The Ukrainian Weekly 2011-08

8/7/2019 The Ukrainian Weekly 2011-08

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Published by the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profit association

$1/$2 in UkraineVol. LXXIX No. 8 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2011TheUkrainianWeekly

InsIde:

StatementsbyClintonandGryshchenkopage4. ExpertscommentonHusarsleadershipofUGCCpage8. UAYAofYonkers,N.Y.,celebrates60thanniversarypage13.

by Peter T. Woloschuk

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. A panel ofexperts analyzed the impact of Ukrainian

President Viktor Yanukovychs first yearin office and looked at the implications ofwhat has occurred for future develop-ments at a two-day event (February 7 and8) which included a roundtable seminar,Undoing Ukraines Orange Revolution?The First Presidential Year of ViktorYanukovych, and a session of theUkraine Study Group, YanukovychsUkraine: What Next?

The analysis and overview was spon-sored by Harvard Universitys UkrainianResearch Institute (HURI) and drew spe-cialists and other interested participantsfrom as far away as Washington.

Panelists included Timothy Colton, theMorris and Anna Feldberg Professor ofGovernment and Russian Studies and

Chair of the Department of Governmentat Harvard; Tammy Lynch, a formerSenior Research Fellow at the Institute forthe Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policyat Boston University; and Oxana Shevel,assistant professor of political science atTufts University, associate of HURI andcenter associate of Harvards DavisCenter for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Among the topics discussed were thechanges in Verkhovna Rada, the courtsand other government institutions, the ruleof law, nation-building, attitudes towardthe opposition and the media, foreign pol-icy, a political plan, Western and Russianattitudes toward President Yanukovychand his government, the economy, theaims of the current power elite and the oli-garchs, and, finally, whats next?

The sessions were opened by Dr.Lubomyr Hajda, HURIs associate direc-tor, who also served as moderator of bothevents. It is almost exactly one year since

Mr. Yanukovych was sworn in asUkraines fourth president as the standardbearer for the Party of the Regions, theintroduction of Russian as a second offi-cial language, and the introduction of sta-bility and a managed democracy, Dr.Hajda said. Since taking office, he andhis team have moved with incredibleswiftness to implement changes and havehad a major impact not only on the gov-ernment but on the country as a whole. Itis appropriate, then, to take some time toanalyze what has happened, where thepresident and the country are now, andwhere they seem to be heading.

Speaking first, Prof. Colton spoke firstand said that policy change is normal afterany election but emphasized that inUkraine the changes are as much aboutthe political framework or regime as theyare about mere changes in policy.

He listed some of the biggest changes

that occurred as a result of direct initia-tives by the president, including the for-mation of a new majority coalition in theRada; the Kharkiv accords with Russia,which allows the Black Sea Fleet to stayin Crimea until at least 2042, if not lon-ger; and the change in the countrys for-eign policy doctrine with the de factoabandoning of the quest for NATO mem-bership.

He also pointed out that other changescame about indirectly, most importantly,those instituted by the various Ukrainiancourts including the March 11 decision ofthe Constitutional Court approving theformation of a Rada coalition composedof individual deputies as well as politicalparties and factions; the Donetsk adminis-trative courts June decision that theawarding of the Hero of Ukraine titleposthumously to Stepan Bandera was ille-

HURI roundtable analyzes impactof President Yanukovychs first year

Encyclopedia focuses on Ukraines dissident movementby Zenon Zawada

Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV The first encyclopedia onUkraines Soviet era dissident movementwas published late last year by Kyiv-based Smoloskyp, offering a collectionof extensive biographies of the mostinfluential enemies of the Soviet Unionin a single book.

Resistance Movement in Ukraine1960 to 1990: An Encyclopedia wascomposed by an editing team headed byOsyp Zinkewych, the legendary publish-er who founded the Smoloskyp informa-tion service in the U.S. in 1968. Itbecame a key channel for Ukrainian dis-sidents to communicate with the West.

I wanted for this publication toemerge in my lifetime, Mr. Zinkewych,86, told the audience at the October 2,2010, presentation of the encyclopedia atthe Teachers Building in central Kyiv.

We are people of an elderly age andwe dont know what awaits us tomorrow.We recruited a group of young people,seated here. If we began this work in

another way, I doubt we would have pub-lished it so quickly, he noted.The encyclopedias presentation was a

raucous event, at which the hundreds ofdissidents gathered celebrated the bookspublishing, offering much praise for themonumental work, but also venting

by Yaro Bihun

Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON Ukraine and theUnited States agreed to increase theircooperation in combatting human traf-ficking from Ukraine, countering HIV/AIDS and in developing Ukraines ener-gy resources, especially in the area ofunconventional (shale) gas.

Two bilateral agreements in theseareas were signed on February 15 at theState Department during the third sessionof the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic PartnershipCommission.

U.S. and Ukraine convene meetingof Strategic Partnership Commission

At a special ceremony that morning,Secretary of State Hillary RodhamClinton and Ukrainian Foreign AffairsMinister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, whoheaded their countrys delegations inthese talks, signed the Cooperation Planon combatting trafficking and HIV/AIDS.

Ukraines Minister for Energy andCoal Industry Yuriy Boyko and U.S.Special Envoy for Energy Issues in

Eurasia Ambassador Richard Morningstarthen signed the gas agreement.

In her introductory remarks, Secretaryof State Clinton cited as an example ofthe progress made in combatting humantrafficking the recent repatriation fromUkraine to the United States of a manaccused of making more than $1 millionin trafficking women from Ukraine.

She said that during the three sessionsthus far of the bilateral strategic partner-ship talks, which began in 2009, the twosides have rolled up our sleeves... topursue our common goal of a Ukrainethat is more secure, prosperous and dem-ocratic. And Ukraine is well positioned,she added, to realize its own citizenshope for a genuine democracy and a pros-perous economy.

They have also tackled the problems ofstopping nuclear proliferation, achievingfood security, improving health care,developing Ukraines domestic energyresources and attracting more foreign pri-vate investment, especially from theUnited States, she said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton highlights the accomplishmentsof the third meeting of the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Commission inWashington. She and Ukraines Foreign Affairs Minister Kostyantyn

Gryshchenko spoke in the State Departments Thomas Jefferson Room.

Yaro Bihun

(Continued on page 21)

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3THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2011No. 8

NEWS ANALYSIS

Ukraine struggles to secure next tranche of IMF loanby Pavel Korduban

Eurasia Daily Monitor

Ukraine is once again in difficult talkswith the International Monetary Fund

(IMF) to secure a much-needed thirdtranche of the IMFs $15 billion stand-byloan which was approved last July. Thisis another test for the ability of PrimeMinister Mykola Azarov to reform theeconomy.

Last year, it proved relatively easy topersuade the IMF to resume cooperationas Mr. Azarovs predecessors had beennon-cooperative, while the new govern-ment not only promised reform but madeits first decisive steps such as launchingtax and administrative reforms anddomestic gas price hikes aimed at reduc-ing the fiscal deficit.

Recently, however, the government apparently afraid of losing popularityahead of the parliamentary elections

scheduled for October 2012 becamemore reluctant to reform the economy.This may affect relations with the IMFand this is a warning signal for investors.

An IMF mission arrived in Kyiv onFebruary 1 to assess whether Ukrainequalifies for the next loan tranche, whichthe government hopes to receive inMarch. Ukraine badly needs the trancheas it heavily relies on loans because gov-ernment funds are depleted after a 15 per-cent GDP plunge in 2009.

Successful cooperation with the IMFmakes other loans cheaper, stabilizes thedomestic currency, which lost some 40percent of its value in the 2008 crisis andis still weak, and is important to attractinvestors ahead of the 2012 European

soccer championship for which the gov-ernment pledged to overhaul Ukrainesinfrastructure of roads, hotels and stadi-ums neglected for decades. This will beimpossible without foreign participation.

IMF mission head Thanos Arvanitis,meeting Mr. Azarov on February 4, report-edly admitted that Ukraine has achievedmuch in restoring financial stability andtrust in the banking system. Mr. Arvanitisalso stated that growth trends wereobserved in the economy, as GDP rose bymore than 4 percent last year.

However, Mr. Arvanitis made it clearthat the IMF does not think Kyiv is doingenough. Mr. Arvanitis insisted that gov-ernment spending should be furtherdecreased, that the value-added tax (VAT)must be refunded automatically to export-ers unlike in the previous two years whenmany domestic and foreign companies

Interfax -Ukraine

KYIV Ukraine and the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) have managed toreach a compromise on most provisions ofa memorandum on the economic andfinancial policies of the government,which is being drawn up as part of the nextreview of the cooperation program withthe IMF, the press service of the Ukrainiangovernment reported on February 14, cit-ing Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

I think we have made significant prog-ress in the negotiations and taken a greatstep forward in the past few days. We havereached agreement on almost all of theissues that we had, the press service quot-ed the chief of IMF mission to Ukraine,Thanos Arvanitis, as saying at a finalmeeting with the Ukrainian prime ministerin Kyiv on February 14.

