About ODFFU
An American Ukrainian civic organization rooted in the Four Freedoms and committed to Ukraine's sovereignty, democratic survival, historical truth, and the strength of Ukrainian American public life.
Mission
Founded in 1946, the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine has defended democratic values, supported Ukraine, educated the public, preserved Ukrainian identity, and united generations of Ukrainian Americans.
Today, ODFFU advances these principles through civic engagement, public education, community leadership, and support for a free and secure Ukraine.
The Four Freedoms framework
Freedom of worship is not abstract — Russian strikes have destroyed and damaged churches across Ukraine.
Freedom of Speech
Свобода слова
Public education, historical truth, free media, and opposition to Russian disinformation.
As ODFFU defined it in 1946
The right of both the individual and the whole nation to express its own views and to shape its own development.
Freedom of Worship
Свобода віросповідання
Defense of religious liberty, cultural continuity, and communities threatened by Russian occupation.
As ODFFU defined it in 1946
Freedom of conscience, religion included — impossible under any form of occupation.
Freedom from Want
Свобода від нужди
Humanitarian, medical, rehabilitation, and displacement assistance.
As ODFFU defined it in 1946
A just social order for the whole community.
Freedom from Fear
Свобода від страху
Ukraine's national defense, protection of civilians, and strong American policy against Russian aggression.
As ODFFU defined it in 1946
The right to freely build the political, social, cultural and economic institutions a people considers best for its nation.
What the founders undertook
The 1946 founding appeal, "To the Ukrainian Citizenship in America," asked members to take on four tasks — the same four the organization works at today.
- 1.Defend the Four Freedoms and the principles of the Atlantic Charter as they apply to Ukraine.
- 2.Inform non-Ukrainians about Ukrainian affairs, through print and every other means available.
- 3.Keep Ukrainian Americans informed about the situation in Ukraine and its struggle for independence.
- 4.Give moral and material help to the struggle for a united, independent Ukrainian state.
Recognized branches
Our history
ODFFU was founded in 1946 by Ukrainian Americans who watched the world's attention drift away from Ukraine's fight for independence and decided to hold on to it. Eighty years on, the organization does what its founders described: defends the Four Freedoms as they apply to Ukraine, informs Americans, and stands with Ukrainians at home.
Founding, 1946–1947
In the spring of 1946 the first two branches formed almost simultaneously in Newark, New Jersey and in New York City. On 15 June a meeting in New York elected a provisional central board under Eugene Lachowitch, adopted the Atlantic Charter as a provisional statute, and called a congress to settle the organization's name, charter and permanent leadership. The first issue of Visnyk carried the same date.
The steering committee met again on 27 October 1946 with representatives of Ukrainian American organizations from across the country — the date several reference works treat as the organization's founding. The first national convention opened on 31 August 1947 at the Belvedere Hotel in New York, elected Lachowitch president, and resolved to collect donations and medical supplies for Ukraine's liberation struggle. ODFFU was incorporated in New York that same month.
A great struggle is under way in Ukraine, and a group of us in New York and Newark are forming an organization to help our brothers and sisters in the old land win freedom, self-government and a state of their own.
ODFFU counts its years from 1946 and marked its eightieth anniversary in 2026.
Founder and first president
Eugene Lachowitch
1900–1976
Born in the Galician village of Ushnia, Lachowitch served in the Ukrainian Galician Army from 1918 to 1921, studied engineering in the Free City of Danzig, emigrated to the United States in 1923 and became a citizen in 1929.
From 1933 to 1935 he represented the Ukrainian national movement in London, meeting Foreign Office officials, publishing in the British press and writing the English-language pamphlet The Ukrainian Issue. He was Svoboda's London correspondent and later its associate editor. In 1946 he founded ODFFU, served as its first president and edited Visnyk. He died in Florida in 1976.
Milestones
1946
First branches, first Visnyk
Branches form in Newark and New York. A provisional board is elected on 15 June and a national conference follows on 27 October. The first issue of Visnyk appears.
