Abstract
The aim of the study is to analyze discipline in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army from 1943 to February 1944 as a multidimensional phenomenon that combined organizational control and moral and ideological practices. Discipline in the UPA is considered not only as a management tool, but also as a deeply rooted moral and ideological mechanism that determined behavior patterns, structured clandestine life, and influenced the formation of the insurgent's inner world. The main focus is on analyzing the activities of the OUN(b) and UPA units that operated in Volhynia and Polissya during the specified period. Methodologically the study is based on an interdisciplinary approach, combining conceptual developments in the fields of military history, everyday history, social psychology, and cultural anthropology. The focus of the research procedures was on the analysis of instructions, orders, protocols, and memoirs, which make it possible to trace how discipline regulated not only combat behavior, but also everyday life, emotions, interpersonal relationships, and the limits of what was permissible in wartime. The text uses modern terminology that has been thoroughly tested in global social sciences and military anthropology. Conclusions. Discipline became one of the decisive factors in the functioning of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, its ability to survive and carry out its tasks in the extremely difficult circumstances of confrontation with several much stronger totalitarian military machines – the Bolshevik and Nazi ones. Equally important, discipline was at the core of insurgent ethics and a means of forming a new masculine identity. An in-depth study of these aspects of the national liberation movement makes it possible to identify the specific features of everyday life in the UPA as a space of constant tension between freedom, order, and fear. An analysis of the normative dimension of discipline (through the prism of statutes, orders, and instructions) and its practical manifestations in specific situations, as well as punishment for its violation, internal organizational conflicts, and moral choices contributes to an adequate reconstruction of the complex military and socio-psychological phenomena associated with the existence and activities of the UPA, allowing us to understand the deep motivations of its soldiers and their behavior patterns in diverse, often existential conditions.