Representing Ukraine at the meetingwere Finance Minister Fedir Yaroshenko,First Vice Minister for Labor and SocialPolicy Vasyl Nadraha, Naftohaz UkrainyCEO Yevhen Bakulin, the head of theState Tax Service, Vitaliy Zakharchenko,and the deputy governor of the NationalBank of Ukraine, Ihor Sorkin.

A source familiar with the course ofnegotiations told Interfax-Ukraine that theparticipants in the meeting had summed up

the results of the work of the mission,which, due to a number of issues that hadyet to be agreed, had extended its visit forseveral days.

The source said that the most controver-sial topics were the dates for conductingpension reform and increasing the tariffsfor natural gas, electricity and hot watersupplies. The Ukrainian side insists on theneed to change the previously announcedschedule.

Visiting representatives of the IMFunderstand the Ukrainian governmentsarguments about the need to increase gasprices for households step-by-step, andgradually implement pension reform, Mr.Azarov said.

They regarded with understanding myarguments in favor of... a step-by-stepincrease in the tariffs [for gas for the popu-lation], and a gradual introduction andimplementation of pension reform, theprime minister told journalists.

At the same time Mr. Azarov noted thatthe IMFs experts had praised theUkrainian governments activities in rais-ing revenues for the budget and imple-menting the memorandum of cooperationin 2010 and early 2011.

The IMF mission in Ukraine earlierplanned to work in Kyiv from February 1to February 11. Its work should result in a

decision on the possible allocation of thenext tranche of a loan to Ukraine.

The IMF decided to renew its loan part-nership with Ukraine in the summer of2010 through a new stand-by program.The approved stand-by program forUkraine is 10 billion in special drawingrights (around $15.6 billion U.S.), which isthe IMFs third biggest assistance programfollowing those for Greece and Romania.

In late July 2010, Kyiv received the first

tranche coming to special drawing rights(SDR) 1.25 billion. The IMF decided inDecember 2010 to allocate a secondtranche worth SDR 1 billion. The programforesees the future quarterly allocation oftranches each worth SDR 1 billion withthe exception of the last tranche, whichwill be worth SDR 750 million.

* * *On February 15, Reuters reported that

the IMF said it would continue talks withKyiv over the next few weeks beforedeciding on the disbursement of the nextloan tranche to Ukraine. The news servicecited the IMF missions statement thatUkraine would be able to soften plannedprice increases for household gas by mak-ing them gradual, but that the Ukrainiangovernment would need to propose off-setting budgetary measures.

Kyiv cites compromise in talks with IMF

IntervIew: exild Ukaiia miis says ws ca l Ukai bcom isoladPRAGUE Earlier this month, the

Czech Republic gave political asylum toa former Ukrainian minister wanted athome on charges of abuse of office. Oneof many top officials from the previous,

pro-Western government to have comeunder investigation since the election of

pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovychlast year, Bohdan Danylyshyn says theaccusations are part of a drive to stifleopposition in Ukraine. He sat down with

RFE/RLs Gregory Feifer in Prague.

Can you explain the charges theUkrainian government has madeagainst you?

Ive been accused of approving gov-ernment purchases involving the DefenseMinistry and the Boryspil internationalairport through a single agent. The years2008 and 2009, during the global finan-

cial crisis, were difficult ones forUkraine. I was doing everything I couldto reduce the number of deals throughthat one broker.

In 2007 [before I took office], dealsworth 133 billion hrv ($16.5 billionU.S.), or 52 percent of all governmentprocurements, were made through him. Inthe first quarter of 2008, it was 61 billionhrv, or more than 77 percent of all deals.

When the Economy Ministry begandealing with the issue [after I tookoffice], the amount dropped to 21 percentin 2008 and around 30 percent in 2009.In those years, especially in 2008, I hadconflicts with the former managers of theagency overseeing tenders, especiallymembers of the Regions and Communistparties from the former government ledby Yanukovych.

I want to stress that there wasnt a sin-gle criminal case launched into activitiesduring the period 2007 to 2008 [whenPresident Viktor Yanukovych was primeminister]. We dont even have documentsshowing spending from that time becausetheyve disappeared and law enforcersarent even interested in them. It showsUkraine has a system of selective justice.

In any case, the Economy Ministrycould only approve procedures and issuepermission letters. It didnt make finaldecisions about deals. That was taken byother ministries or executive agencies in my case, the Defense Ministry.

Can you explain why the govern-ment targeted you?

I criticized the authorities after the newgovernment took office. In one article, Iwrote about 2 billion rubles ($67 million

U.S.) in Russian credits used for fillingholes in the governments budget. Theauthorities couldnt have liked that.Theyve taken measures to make it impos-sible for the opposition and members of theprevious government to speak to themedia. They created an atmosphere of fear.

Before last years presidential elec-tion brought Viktor Yanukovych topower, many in Ukraine and in the

West said they didnt see any real dif-ference between him and his mainrival, former Prime Minister YuliaTymoshenko. Were they wrong?

[Yanukovychs] world view is thatsince I spent time in jail, so will you. Idont have to repeat well-known descrip-tions of whats going on in Ukraines legal


complained that the government did notplay fair, and that the long overdue pen-sion reform should be launched as soon aspossible (www.kmu.gov.ua, February 4).

The IMF is adopting a tough but cor-

rect position. Ukraines state budget defi-cit last year exceeded the 5.5 percent ofGDP agreed on with the IMF, VAT is notrefunded automatically despite Mr.Azarovs promises, and the Cabinet hasnot yet submitted a pension reform bill toParliament although it had promised theIMF that it would do so by January.

Vice Prime Minister Serhey Tigipkowho is in charge of pension reform, fore-cast last month that Parliament would passa pension reform bill in March (UNIAN,January 18). The pension reform will beunpopular as it provides, as the IMF insist-ed, for hiking the retirement age for womenfrom the current 55 to 60 years within thenext 10 years and for male civil servantsfrom 60 to 62 years.

The Cabinet is even more reluctant toincrease household gas prices as of April

2011, also as promised to the IMF lastyear, in order to reduce the deficit of thestate-owned oil and gas company,Naftohaz Ukrainy. First Vice PrimeMinister Andriy Kliuyev told a press con-

ference on February 2 that the cabinetwas against raising natural gas prices forhouseholds in either April or May. Mr.Kliuyev said this would be discussed withthe IMF (UNIAN, February 2).

The previous 50 percent price increaselast August was welcomed by the IMF, butit was not enough to cover the differencebetween the high prices that Naftohaz paysfor Russian gas and the low prices forwhich it is obliged to sell gas at home.

The government has to take much-needed, but unpopular, steps sooner,because it will hardly risk doing so closerto the upcoming elections. The Azarovgovernment may fall into the same trap asits predecessors, such as the Cabinet off o r m e r P r i m e M i n i s t e r Y u l i aTymoshenko, who refused to take unpop-ular measures ahead of the January-

February 2010 presidential electionswhich she had hoped to win (EurasiaDaily Monitor, November 4, 2009). As aresult, the IMF suspended its loan pro-gram, which further exacerbated the situ-

ation in the economy.Speaking ahead of his meeting with

Mr. Arvanitis on February 4, Mr. Azarovsaid that the conditions of cooperationwith the IMF should be revised. Heexplained that there were problems witheconomic growth (UT1, February 4).

This means that Kyiv either expectsthe IMF to turn a blind eye to the govern-ments failure to meet some of its condi-tions and proceed with the next tranche asif nothing had happened, or it wants theIMF to increase the volume of assistance.In either case, the talks with the IMF willbe complicated and the next tranche maybe delayed.

The article above is reprinted fromEurasia Daily Monitor with permission from its publisher, the Jamestown

Foundation, www.jamestown.org.


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No. 8THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 20114

FOR THE RECORD: Statements by Clinton and GryshchenkoFollowing are remarks by U.S. Secretary

of State Hillary Rodham Clinton andUkrainian Foreign Affairs MinisterKostyantyn Gryshchenko delivered onFebruary 15 on the occasion of the thirdmeeting of the U.S.-Ukraine StrategicPartnership Commission and the signing ofa Cooperative Plan on Combating Human

Trafficking in Ukraine. The text was provid-ed by the U.S. State Department.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thankyou all very much for being here. I ampleased to join the minister in hosting thethird session of the United States-UkraineStrategic Partnership Commission. We arecommitted to broadening and deepening therelationship between our two countries. Iwould like to extend a special welcome toPresidential Adviser [Iryna] Akimova,Justice Minister [Oleksander] Lavrynovych,Energy Minister [Yuri i] Boyko,Ambassador [John F.] Tefft, AssistantSecretary [Philip H.] Gordon, Ambassador[Melanne] Verveer, Ambassador [Luis]CdeBaca, and the other distinguished par-ticipants here today.

