Matla, Zynovii (Матла, Зиновій; nom de guerre: Sviatoslav Vovk), 26 November 1910 in Mistky, Lviv county, Galicia, d 23 September 1993 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Political and military figure. An Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists activist, in 1934 he was sentenced to death by a Polish court, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and with the collapse of Poland, he was set free. In 1941 he commanded the Southern Expeditionary Group of the OUN (Bandera faction) (see OUN expeditionary groups). After being promoted to the faction’s leadership (1942–3) he was arrested by the Gestapo. In Germany in 1945, he became a member of the Leadership of the External Units of the OUN. In 1952 he settled in the United States of America. In 1954 he joined with Lev Rebet to form the so-called dviikari (the twosome) opposition to the leadership of Stepan Bandera. In 1956 this opposition formaly became the OUN (Abroad). Matla wrote articles on ideological and political questions, using the pseudomyn O. Lvivsky, and a short book of memoirs, Pivdenna pokhidna hrupa (The Southern Expeditionary Group, 1952).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]