(1890–1921) into a family of that would number eight in total. Two of Bandera's younger brothers were Oleksandr, who would go on to earn a doctorate in political economy at the University of Rome and Vasyl who finished a degree in philosophy at the University of Lviv. Bandera grew up in a patriotic and religious household. He did not attend primary school due to the First World War and was taught at home by his parents. Young Bandera was undersized and slim. He sang in a choir, played guitar and mandolin, enjoyed hiking, jogging, swimming, ice skating, basketball and chess. After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in the wake of World War I, Galicia briefly became the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Bandera's father, who joined the Ukrainian Galician Army as a chaplain, was active in the nationalistic movement preceding the Polish–Ukrainian War which was fought between November 1918 to July 1919 and ended with Ukrainian defeat and the reintegration of the West Ukrainian People's Republic into eastern Poland. Stepan's mother, Myroslava moved with her sons to the town Yahilnytsya in Chortkiv district while her husband Andriy was away. The Chortkiv offensive in June 1919 initially saw the Ukrainian Galician Army successfully capture land in the area, but they were outnumbered about 1 to 5 and were repelled past the river Zbruch. With Poles arriving to reclaim the area and Myroslava separated from her husband, Myroslava and her sons began the almost 100-mile voyage back west to Staryi Uhryniv. Myroslava became ill on the way and never fully recovered. She died from tuberculosis at the age of 31. Mykola Mikhnovsky's 1900 publication, Independent Ukraine influenced the young Bandera greatly. After graduating from a Ukrainian high school in 1927, where he was engaged in a number of youth organizations, Bandera planned to attend the Husbandry Academy in Czechoslovakia, but he either did not get a passport or the Academy notified him that it was closed. In 1928, Bandera enrolled in the agronomy program at the Politechnika Lwowska in Lwów but never completed his studies due to his political activities and arrests. Pre-World War II activity Early activities Stepan Bandera had met and associated himself with members of a variety of Ukrainian nationalist organizations throughout his schooling—from Plast, to the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine () and also the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN, formed in 1929 and in this period led by