Since we began these meetings inDecember 2009, we have sought to useour partnership commission to plan andimplement concrete actions that improvethe life for both of our peoples. Theextent of Ukrainian representation in thisroom sends a clear message aboutUkraines commitment and the progressthat it seeks to promote.

In my conversation today with ForeignMinister Gryshchenko, we discussed thechallenges that we face. We covered manytopics, including our effective cooperationto stop nuclear proliferation, our supportfor Ukraines efforts to strengthen its owndemocracy and the rule of law, and prog-ress on global issues from food security to

HIV/AIDS, as well as steps to help

Ukraine develop its domestic energyresources and attract greater private invest-ment, particularly from the United States.

We have rolled up our sleeves,Minister, to pursue our common goal of aUkraine that is more secure, prosperousand democratic.

The truth is that Ukraine is well posi-tioned to realize its own citizens hope for a

genuine democracy and a prosperous econ-omy. It has an educated, innovative popula-tion, deep foundations of democracy,including a vibrant civil society some ofwhom I met earlier today the potential tobecome energy independent, and the capac-ity to lead on key regional and globalissues.

President [Viktor] Yanukovych has said

he is ready to take bold initiatives to exer-cise that leadership. Last year, he pledged toeliminate Ukraines highly enriched urani-um, and Ukraine is fully on schedule toeliminate all of its HEU in 2012. That lead-ership elevated Ukraines standing in theglobal community, bringing full circle aprocess that began in 1994 with Ukraineshistoric decision to give up nuclear weap-

ons. With U.S. assistance, Ukraine has ush-ered in a new era of peaceful nuclear power.

Now we are also looking to Ukraine tocontinue the commitments that PresidentYanukovych has made to transparent gov-ernment, strong rule of law, protection offreedom of speech and media, comprehen-sive judicial reform in partnership with the

Ukrainian people, with stakeholdersthroughout the country, including opposi-tion leaders and members of civil society.Many of the civil society activists here fromUkraine really are committed to strengthen-ing their country, and we support theirgoals. They are really committed to alsobeing a partner with their government, andthey will be working to see more progress.

We also are hoping to see the investmentclimate improve and business open up. Wewant to see Ukraine prosper and think thatthere is an enormous opportunity for that.One example will be the memorandumAmbassador [Richard] Morningstar andMinister of Energy and Coal Boyko willsign today. This MOU [memorandum ofunderstanding] will launch a U.S. geologi-cal survey effort to develop exploration and

development of unconventional gas, andthat is a direct result of a conversation thatthe foreign minister and I began in Kiev[sic] about cooperative energy ventures.

We have negotiated a five-year partner-ship framework to strengthen the deliveryof health services and treatment for

Now we are also looking to Ukraine to con-

tinue the commitments that President Yanu-

kovych has made to transparent government,

strong rule of law, protection of freedom of

speech and media, comprehensive judicial

reform in partnership with the Ukrainian

people

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Washington is also looking forward to

seeing President Viktor Yanukovychrealize his stated commitments to have atransparent government, strong rule oflaw, protection of freedom of speechand media, comprehensive judicialreform in partnership with the Ukrainianpeople... including opposition leadersand members of civil society, SecretaryClinton said.

A delegation of those Ukrainianreformist opposition leaders, headed byOleh Rybachuk of the New Citizen orga-nization, came to Washington a week ear-lier to discuss these issues with U.S. offi-cials and non-governmental organizations(NGOs).

Some of them, including Mr.Rybachuk, stayed to continue this discus-sion during Minister Gryshchenkos visit,

especially during the daylong conferenceFebruary 14 at the Carnegie Endowmentfor International Peace, which coveredthe economic, cultural and democraticdevelopment of Ukraine within the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership.

The U.S. secretary of state thankedUkraine foreign affairs minister for beingpart of the leadership that is heading inthe right direction for Ukraine and theUkrainian people.

Thanking her for what she said, andfor the interest and assistance of hercountry, Minister Gryshchenko under-scored that the United States hasbecome a very important part of our for-eign policy, and we do rely on this strate-gic partnership to help us guide the shape

of our statehood through the waterswhich are not easy.

Ukraine is making progress in trans-forming its economy and social fabric, hesaid. And meeting the high standards oftrans-Atlantic democracies is somethingwhich is very dear to us, he added.

The world is changing all the time,but we rely as a constant on your under-standing and your support in fulfilling

(Continued from page 1)

U.S. and Ukraine...

our ambitious European agenda. Webelieve that Ukraine is destined to be anintegral part of the European Union, andwe think that this strategic cooperationbetween the U.S. and EU should beupheld... in promoting our own goals,said Mr. Gryshchenko.

The signing ceremony was held in theState Departments ornate ThomasJefferson Room overlooking the Mall,its monuments and the Potomac River.

Afterwards, as he was leaving thebuilding, reporters asked MinisterGryshchenko why such meetings are

important. They are important, heanswered, in establishing direct contactsbetween senior officials of both coun-tries responsible for developing theirrelationship in specific important areas.

He added that positive governmentinteraction with NGOs in the UnitedStates and Ukraine is also very impor-tant and that it was demonstrated in thefrank dialogue on various issues dur-

ing the daylong conference at theCarnegie Endowment, which he alsoaddressed.

During the very tight schedule of hisvisit, Minister Gryshchenko also metwith other officials and organizationsimportant to maintaining a good U.S.-Ukraine relationship, among them:Senate Foreign Relations Committee co-chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.); thec o - c ha i r s o f t he Co n g r e s s i o n a lUkrainian Caucus Marcy Kaptur(R-Ohio) and Sander Levin (D-Mich.),and i ts members Alcee Hast ings

(D-Fla.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.); andthe executive director of FreedomHouse, David Kramer.

The foreign affairs minister met withyet another important non-governmentalgrouping for Ukraine on the very firstday of his visit here, February 13. Thatevening, at the Embassy of Ukraine, hemet with representatives and activists ofthe Ukrainian American community,

which, for the most part, is either skepti-c a l o r o u t r i g h t c r i t i c a l o f t heYanukovych administrations domesticand foreign policies.

With Minister of Justice OleksanderLavrynovych, Ambassador to the U.S.

Oleksander Motsyk and NationalDeputy Leonid Kozhara also taking partin the discussion, Minister Gryshchenkopresented the Ukrainian governmentsassessment of its performance andresponded to the Ukrainian Americansconcerns.

Some of the questions focused on thelack of transparency and freedoms ofthe press and speech, corruption and thegovernments pro-Russian stance, aswell as its foot-dragging in the buildingin Washington of the Holodomor monu-ment to the millions of Ukrainian vic-tims of Stalins artificial famine inUkraine in the 1930s.

The current government, the foreignaffairs minister said, is trying to undue

and reform what he indicated was themismanagement and corruption of theprevious administration of PresidentViktor Yushchenko. And its treatment ofthe former Prime Minister YuliaTymoshenko, who has been arrested andcharged with corruption, should beviewed as a prosecution and not perse-cution, he said.

Whatever the case may be, some inthe audience said, Ukraine is having aserious image problem in the West.Minister Gryshchenko disagreed.

While in Washington, the foreignaffairs minister also laid a floral wreathat the Taras Shevchenko Monument,viewed the future site of the plannedHolodomor memorial and visited the

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.T h e i n a u g u r a l s e s s i o n o f U.S.-Ukraine Strategic PartnershipCommission was held December 2009in Washington, with the principals beingSecretary of State Clinton and ForeignAffairs Minister Petro Poroshenko. Thesecond session was held in Kyiv in July2010. The next session of the commis-sion will be convened in Kyiv.

Foreign Affairs Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko (right) answers questions

posed by participants of the daylong conference on the U.S.-Ukraine strategicpartnership at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Seated next to

him is the moderator of the discussion, Ambassador James F. Collins.

Yaro Bihun



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Ukraiia Church hirarchs of north Amrica mt at ecoutrCLEARWATER, Fla. The annual

Encounter of Ukrainian Catholic andUkrainian Orthodox hierarchs of NorthAmerica met in Clearwater, Fla., onJ a n ua r y 2 7 - 2 8 wi t h t he t he m ePossibilities on the Path to Unity WhatWe Hold in Common and Where WeDiffer. The meeting has been held annu-

ally since 2001 to foster discussion onissues relevant to the Churches respec-tive eparchies and to consider the stepsthat might be taken to draw the Churchescloser together, setting an example forecclesiastical life in Ukraine.

