was installed on the facade of the school, which was named after Yury Lypa (in 1994), a gravestone monument was placed in the cemetery, and in the village of Ivanyky, on May 2, 1999, the first monument to the patriot was opened. The Yavoriv District Library and the Novoyavoriv District Hospital are also named after Yury Lypa. Every year on the birthday and death of Yury Lipa, commemorative events are held in Bunov and Ivanyky with the participation of the public of Yavoriv Region, Lviv, and Odesa. Writer, doctor, philosopher, public figure, geopolitical thinker – Yuriy Lypa left a bright mark in Ukrainian history. We have no right to forget the people who made history.