VASYL RЕНEІ (1915–1996): LIFE AND ACTIVITY IN THE CONDITIONS OF TOTALITARIAN REGIMES

Abstract

The biography of Vasyl Ivanovych Rehei (1915–1996) is completely reconstructed in the article on the basis of unknown documents and materials, memoirs and scientific literature. The whole life of Vasyl Ivanovych Rehei can be divided into several stages: 1) 1915–1939 – childhood and adolescence, education at a seven-year school, German gymnasium (Stanislaviv), Warsaw Josyf Pilsudski University; 2) 1939–1944 – participation in the Ukrainian liberation movement – a deputy county leader of Sanok district (with simultaneous service), a member of the Southern OUN marching group, a leader of Dnipropetrovsk regional leadership of the OUN, at the same time teaching; 3) 1944–1946 – service in the Soviet army; 4) 1946–1951 – scientific and pedagogical work at Drohobych Pedagogical Institute; 5) 1951–1957 – arrest, investigation, serving a sentence in correc­tional labor camps; 6) 1957–1978 – work at the sawmill in the village of Vihorovka; 7) 1978–1996 – pension, return to Frankivsk region, active participation in public and political life. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, scientificity, systematics. Biographical and prosopographic approaches are used in the work. In addition, the authors used general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special-historical (historical-genetic, historical-typological, historical-systemic, documentary heuristics) methods.

Keywords: Drohobych Pedagogical Institute, OUN, repressive and punitive system, Vasyl Rehei.