Participating in this close-knit brother-hood of Ukrainian hierarchs this yearwere: Metropolitan Constantine pri-mate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churchof U.S.A. (UOC-U.S.A.) and archbishopof the Central Eparchy; MetropolitanStefan Soroka primate of the UkrainianCatholic Church in the U.S.A. (UCC-U.S.A.) and archbishop of thePhiladelphia Archeparchy; MetropolitanLawrence Huculak primate of theUkrainian Catholic Church of Canada

(UCC-Canada) and archbishop of theWinnipeg Archeparchy; MetropolitanYurij primate of the UOC of Canada andarchbishop of Winnipeg; ArchbishopAntony of the Eastern Eparchy of theUOC-U.S.A.; Bishop Richard Seminackof the Chicago Eparchy of the UCC-U.S.A.; Bishop Stephen Chmilar of theToronto Eparchy of the UCC-Canada;Bishop Paul Chomnycky of the StamfordEparchy of the UCC-U.S.A.; BishopDavid Motiuk of the Edmonton Eparchyof the UCC-Canada; Bishop John Bura ofthe Parma Eparchy of the UCC-U.S.A.;Bishop Kenneth Nowakowsky of the NewWestminster Eparchy of the UCC-Canada; Bishop Andriy of the SaskatoonEparchy of the UOC-Canada; BishopDaniel of the Western Eparchy of theUOC-U.S.A.; and Bishop Bryan Bayda ofthe Saskatoon Eparchy of the UCC-Canada.

Bishop Ilarion of the EdmontonEparchy of the UOC-Canada was unableto be present this year and BishopEmeritus Basil Losten of the StamfordEparchy of the UCC-U.S.A. was a guestat the meetings.

To broaden discussion on this yearstheme, the hierarchs invited one priestfrom each Church to make presentationsreflecting on this theme. The Rev.Stephen Wojcichowsky, director of theMetropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Instituteof Eastern Christian Studies at theUniversity of St. Paul in Ottawa, present-ed from the Ukrainian Catholic perspec-

tive. The Very Rev. Dr. Jaroslav Buciora,pastor of the Protection of the Mother ofGod Cathedral (Sobor) and professor oftheology at St. Andrew College/Seminaryin Winnipeg, presented from theUkrainian Orthodox perspective.

The Rev. Wojcichowsky summarizedsome of the existing dialogues that have

taken place between the Catholic andOrthodox Churches on a broader horizon

the North American Orthodox-CatholicConsultation, founded in 1965 and theJoint Committee of Orthodox andCatholic Bishops, founded in 1981 bothof which have issued numerous agreedstatements concerning the many ele-ments of faith that the two sides have incommon, concerning the sacraments, the-ology, dogma, etc.

They have also discussed the most vex-ing problems about which agreement isdifficult to establish and The Rev.Wojcichowsky presented the thoughts ofvarious modern Eastern Catholic theolo-gians about these problems and proposeda theological consultation, which wouldbe able to produce more in-depth and spe-cific documents for dialogue.

The Rev. Buciora offered his reflectionTowards the Future Dialogue of theChurches, suggesting that the partici-pants in any such dialogue must be pre-pared to answer in-depth questions aboutthemselves and their own ecclesiologyprior to the initiation of a serious dialogueand must be prepared to abandon anyprejudice held toward theologians fromthe other side. He further noted that

Ukrainian theologians must be includedin the broader dialogues rather than per-mit others to speak in their behalf. Thepresent Encounters and other discus-sions between the Ukrainian Catholic andUkrainian Orthodox Churches couldbecome the catalyst for the resurgence ofour own religious identity, imperative at

the present time, he noted.The participants must be consistent

and theologically mature in their quest forunity, must listen to one another, bepatient about what has taken place in his-tory, and not [be] afraid to look intoeach others eyes with love, where theywill see each other as brothersinChrist, the Rev. Buciora said.

In their discussions the hierarchs at theEncounter pointed to the development of

their relationship, which has not goneunnoticed by the various ecclesiasticalbodies throughout the world. When theEncounters began a decade ago, the intentwas to create an opportunity for the bish-ops to become more familiar with oneanother and to counter the incomprehensi-ble conflicts that were deeply damagingChrists Church in newly independentUkraine.

The bishops have seen the need tomove toward the creation of a permanentUkrainian Orthodox-Catholic TheologicalConsultation, which will consist of bothhierarchs and theologians from bothChurches to prepare in-depth analyses forconsideration at future Encounters. Eachof the four jurisdictions two in theU.S.A. and two in Canada will soon

make their appointments to thisConsultation.

The hierarchs decided to continue thisyear with their effort to speak with a com-mon voice to the faithful of the Churchesthrough epistles on the occasion of the25th anniversary of the Chornobyl nucle-ar disaster, Ukraines independence and

the Holodomor.They will also address in the very near

future a common letter to the Canadianand U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine and tothe U.S. State Department and CanadasMinistry of Foreign Affairs, to expressconcerns about the extreme dangerUkraine faces if the actions of the presentgovernment continue to align the countrywith Russia and turn away from theWestern orientation of previous govern-

ments.Great concern will also be expressed

about the interference of the present gov-ernment in ecclesiastical life in particu-lar the unmasked favoritism shown forthe Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate.

Plans are in development for a sympo-sium to be sponsored by the Encounter in2013 on the occasion of the 1,025th anni-versary of the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine.Decisions about the location and extent ofthe symposium and events surrounding itwill be concluded by the next Encounter.In preparation for this symposium there isa desire on the part of the bishops to trav-el to both Constantinople and Rome tovisit with both Pope Benedict XVI and

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I toinform them about the Encounters and toexpress the deep desire to resolve theissues that divide the Body of Christ, aswell as to seek their support for unitedecclesiastical life in Ukraine.

The next Encounter is scheduled forSpring 2012 in Colona, British Columbia.

Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs who gathered for the 2011 Encounter.

ImmigrationjudgeordersdeportationofJohnKalymonPARSIPPANY, N.J. The Department

of Justice, Office of Public Affairs,reported on February 2 that an immigra-tion judge in Detroit had ordered John(Ivan) Kalymon of Troy, Mich., removed

from the United States because of his par-ticipation in Nazi-sponsored acts of per-secution while serving during World WarII as an armed member of the auxiliarypolice in Nazi-occupied Lviv, Ukraine.

The removal order was issued by U.S.Immigration Judge Elizabeth Hacker. Mr.Kalymon, 89, immigrated to the UnitedStates from Germany in 1949 andbecame a U.S. citizen in 1955.

In 2004, the Department of Justicefiled a lawsuit seeking revocation of Mr.Kalymons U.S. citizenship. Followingtrial, a federal judge granted that requestin 2007, finding that Mr. Kalymon had

participated in the rounding up and shoot-ing of Jews and had concealed that activi-ty when he applied for entry into theUnited States.

In a 28-page decision dated January31, Judge Hacker ordered Mr. Kalymondeported to Germany, Ukraine, Poland orany other country that will admit him.

Mr. Kalymons lawyer, Elias Xenos,said, it is very likely we will appeal the

deportation order, a process that can takeyears. His comment was reported by theReuters news service.

The Detroit Free Press reported thatlast fall Judge Hacker had declined Mr.

Xenos request to hold a mental compe-tency hearing for his client, who suffersfrom dementia and prostate cancer. Thenewspaper added that Mr. Kalymon isunder no immediate threat of removalbecause his case could be appealed forseveral years.

Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of humanrights enforcement strategy and Policyfor the Criminal Divisions Human

Rights and Special Prosecution Section(HRSP), commented in the JusticeDepartments news release: IvanKalymon was part and parcel of the Nazimachinery of persecution.

The Department of Justices CriminalDivision announced the formation ofHRSP on March 30, 2010, as part of theU.S. governments efforts to bring humanrights violators to justice and deny thoseviolators safe haven in the United States.The new section represents a merger ofthe Criminal Divisions Domestic



6/24


Seven years ago, on February 22, 2004, the UkrainianNational Association marked its 110th anniversary.

A greeting from the UNA Executive Committee, quotingwords from Svoboda written in 1893, stated:

Just as fish needs water, as the bird must have wings, as

the thirsty need to drink and the hungry need bread, just aseveryone of us needs air, so do we Rusyns scattered across this land need a nationalorganization, namely such a brotherhood, such a national union that would embraceeach and every Rusyn, no matter where he lives. One man cannot lift a heavy stone,but when three or four men put their strength to I, the stone will be lifted

These words were a rallying cry to prompt support for a brotherhood that wouldunite all Ukrainians who found themselves in this new land called America. It was 117years ago that 10 brotherhoods, having total assets of $229 and a combined member-ship of 439 resolved to become what is now known as the Ukrainian NationalAssociation, dedicated to the community, with assets now in the millions of dollarsand membership in the tens of thousands.

The organization has overcome many challenges in its history, and has expandedfrom its founding as a provider of member benefits after death to include much more.The UNA sought ways to incorporate the growing number of new immigrants fromUkraine into this unifying organization, and found that many were uninformed aboutwhat the UNA is and does. This has since changed and many new immigrants havebecome members.

