History

The museum was opened on 23 October 2001 at the expense of the UPA Soldiers' Association in the United States named after General-Corporal Taras Chuprynka.

The museum building was the last headquarters of the UPA commander-in-chief. The building had two floors. On the ground floor there were five thematic halls. The second floor recreated the life of the UPA Commander-in-Chief during his stay in this underground apartment (spring 1948-1950).

An important historical object of the house was a hiding place located at the entrance to the attic, in fact, a partition that separated the attic from the room with a double plank wall. The entrance to the hiding place was from the staircase. It was possible to get to it from a separate entrance. It was this entrance that Roman Shukhevych used when he fought his last battle with the MGB on 5 March 1950. The staircase has been preserved unchanged. The interior of the hideout and the entrance to it have been restored, preserving all the proportions and originality of the building.

During the restoration work, a bullet from a Walther pistol was found in the wooden wall opposite the entrance to the hideout. The bullet hole was 80 cm above the floor. The stairs, the hiding place, and the living room became the main memorial objects of the museum.

Destruction of the building

On the night of 31 December 2023 to 1 January 2024, the museum building and some of the exhibits were destroyed as a result of a drone attack during an attack on the Lviv region by the Russian Armed Forces.

Before the full-scale invasion, the Roman Shukhevych Museum in Lviv had about 600 original exhibits that were at the disposal of the UPA commander-in-chief during his lifetime. Some of them had been moved to a safe place in advance. The Russian attack destroyed 16 monuments from the museum's collection. Mostly memorial items were damaged: a table, armchairs, a credenza, and a piano on which Shukhevych played. The copies of the documents were from the auxiliary fund; some of the items on display were dummies. A bronze bust of Roman Shukhevych by sculptor Mykhailo Chereshnevsky survived the fire.