STEPHAN BANDERA

Date and Place of Birth: 1970 in Winnipeg, MB

Date of Interview: August 5 2016

Place of Interview: Toronto, ON

Interviewer:  Kassandra Luciuk

Length of Interview: 01:46:53

(Excerpt):

One of my earliest memories was from 1973-74 when there was…my father was on a hunger strike for Valentin Moroz. He was one of several people that were on a hunger strike in Ottawa in front of the Soviet embassy. And I have distinct memories of being in the van where they kind of slept and so, in that kind of activism, that kind of, you know, 1960’s social activism, this had a very political sense to it. But that instilled in me that, you know, that my dad was an activist. He went on a hunger strike. He wanted to prove a point and he had his colleagues and it was…these people didn’t do it for money. They didn’t do it for fame. They did it to affect a goal. And eventually, when Valentin Moroz was freed in ‘78–‘79, of course, the memory there was how quickly the community became divided, and there was infighting, and how Moroz himself acted, and the reaction to him, the lack of understanding on the part of our community of him, his lack of understanding of us... And that was kind of this counter productive…it just seemed like a counter productive point in the community because there was this infighting. A community that’s already divided got even further divided. So I think that was a little disappointing, if I was to drag the Moroz thread through.

CROSS REFERENCES:

• Ganzha, Lesia. “Stepan Bandera: ‘I often use my name to shock people.” November 13, 2012 interview with Stephen Bandera on the Day.Kyiv.ua