Using the revenue from its sales and membership dues, the UNA has supported itsnewspapers Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, the Soyuzivka Heritage Center, and

cultural, educational and social programs within the diaspora community and in Ukraine.The 110th anniversary greeting concluded:Our publications provide a well-developed communications network. Building

on this as a foundation, the UNA can be the conduit that ties together the widely dis-persed community through a new global and electronic communications network. Assuch, we will continue adhering to the UNAs original purpose: preserving our uniquecultural heritage, extending charity and maintaining fellowship.

Source: Happy Birthday, UNA! In celebration of our 110th year, The UkrainianWeekly, February 22, 2004.

Feb.

222004

Turning the pages back...

The Ukrainian National Association, the oldest and largest Ukrainian fraternalorganization as well as the oldest and largest continuously active Ukrainian com-munity organization in North America will be celebrating the 117th anniversaryof its founding on February 22. It was on that date in 1894 in Shamokin, Pa., thatthe UNA was established to organize Ukrainian immigrants in the United Statesand to reinforce their identity as both Ukrainians and new Americans. In Canada,the first branches of the UNA were organized a decade later.

Since its beginnings, the UNA has played a crucial role in diverse facets of ourcommunity life, although we would hazard a guess that most people know theUNA best as the publisher of two newspapers Svoboda in Ukrainian and TheUkrainian Weekly in English as well as the owner of the Soyuzivka HeritageCenter. The UNA has been an educator, a defender of human rights, a proponent ofUkraines independent statehood, a patron of the arts, a promoter of sports, a friendto students, a publisher of numerous Ukrainian- and English-language books andother publications, and an initiator and advocate of countless community projects.

In the past year, the UNA has done much to enhance and update its image forthe present and future. The most visible sign of that, of course, was the organiza-tions new logo, which was unveiled prior to the 37th Convention held in May2010 and then heartily endorsed by the convention delegates, who saw the UNAsnew look as reflecting its readiness to move forward and to meet the challenges ofthe future. The revised logo, as we explained on the pages of this newspaper, con-tained all the key elements of the UNAs logo throughout history. However, therevised logo also has a modern feel, with cleaner lines and a simplified look befit-

ting the 21st century. The modern logo now appears on all UNA communications(letterheads, business cards, advertisements, brochures, etc.).

In a related development, the UNAs charitable arm, the Ukrainian NationalFoundation, selected an official logo as part of the UNAs overall re-branding ini-tiative. As a registered 501 (c) (3) corporation, the UNF continues the UNAs tradi-tion of promoting educational, cultural and humanitarian causes for the benefit ofthe Ukrainian community in the United States, Canada and Ukraine. The UNA,and more recently its UNF, have awarded over $2 million in scholarships; dona-tions to Ukrainian community projects exceed $5 million.

Another major change for the UNA in the year since its 116th anniversary wasthe reconstruction of its website, which offers visitors simplified navigation, pro-viding easy access to pertinent and useful information about the UNA, its products,fraternal benefits available to members, contact information for personnel at theUNA Home Office as well as branch secretaries throughout the United States andCanada, and the latest news about the organization. Whats more, information onthe website is available in both the English and Ukrainian languages. We shouldpoint out that the website is also a resource center for UNA secretaries, organizersand field agents. (We advise readers to check out www.UkrainianNational

Association.org to see for themselves the new websites features.)Seen in its entirety, the UNAs new look and new focus or rebranding, if you prefer is a strong indication of this venerable organizations continued vitality and its deter-mination to stay true to the mission of its founding fathers. The UNA in 1894 becamethe foundation of our Ukrainian community life; today, in 2011, it remains the corner-stone of our community. Long may it continue to serve in this all-important role.

The UNA at 117

The UkrainianWeeklyCOMMENTARY

They will not singby Mykola Riabchuk

During my schooldays, I heard an inter-esting account of the etymology of theword shantrapa ( antrap), broadly used

in Soviet slang to define petty thugs or, asa dictionary more politely suggests,worthless persons. The word had argu-ably come from the French ne chanterapas, meaning will not sing. It referredto actors who lacked a singing voice andwere used in operas as mere figureheads

just to give the appearance of a huge cho-rus on the stage. In actuality, one diction-ary claims, the word originated from theCzech antrok, ntrh (liar) and oldGerman santrocke (fraud).

Whatever the truth, the word hasregained broad currency in Ukraine with-in the past year, referring both to the rul-ing elite and to the habits they reintroduceand reinforce at all levels of societal life.

One of the notable luminaries who

deployed the term recently was TarasChornovil, a defector from the Orangecamp and ardent supporter of ViktorYanukovych dur ing the OrangeRevolution. Some time ago, he left theParty of Regions after a serious disagree-ment with Mr. Yanukovychs personnelpolicy, but he still remains a member ofthe pro-government majority in theParliament and, in his own words,support[s] the government and tr[ies], asfar as possible, to avoid fighting with thepresident. In sum, he is neither a clear-cut loyalist nor a member of the opposi-tion. This might be a good position forrather impartial observations of politicalshenanigans, especially if combined withinsider knowledge of both camps.

Yanukovych, Mr. Chornovil says,

gave shantrapa a free hand. Even under[President Viktor] Yushchenko, shantrapadid not behave so defiantly; there wassomeone who supervised them Therewas no control from the top, but at leastat the middle level, there were some peo-ple authorized by Yushchenko who tookcare of something, more or less. And,from time to time, they attacked shantra-pa, keeping them at bay. Now its gone.And shantrapa reigns unchecked. First,they pillage en masse, and second, theyshut up all opponents Here we have anabsolute lawlessness (bespredel) at thelevel of local authorities, law-enforce-ment agencies, and so on (http://from-ua.com/politics/c3bdfdac02c3c.html).

The phenomenon is barely new. Long

ago, it was observed in Russia, wherecritics of Vladimir Putins regime arguedthat he created an atmosphere of lawless-ness and brutality, so familiar and conve-nient for the post-Soviet elite that he didnot necessarily need to commission themurder of Anna Politkovskaya, orNatalya Estemirova, or other humanrights activists.

He just signaled to society that revolu-tionary expediency, not the law, reignedsupreme, and that all the enemies of theregime should be cooled off in cess-pools. This was a clear message to allthe thugs both inside and outside the gov-ernment that they had a free hand todecide arbitrarily who was the enemy andwhen and how they should be cooled off.

This is exactly what is happening nowin Ukraine. All the shantrapa who weresomewhat unnerved by the revolution andhad kept a rather low profile under Mr.Yushchenkos feckless rule, are now taking

revenge, encouraged by Mr. Yanukovychscomeback and his unscrupulous words anddeeds.

Try to imagine how post-Soviet offi-cials (rather Soviet, than post-) feel whenthey see that corruption is tolerated at thetop and only political disloyalty causes aproblem; or when they hear the presidentwarning opposition mayors that he will(literally) tear off their legs and screw offtheir heads. This is a clear signal to all theloyalist bureaucrats, police officers, judgesand prosecutors, to all the unreformed hostof homo Sovieticus to tear and screw offwhatever they wish and whoever they feelappropriate.

And they do. The number of violentcrimes against journalists within the pastyear increased exponentially; the numberof cases of tortures and obscure deaths incustody, recorded by the reputable KharkivHuman Rights Group, doubled and tripled;the number of illegal searches, arrests,

detentions and politically motivated inter-rogations exceeded everything that hadhappened within the previous two decades.

What kind of restraints can officials feelafter they see how thugs from the rulingparty (real thugs placed on the list of theParty of Regions as former drivers andbodyguards of oligarchs) savagely beatopposition national deputies (many ofwhom were hospitalized with brokenlimbs)? What conclusion would a police-man make after listening to the descriptionof the incident in the Parliament made byone of the Regions bosses, MykhailoChechetov: There was no beating.Probably they broke their own headsagainst the wall and now try to accuse us(http://glavred.info/archive/2010/12/17/

170622-9.html).It is no surprise that the number ofdetainees in Ukrainian prisons (not neces-sarily political inmates) who beat andinjure themselves, and commit veryunusual suicides has dramaticallyincreased since President Yanukovychsinstallation. Some reports from police pre-cincts sound like black humor: in Kharkiv,the Loziv district police departmentacquired some fame when, within a weekof their arrest, two detainees fell from thefourth floor window during interrogation,allegedly committing suicide eventhough in both cases the relatives claim thevictims were severely beaten beforehand(http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine_police_brutality/2296124.html).

Mr. Yanukovychs spin-doctors, interna-

tional lobbyists, and Ukrainian diplomatswork hard to whitewash his image and todownplay the systemic and escalatingcharacter of abuses of power under hispresidency.