1947
First national convention
Delegates meet at the Belvedere Hotel in New York, elect Eugene Lachowitch president and adopt the founding program. ODFFU is incorporated in New York.
1955
Twenty-nine branches
Membership reaches 2,280 across 29 branches, in nearly every major Ukrainian American center — Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Rochester, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Los Angeles.
1962
The Heroes' Monument
The monument that anchors ODFFU's annual Day of Heroes commemoration is raised at the Ukrainian American Youth Association resort in Ellenville, New York, which had opened in 1955.
1967
The Women's Association
The Women's Association for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine is founded in New York in March, holds its first national convention that year and joins the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations.
1977
Peak membership, and a home in Manhattan
ODFFU counts some 9,500 members; at its height the organization had 57 branches. It acquires 136 Second Avenue in the East Village, still its headquarters today, and publishes a thirtieth-anniversary history of its first three decades.
1991
Ukraine independent
With independence the work shifts: lobbying for Ukrainian interests in the United States, defending human rights and freedoms in Ukraine, preserving national memory and identity, and promoting Ukrainian culture.
2000
Washington roundtables
ODFFU joins the consortium that launches the "Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood" roundtable series in Washington, later institutionalized as the Center for US–Ukrainian Relations.
2022
Full-scale invasion
ODFFU and its Women's Association turn to wartime advocacy, humanitarian support and public education as Russia's full-scale invasion begins.
2026
Eighty years
The XXXII General Meeting and the eightieth-anniversary gala convene in Chicago on 13 June. Yurij Wowczuk is elected president, and delegates set the priorities: strengthen the mission, reach younger Ukrainian Americans, improve communications, support education.
Branches and membership
| Year | Branches | Members |
|---|---|---|
| 1947 | 2 | — |
| 1955 | 29 | 2,280 |
| 1967 | 48 | 8,400 |
| 1977 | — | 9,500 |
| At its peak | 57 | — |
Figures as recorded by the Encyclopedia of Ukraine and the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine. The 1967 count adds nine representations alongside its 48 branches. No membership figures have been published since 1977.
Presidents
Presidents of the Main Executive Board, compiled from ODFFU's own histories, the Encyclopedia of Ukraine and the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine. The record for the 1970s is incomplete and the sources differ on several terms.
- 1946–1948Eugene Lachowitch · Євген Ляхович
- 1948–c. 1953Ihnat Bilynsky · Ігнат Білинський
- 1953–c. 1961Ivan Wowczuk · Іван Вовчук
- 1961–1965Eugene Lozynskyj · Євген Лозинський
- 1965–1971Ivan Vynnyk · Іван Винник
- 1980–1983Lev Futala
- 1983–1989Nicholas Chirovsky · Микола Чировський
- 1989–1996Eugene Hanowsky · Євген Гановський
- 1996–2002Bohdan Fedorak
- 2002–2005Theodore Oleschuk · Теодор Олещук
- 2005–2011Michael Koziupa
- 2011–2019Stepan Kaczurak · Степан Качурак
- 2019–2026Mykola Hryckowian
- 2026–Yurij Wowczuk · Юрій Вовчук
Ivan Wowczuk, president from 1953, had been vice-president of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council and was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1998. Yurij Wowczuk, elected in 2026, is his grandson.
The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine additionally records M. Leskiv, O. Sokolyshyn, R. Borkovsky, Uliana Tselevych-Stetsiuk, S. Halamai, V. Levenets and D. Lenchuk among the organization's heads, without giving dates.
Visnyk and the ODFFU press
Visnyk ("Herald") has been published in New York since 1947 as the organization's journal — monthly for most of its life, quarterly in 1951–52 and again from 1985. It carries writing on politics, culture and history alongside reports from the branches. Eugene Lachowitch was its first editor; Ivan Wowczuk edited it for many years.
