On 5 May 2025, Lviv Polytechnic National University hosted an all-Ukrainian scientific conference on National and State Activity of Ivan and Yurii Lypas (on the occasion of the 160th and 125th birth anniversaries). The event began with a commemoration of Ivan and Yurii Lypas and all the heroes who laid down their lives for a free, independent and sovereign Ukraine.
The conference was opened by Associate Professor Zoriana Kunch, Director of the Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, who stressed the importance of educational work in the context of studying the insufficiently known pages of Ukrainian history.
The newly elected Rector of Lviv Polytechnic, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Nataliia Shakhovska, delivered a welcome speech. The researcher emphasised that Ukrainian society is still forced to continue the struggle for the right to its own identity, for the memory of its heroes and awareness of its national roots. Nataliia Shakhovska noted that Ukraine’s geopolitical situation has led to the need to constantly fight for the nation’s status and the right to international recognition. The professor noted the symbolism of the fact that a conference dedicated to the problems of identity and self-awareness is taking place in a technical university, where science and spirituality are combined – the values that define the face of the Ukrainian nation. She drew particular attention to the figure of Yurii Lypa as an example of such synergy: a medical doctor by training, he was also a national ideologist, combining professional activity with a deep understanding of the national idea.
Ivan (1865–1923) and Yurii (1900–1944) Lypas were father and son, who became important figures in Ukrainian history. Ivan Lypa was born in the Crimea, in the city of Kerch. While studying at the university, in 1891, Ivan Lypa became a co-organiser of the Tarasivtsi Brotherhood, a secret political organisation whose aim was to fight for the national and cultural revival of Ukraine. This underground organisation had a significant impact on the formation of the Ukrainian national idea and became a precursor to later Ukrainian political movements of the early twentieth century. For his participation in the Tarasivtsi Brotherhood and pro-Ukrainian activities, Ivan Lypa was sentenced to 13 months in prison with further restrictions.
Yuriy Lypa is one of the most prominent ideologues of Ukrainian nationalism, a theorist of Ukrainian geopolitics, and the author of the Black Sea Doctrine book. In this work, he argued that Ukraine’s geographical location makes it a key force in the Black Sea region, capable of controlling strategically important trade and transport routes between East and West, North and South. The entire doctrine is aimed at justifying the inevitable collapse of Russian chauvinistic imperialism and laying the foundations for a new geopolitical model of Eastern Europe in which Russia has no place. Yurii Lypa emphasised that Kyiv and Moscow are fundamentally different civilisational centres, absolutely irreconcilable. Only the destruction of the Moscow empire can be a prerequisite for a strong Ukraine.
Yurii Lypa refused to emigrate, he stayed in Ukraine to continue his activities for the benefit of the Ukrainian nation. For his beliefs, he was tortured by the NKVD in August 1944 in the Yavoriv region. As a strategist, thinker and publicist, Yurii Lypa left behind a legacy that has not lost its relevance today – in the context of Ukraine’s armed struggle for survival, for the right to be an independent player on the geopolitical map of the world, to create its own policy, and not to remain an object of other people’s imperial scenarios.