One of them, smartly enough, has rec-ognized recently that the corruption hereis a precondition of doing business, the

judiciary in Ukraine is a disaster, thementality of the SBU is not helpful, andso forth. Nonetheless, he assured readers,Ukraine is headed in the right direction,and most of the embarrassing, stupid andsomewhat cruel actions are random, thereis no pattern, and, perhaps most encour-aging, people in Yanukovychs adminis-tration arent really bad people. Maybethey lack confidence, maybe they are

poorly educated, and a bit provincial, with-out good knowledge of the laws and theConstitution. But they are not stone-coldkillers and these are not the kind of peoplethat try to establish an authoritarian state(http://www.day.kiev.ua/303062).

One may recollect here a similar revela-tion of President George W. Bush who

Mykola Riabchuk is an author andjournalist from Ukraine, and a leadingintellectual who is affiliated with the

journal Krytyka. (Continued on page 8)


7/24


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dear Editor:

Thank you for publishing MarthaBohachevsky-Chomiaks superb article

o n M e t r o p o l i t a n C o n s t a n t i n eBohachevsky (January 30).

His commitment to education and highstandards is more relevant today thanever. The Ukrainian Churches of NorthAmerica have some beautiful real estateintended for educational purposes.Archbishop Bohachevskys example willcertainly inspire his spiritual children tofill those buildings with programs thatprovide the kind of instruction and intel-lectual guidance that our people hungerfor, but which they sometimes cannotfind in their own communities.

The continuing education of the clergyand the theological formation of the laityneed to become a priority if our commu-nities are to regain and/or retain vibrancy.

Without a vision, the people perish(Prov. 29:18).

The archbishop sacrificed much to cre-ate centers of vision. Investing in peopleand their education will help those cen-ters flourish with renewed vitality!

Very Rev. Peter Galadza, Ph.D.Ottawa

The letter-writer is Kule FamilyProfessor of Liturgy at the Sheptytsky

Institute, St. Paul University.

A comment

about Snyder

Re: Bohachevskys

commitment

My family and friends are blas, andeven joke about the phrase Orysia vseznaye, said when so very often peoplefrom all over contact me about thingsUkrainian. Orysia will know. Hah! Ifthey only knew how much she doesntknow! But still, they do call and write,and some mysteries do get solved. AsIve said so many times before, youcouldnt make these things up if youtried!

So the e-mail from Andrij Makukh, asenior manuscript editor of the onlineEncyclopedia of Ukraine at CIUS Pressin Toronto, was just another query, anobscure, truly nebulous one. The e-mailsare included here with permission of theauthors.

I was wondering whether you (basi-cally off the top of your head or with theaid of a book right beside you ratherthan any great searching) might haveany idea of the song to which this fellowis alluding? It may be, forgive the word-ing, something akin to searching for aneedle in a haystack, but we do try toanswer the queries that come our way.Percy Black wrote: Im looking for anold Ukrainian folk melody that may dealwith gathering in the harvest. The firstword may begin with what sounds to meas `Tvee-oo. Im especially interested inthe music score. Can you help?

Intrigued, I mention to Andrij thatbecause there is no Ukrainian word evenclose to tvee-oo, Im guessing hes

hearing siyu (sowing)? There are oneor two songs like that. I then write toPercy that there are around 50 millionUkrainian songs, give or take a few Ifthis is a ritual harvest song, Im guess-ing it may begin siyu, i.e., I am sow-ing. Well, chronologically it would notbe a harvest song, but maybe it ends upwith gathering what was sown? I askfor more information.

Percy replies: Wow, Orysia, you mayhave hit on the very song that was oneof my late mothers favorites. She lov-ingly remembered the song from herchildhood in the early 1900s, and shesang it often so that it became implantedin my musical memory. I can easily callit to mind and it easily translates into my

singing voice. My daughter, Deborah, anaccomplished musician, would like toplay the melody on her cello at theupcoming annual Nurses Day event atthe Central Vermont Medical Center...What were especially hoping is that youmay be able to refer us to the notes forthe song so that Debbie could practicethe piece before the big event. I wish Icould musically convey the song to you.Your reaching back to me so responsiblyis itself a melody.

We make arrangements, and Percycalls. We have a great conversation,becoming acquainted. Again, I cautionhim that this is more than searching for aneedle in a haystack. And he sings in astrong, easy baritone. Da-da-da-da

The melody seems familiar, almost,almost familiar, but many decadesremoved and from a childs memory. Aslight variation of something I think Iknow. Again, please, Percy. Im notsure, but the closest song I can think of,and I sing to him, is Viyut vitry, viyutbuini, azh dereva hnutsia (The windsare blowing, the fierce winds, so strong-ly the trees are bending)

Thats it! Thats it!!! Percy and Iare laughing and crying at the sametime. That is the song! In one try! Weare both so happy, and so befuddled thatwe got the song on the first try! Now Ihave to send Percy the notes. No prob-lem, because this is such a well-knownand beloved song, from the operaNatalka Poltavka (1819) by IvanKotliarevsky, music by A. Barsytsky,and later by Mykola Lysenko. A sadsong about heartache my heart achesbut the tears dont come.

Percy is effusive in his praise of mydetective work. To me, it is just recog-nizing a variation of a well-known andbeloved melody. Wow! Just as youassured me in your first note, despite the

dark shadows that stood in the way ofyour taking hold of a song with only oneword, poorly communicated, and withno melody against a backdrop of agoogle of Ukrainian folk melodies anddespite these million-to-one odds, youcame up with the song, the lyricist andthe composer.

I send Percy a copy of the score. Hethen reports what happened next:

This past May 6, a the large audi-ence gathered at Central VermontHospital to celebrate Nurses Day in theUnited States and in particular to presentRose Black awards for NursingExcellence to outstanding nurses. Aspart of the truly elegant arrangementsthat had been prepared by the president

and administration of the hospital, theprogram called for a cello interlude bymy daughter, Dr. Deborah Black.

I introduced the first of Deborahstwo pieces, the Ukrainian melody,Viyut, by Kotliarevsky (lyrics) andBarsytsky (music), a song often on mymother, Rose Blacks lips as sheexpressed longing for her early life inher village Lukashovka [sic] in Ukraine[near Kyiv]. Although the piece is short,Debbies cello sounds evinced thehaunting meaning from the music andthis brought forth empathic applausefrom the audience both for the melodyand for Mom...

Dear Orysia, my family are deeplygrateful for your willingness to under-

take the long shot into the 50 millionUkrainian songs to search for the onethat this stranger, Percy Black, who pre-sented himself at your e-mail door to askfor your expertise in Ukrainian culture.Now the song and its makers have founda new airing among a large audience inVermont, and for the Black Family afirm connection to a beloved melody oftheir Mom and Grandma... close to theheart of Rose Black.

Percy then wrote about his motherslife in a Jewish family in Lukashivkaand the young couples escape from thewars through Rumania in 1919. Thefamily then lived in Montreal and, afterRoses husband died, she moved to NewYork City to be near her children.

A few days after Percy and I talked, Iwas meeting some friends for dinner,and told the story, and sang the song.One of the women was thrilled Thatsthe song my baba always sang! Do youhave the notes?!

Yes, I did.

A melody mystery

Rahm Emanuels

grandfathers roots

Dear Editor:

I would like to take exception toOksana Bashuk Hepburns No. 10 on herBest of the Year list (January 30) Prof.Timothy Snyder. His recent bookBloodlands is indeed an impressivehistorical account of World War II asexperienced by Ukraine and its neigh-bors. It is well-written, well-researched,and elicits empathy for our people.

The Ukrainian community hasembraced him because he is an Americanhistorian from Yale signifying gravitas.However, the Ukrainian American com-munity should be aware that Prof. Snyderhas written many other books and articlesand in many he is very condemning of

the people of western Ukraine. In theReconstruction of Nations his focus onUkrainian-Polish relations skims throughUkrainian grievances and focuses on the

The things we do ...by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

Orysia Tracz may be contacted at [email protected].

Dear Editor:

Vasyl Markus, Jr. cites Chicago may-oral candidate Rahm Emanuels referenceto his grandfathers having come to

Chicago in 1917 from the Russian-Romanian border (Letter to the Editor,February 6). He concludes that Mr.Emanuels grandfather actually camefrom Transcarpathia, which was not apart of Russia.

In the absence of any other evidence, Isee no reason to assume that Mr.Emanuel was referring to Transcarpathia.The Russian-Romanian border beforeWorld War I ran along the Prut. On theRussian side of that river was Bessarabia,later in the Moldavian SSR and now inMoldova. It seems plausible that this iswhere Mr. Emanuels grandfather origi-nated. Whether Bessarabia should beconsidered historically Russian orRomanian or something else is an issuethat, fortunately, we dont have to dealwith.