Under the ODFFU and Visnyk imprints the organization has published books in Ukrainian and English on Ukrainian history and the struggle for independence, among them the 1984 anthology Kyiv. Its own institutional histories — the thirtieth-anniversary volume covering 1946 to 1976, and the Women's Association's first-decade volume — remain the fullest account of its early years, and both have since been digitized.
Traditions that continue
Day of Heroes
ODFFU has long led the Ukrainian American commemoration of the Day of Heroes, traditionally held over the Fourth of July weekend at the Ukrainian American Youth Association resort in Ellenville, New York, with a wreath-laying at the Heroes' Monument and a Ukrainian American Veterans color guard.
Youth and leadership
ODFFU works closely with the Ukrainian American Youth Association, whose leadership camps and programs it supports. Providing space to Ukrainian nonprofit tenants that raise young Ukrainian Americans in awareness of their heritage is written into the organization's charitable purpose.
Washington and policy
Since 2000, with the Ukrainian American Freedom Foundation and the Center for US–Ukrainian Relations, ODFFU has helped sustain the Ukraine's Quest roundtables, the US–Ukraine Security Dialogue and Euro-Atlantic policy forums.
Public education
Lectures, courses, commemorations and Ukrainian- and English-language publishing have been core work since the 1940s — as were the public demonstrations against Soviet rule that ODFFU organized in American cities throughout the Cold War.
The Women's Association
The Women's Association for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine was founded in New York in March 1967 at the initiative of Uliana Tselevych-Stetsiuk, after women's auxiliaries had already formed within local branches. It held its first national convention that year and joined the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations, and the founding congress of what is now the Ukrainian World Congress.
By the early 1990s it counted about 1,200 members in 16 branches. It marked its fiftieth anniversary in Chicago in 2017 and continues charitable work in Ukraine, including support for the children of fallen soldiers through the Larysa and Uliana Tselevych-Stetsiuk Foundation.
Affiliations
Ukrainian Congress Committee of America
ODFFU is one of UCCA's national member organizations and has worked with it closely since the 1940s, including standing ODFFU columns in the UCCA press. Ivan Wowczuk sat on its political council in the 1950s and 1960s.
Ukrainian World Congress
ODFFU and the Women's Association are both member organizations of the Ukrainian World Congress; the Women's Association took part in its founding congress in 1967.
Ukrainian Liberation Front
Reference works record ODFFU as the United States member of this international coalition of some fifty community, youth, women's and cultural organizations associated with the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, alongside the League of Ukrainian Canadians and the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain. Organizations of the front took the leadership of UCCA at its 1980 convention.
Foundation and veterans' partners
The Ukrainian American Freedom Foundation is ODFFU's longstanding foundation partner, and the Ukrainian American Veterans stand with the organization at its commemorations each year.
136 Second Avenue
ODFFU's headquarters stands on Second Avenue in Manhattan's East Village, on the block long known as Little Ukraine, beside the Ukrainian National Home. Acquired in 1977, the building has sheltered Ukrainian organizations for nearly fifty years; its rental income supports the organization's work, and providing space to Ukrainian nonprofit tenants is written into its charitable purpose.
Watched from Moscow
In March 2024 Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service published declassified Soviet MGB materials on ODFFU's founding. Moscow learned of the new organization almost at once and instructed its New York station to report on it; the file preserves the full text of the 1947 convention resolution. What alarmed the MGB most, the service notes, were the program's provisions framing Moscow's policy as a threat not only to Ukraine but to the whole civilized world. Soviet intelligence never placed a source inside the organization, and the case was closed.
About this account
This history draws on ODFFU's own published volumes, the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine, the archives of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service and contemporary reporting. Published sources differ on several dates and on the order of presidents; where they do, the reading best supported by the record is the one given here, and the uncertainty is stated rather than smoothed over.
Members, branches and families holding photographs, back issues of Visnyk or convention records that would correct or extend this account are warmly invited to write to us.
Governance & accountability
A summary of ODFFU governance, along with legal, tax-status, and financial accountability information, is published on our Accountability page.