Andriy Atanasovich Melnyk (; 12 December 1890 – 1 November 1964) was a Ukrainian military and political leader. Life Melnyk was born near Drohobych, Halychyna, into a peasant family. Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna. With the outbreak of the First World War, Melnyk served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army as a volunteer commanding a company of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Due to his kind demeanor, he was referred to affectionately as "Lord Melnyk" by fellow Ukrainian and Austrian officers, who felt that he embodied the English concept of a gentleman, which at that time had been an ideal in Central Europe. Melnyk was taken prisoner by the Russians in 1916. In captivity, Melnyk became a close associate of Yevhen Konovalets and joined the Ukrainian independence movement. During the Ukrainian–Soviet War of 1917-1921 Melnyk supported Symon Petliura and was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Ukrainian People's Republic army. Together with Yevhen Konovalets, Melnyk and several others founded the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929. Between 1924 and 1928 Melnyk was imprisoned for terrorist activities by the Polish government. During the 1930s, however, his career was much more subdued than those of his colleagues. He basically retired from politics, refrained from terrorist activities and worked as an engineer and as the director of forests on the huge estates of the Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Andrey Sheptytsky. More friendly to the Church than any of his associates (the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was generally anti-clerical), Melnyk even became the chairman of Orlo, the Galician Catholic youth organization that was regarded as anti-Nationalist by many OUN members. After the assassination of OUN leader Konovalets in 1938, the principal OUN leadership abroad could not choose a leader from amongst themselves and therefore asked Melnyk to become leader of OUN in 1939. He was chosen by the leadership in part because of the hope for more moderate and pragmatic leadership and due to the desire to repair strained ties with the Catholic Church. The group that had chosen Melnyk as their leader admired aspects of Benito Mussolini's fascism but condemned Nazism. In 1940 a more radical faction of the OUN, led by Stepan Bandera and based in Ukraine, broke away from the OUN led by Melnyk in exile. The two rival organizations became known as Melnykites (Melnykivtsi) and