Andrew SorokowskiWashington

tragedy of Volyn (1943).However, his blog in The New York

Times Review of books is egregious. AFascist Hero for Ukraine is a screedagains t Stepan Bandera of theOrganization of Ukrainian Nationalists(OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army(UPA), and not worthy of this professor.

His attacks are many, but comparingBandera to Stalin Bandera opposedStalin but that does not mean that the twomen were entirely different is beyondthe pale. Also, describing the OUN asanti-Polish, criminals, terrorists, fas-cists... to a Ukrainian audience is quitedisconcerting. The OUNs evolving ide-ology in the decades of incomprehensibleturmoil is described, according to Prof.Snyder, with a single epithet fascism.

Prof. Snyder is appalled by Banderasstatue in Lviv. I wonder if he is asappalled by all those statues of Gen.Jozef Pilsudski in Poland. Certainly histerrorist tactics were far worse than thoseof the OUN. The Poles are allowed theirheroes the Ukrainians are not.

Prof. Snyder should not politicize hishatred of the OUN and the UPA so as notto betray the respect the UkrainianAmerican community has conferred onhim.

Lydia Kossak KernitskyColts Neck, N.J.

Your e-mail messages to the WeeklY

Due to the quantity of messages The Ukrainian Weekly receives at its address

([email protected]), we kindly ask senders to have consideration for those

on the receiving end.

1. If you send us a message by e-mail, please expect that we will respond like-

wise. Therefore, please do not block our responses or ask us to fill out request

forms in order to become approved senders. (We simply havent got the time

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2. If you send us information in attachment form, please do not label the attach-

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tion thereof. Please use an appropriate label for your attachment that will distin-guish it from others. (Do you know how many attachments we receive that are

called Ukrainian Weekly?)

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your stories. Please send good quality jpg files to us directly. (Please do not

send us digital photos that are low resolution and therefore not suited for repro-

duction most photos taken at low resolution are suitably for the web only.)

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation!


8/24


claimed some time ago to have discovereda true democrat, having gazed into thedeep, snake-like eyes of Mr. Putin. But wewill not engage in reminiscences about thepast. We just note that the featuresobserved above in the Yanukovych admin-istration by his American lobbyist areexactly what political shantrapa is about.And the low-level shantrapa sense themood and respond accordingly.

If the president can nominate an outspo-ken Ukrainophobe, Dmytro Tabachnyk, asminister of education, one should not besurprised when a traffic policeman some-where in Odesa responds to a citizen who

approaches him in Ukrainian that hedoesnt speak that cow language aninsult to a Ukrainian, that can be comparedto calling someone in the U.S. the N-word.

Like masters, like servants

Whatever the PR-specialists might claimabout the random character of multipleabuses of power in Ukraine, the sheer statis-tics collected by human rights NGOs, both

domestic and international, demonstrate the

opposite: they are ubiquitous, definitelysystemic, and growing dramatically innumber and scope since Mr. Yanukovychassumed power. In other words, this is not adeviation, but rather is typical of the sort oflawless, authoritarian normacy that isbeing introduced in Ukraine.

In such a context, all talk about order,stability and the fight against corruptionsound hypocritical. And all attempts atreforms without the rule of law arefutile.

Maybe President Yanukovychs lobby-ists are right: he is not a bad man, and hisassociates are not stone-cold killers, asBruce Jackson puts it, and some of themperhaps are even smart enough to be run-ning a software company in Washingtonstate. I dont know.

I know, for sure, however, that theywill not sing.

The article above is reprinted from theblog Current Politics in Ukraine (http://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com/) createdby the Stasiuk Program for the Study ofContemporary Ukraine, a program of theCanadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies atthe University of Alberta.

(Continued from page 6)They will not...

Church experts comment on Major Archbishop Lubomyr Husars leadershipby Illya M. Labunka

Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV In the wake of PatriarchLubomyr Husars official resignation ashead of the Ukrainian Greek-CatholicChurch (UGCC) on February 10,Ukraines leading Church experts have

begun to assess Major ArchbishopHusars leadership over the last decade byproviding a historical, pastoral-adminis-trative and sociological-theological per-spective on the primates legacy.

According to Dr. Oleh Turiy, chair ofthe Department of Church History at theUkrainian Catholic University in Lviv, onthe one hand, Patriarch Lubomyrs resig-nation may seem unsettling, because nospecific successor had been appointedprior to the resignation, while on the otherhand, the primate on many an occasion,clearly and unequivocally stated that hewished to pass on the leadership of theChurch while he himself is still able towitness the transfer of authority. Andwhat is most important, in Dr. Turiys

words, His Beatitude kept his word.The challenge and uncertainty current-ly facing the UGCC is certainly notunknown in the history of a Church thathas been tested numerous times by analo-gous and even more precarious situations,according to Dr. Turiy. If we look at thefour previous transfers of authority in theUkrainian Catholic Church, we see thateach transfer took place at a critical timeaccompanied by doubt, consternation,heated debates and even outright dis-agreements, stated Dr. Turiy.

For example, when MetropolitanAndrey Sheptytsky was installed as the35-year old head of the UkrainianCatholic Church in 1901, many patrioticUkrainian Catholics considered this event

a catastrophe, because the Poles nowhad their agent on St. Georges Hill, hesaid. Nevertheless, when we look backat the history of the 20th century, we real-ize that Metropolitan Andrey became thespiritual and national leader of allUkrainians, a figure of universal signifi-cance, whose legacy reaches far beyondthe Greek-Catholic or even nationwideUkrainian community. (For more on thistopic see Dr. Turiys analysis in TheWeekly issue dated February 13.)

By examining the past century, itbecomes clear that each transfer of lead-ership within the Ukrainian Greek-

Catholic Church has been marked, with-out exception, by significant political,socio-economic, national and ecclesiasti-cal crises, all exacerbated by a sense of

uncertainty, criticism and fear of theunknown.

At a time when Ukrainian state offi-cials confuse the notion of a humble andpious Church with that of a subservientand pocket-money-oriented Church,Myroslav Marynovych, vice-rector of theUkrainian Catholic University and presi-dent of its Institute on Religion andSociety, offered his perspective onPatriarch Lubomyrs pastoral-administra-tive legacy.

Today, the clergy often turn a blindeye all in the name of separation ofChurch and state when it comes to theshameful behavior of the regime, whilethe people and state, instead of beingpartners in serving a common good, go

their separate ways. Thus, in this murkyworld, Patriarch Husar is an as-of-yetunappreciated symbol of harmony,because his attributes of truth, love, devo-tion and piety are no ones political alliesand could never become someone elsesmanipulative instruments, stated Mr.Marynovych.

In addit ion, according to Mr.Marynovych, Patriarch Lubomyrs effortsand guidance contributed substantiallytowards the consolidation of the Synod ofBishops and the creation of thematic ses-sions as integral components of thePatriarchal Sobor of the Ukrainian Greek-

Catholic Church. Furthermore, monasticlife has flourished and expanded its activ-ities through the creation of annualmonastic sobors and conferences, while

Ukrainian Catholic laypersons have gal-vanized to establish numerous religiousorganizations.

Finally, Cardinal Husar has proposedsuch a path towards unity for allUkrainian Christians of the Kyivan tradi-tion, which does not undermine the attri-butes of their devotion and transforms thehistorical intricacies into a mutually spiri-tual experience, concluded Mr.Marynovych.

Unity, stability and a sense of normal-cy are only three of the axioms whichcould partially characterize PatriarchLubomyrs legacy, according to the Rev.Dr. Borys Gudziak, rector of theUkrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

By maintaining unity within all the

eparchies on the territory of Ukraine, andall the exarchates and pastoral missionssituated in dozens of countries on fivecontinents, and by promoting and strivingfor unity among our Churches, PatriarchLubomyr has proven to be a wise, under-standing, and astute pastor. Any Churchof any nation would be joyful and gratefulto have such a spiritual leader. All ofUkraine should be extremely grateful toHis Beatitude for the dignified way inwhich he carried his heavy cross. Nevercomplaining of his debilitating eye sight,Patriarch Husar always spread harmonyand spiritual support among his people,

stated the Rev. Borys Gudziak.Reflecting on Major Archbishop

Husars resignation, the Rev. Gudziakalso suggested that Ukrainians should notanticipate a leader who will do everythingfor them. It should be the initiative of allUkrainians to chip in and carry theirweight. It will be very difficult for the

next leader of our Church if we expecthim to do those tasks which are ourresponsibility, said the Rev. Gudziak.

Finally, the Rev. Gudziak underscoredthe fact that the UGCC primates resigna-tion seems to be sending a message andsetting an example for other leaders.Patriarch Husar is and will remain anauthority precisely because he does notcling to power. In fact, his resignation isChrist-like. His Beatitude Husar is fol-lowing the example of the Lord, whostrips Himself of His powers to become amortal human. By fulfilling His Mission,the Lord relinquishes His own power andthe authority above Himself by transfer-ring it to His subordinates. PatriarchHusar freely relinquishes his authority but

remains our father, because you cantretire from parenthood, concluded theRev. Gudziak.

His decision to step down was a verysound and courageous move and sets aprecedent as well as an example not onlyfor the Church, but for all those who cantseem to face reality and act accordingly.But most of all, Patriarch Husars deci-sion is an act of great faith and trust inGod, his Church and his future succes-sor, added Dr. Turiy.

Patriarch Lubomyr considers one of hispersonal major accomplishments to be thecontinuation of the tradition of his prede-cessors, (Sheptytsky and Josyf Slipyj)namely the strengthening of the Synodalprocess and its very identity, as well asinitiating a certain administrative infra-structure within the Church.

When asked what advice he wouldgive to the eventual new leader of theUkrainian Catholic Church, CardinalHusar said that he would suggest to, maintain the internal unity of theUkrainian Catholic Church. Because weare not just in Ukraine, but also inWestern Europe, North America, SouthAmerica and Australia, with numerousarchdioceses, eparchies and exarchates.Therefore, to serve our people effectivelyand to help them the key is to preserveour unity and our identity.

Major Archbishop and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar at the February 10 newsconference in Kyiv at which he announced his resignation as the leader

of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church.

Illya M. Labunka


9/24


COAL PATCH DAYS

Family stories of Lemko immigrants around Minersville, Pa.

by Michael Buryk

PART I

Our patch changes

Our patch in Primrose, Pa., didnt lookthe same. It seemed a lot smaller andgreener than the way I remembered it.Twenty years is a long time and placeschange. Even in Coal Country. In manyways, Minersville and Primrose alwaysseemed kind of timeless to me.

There are those faded memories oflong ago trips as a 5-year-old to visitBaba (grandma Julia Buryk-Czerepaniak)and Gigi (my Dads Polish stepfather,Stanley Marchowsky), and days spentwith no TV except maybe the singlesnowy channel that sometimes appearedon the set at Aunt Helens house.

My last trip here with Pop was in 1989to celebrate Aunt Helens 75th birthday atSt. Nicholas Picnic Grove on the hill just

beyond our patch. We took a short tour ofthe area with my huge video camera intow, and I managed to capture him onfilm walking up the back lane to his oldhouse. But now it all seemed really dif-ferent. Maybe it was the tall state pinesand hemlocks that had been planted byPennsylvania in an effort to reclaim theland down the hill in the back of thepatch. Or the fact that the deep slope hadactually been filled with new dirt andgraded level before the trees were plant-ed.

The area had once been honeycombedwith several bootleg mines includingGigis. These illegal operations broughtsome income and a nearby source of fuelto local mining families during the GreatDepression, when jobs in the regularmines were scarce. The trees swayed inthe strong breeze and covered a chunk ofthe bright blue sky that had opened upafter this mornings heavy rain.

My daughter Alexis and I rounded thebend at the end of the patch and turned upthe lane that Pop had walked 20 years

ago. Just then Mrs. Hutsko came out ofher small yard into the lane. She and herhusband had purchased Babas houseafter she passed away in 1972. Almost 40years later Mrs. Hutsko was still hereenjoying the quiet and sunny afternoontending her garden. We chatted a bitabout old times and then Alexis and Iheaded back to St. Nicks to rejoin mywife, Rosie, and my brother Ron to finishour session at Ukrainian CatholicSeminary Day festivities.

Ukrainian Seminary Day

Seminary Day is an annual fund-raiserfor the education of young men for thepriesthood and a celebration of Ukrainiancultural and religious heritage inSchuylkill County. It first began atLakewood Park in Barnesville, Pa., in

1934 as a homecoming event forUkrainians who had left the area. Itlapsed for a while, but was revived inPrimrose at St. Nicks Grove in 1985 andhas continued there each year ever since.

I had heard from a local college archi-vist, Brian Ardan, that Seminary Day wasthe event for reconnecting with the Slavicsoul of Coal Country. So, Alexis, Rosie,Ron and I made the two-hour drive fromNorth Caldwell, N.J., to Primrose to setup my portable Ukrainian Lemko geneal-ogy exhibit and some of Rosies hand-made beaded jewelry on a big round tablein the hall and to drink in the localUkrainian American culture and learnsomething about the past.

The heavy rains of the morning gradu-ally gave way to sunshine and blue skiesas many descendants of the areas firstUkrainian settlers made their annual pil-grimage to these familiar, sacred grounds.

Coal patch neighborhoods

Minersville was a magnet for Slavicimmigrants in the late 19th and early 20thcenturies. Our patch, also known as RedPatch (perhaps because of the dark redcolor with which most houses were paint-ed in its early days), or Tweedsville tosome, was one of many coal patchneighborhoods that sprang up to house

the workers and their families at the near-by coal mines.

Just like in the industrial cities at thetime, there was a natural progression fornewcomers from more crowded patcheslike Forestville (down the road west ofPrimrose), where everyone lived in wood-en tenement housing, to places like RedPatch. Here, the mixed Polish-Ukrainianneighborhood consisted of two-story,free-standing double houses on smallplots of land with room for a garden and asmoke house in the back to cure thehomemade kovbasa and other meats.

Many Ukrainian families first startedoff down the hill in Forestville near themouth of the Woodside Tunnel of theLytle Colliery and later moved to

Primrose and other more affluent patchesas their personal fortunes improved.Some never made the transition duringthe Great Depression of the 1930s whenmany of the local mines shut down.

Baba and Gigi left Forestville in 1930with eight children in tow to move intoone side of a double house just up theroad in the village of Primrose. Thehouse was bought with the proceeds from

the insurance settlement paid out by Lytlefor the accidental death of my grandfa-ther Mike at the nearby Woodside Tunnelmine in 1924.

From Galicia to Minersville

No one knows for sure when the firstUkrainian Lemkos made the long trekfrom the foothills and the northern slopesof the Carpathians to the rolling hills ofMinersville, but come they did. Mostwere from the villages south of Sanok(Sianik) like Zboiska, Kulaszne andWysoczany near Bukowsko, but otherswere from higher up on the mountainousslopes from Rzepedz and nearby.

M y o wn f a m i l y c a m e f r o mSiemuszowa which is 7 kilometers northof Sanok, but they were in the minority inthe Minersville/Primrose area. The trailfrom Galicia usually twisted and turnedby train from Sanok to Berlin and then onto Hamburg, Germany. From there the

steamship would carry them viaSouthampton, England, to Ellis Island inlower New York harbor.

Some of the Lemko pioneers spenttime in the industrial areas of New Jerseysuch as Jersey City, Newark and PerthAmboy-Carteret before making their finalmove out to Coal Country.

Swampoodle Ukrainian wedding, 1908, Forestville, Pa., from the Ron Kramer photo collection.

St. Georges Greek-Catholic Church,Minersville, Pa., circa 1915, from the

Ron Kramer photo collection.

St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, Minersville, Pa. (built in 1937),November 2010. (Continued on page 17)

Mike Buryk is a Ukrainian Americanwriter whose research focuses on Lemkoand Ukrainian genealogy and the historyof Ukrainians in the United States. He

will give a workshop on Ukrainian/Lemkogenealogy on February 20 at theUkrainian Homestead in Lehighton, Pa.You can contact him at: [email protected]. His website is: http://www.buryk.com/our_patch/ .

He extends special thanks to RonKramer for all his help in making thisarticle possible and keeping the memoryof our Ukrainians and Lemkos alive inCoal Country. Also, special thanks go toall those families who shared their pre-cious memories and anecdotes for thisarticle.

This article, published in two parts, isdedicated to the memory of the late Harry

Buryk and his parentss Mike Gburyk andJulia Czerepaniak.

Copyright 2010 by Michael J. Buryk.All rights reserved.


10/24


against the editors for concerns thatranged from style, to organization, tocontent.

The work features 757 dissidents, andtheir non-dissident supporters, who camefrom very diverse backgrounds. Thatsprecisely what caused the most irritation.

Several prominent dissidents, includ-ing Lev Lukianenko, 82, and Ivan Hel,73, repeated a criticism most often heard:that the encyclopedia should have distin-guished between those who fought forUkrainian independence, and those whobecame dissidents supporting othercauses.

I feel pain when I see next to [Vasyl]Makukha, a person who set himself onf i r e f o r Ukr a i n e , [ Vo l o d ym yr ]Malynkovych, a Ukrainophobe of theDmytro Tabachnyk type who hasntrenounced that, in essence, said Mr. Hel,a native of the village of Klitsko in theLviv Oblast.

In turn, Mr. Lukianenko criticized the

encyclopedias editors for including dissi-dents who had no relation to Ukraine.


Encyclopedia...Among such dissidents are RussiansYelena Bonner and Aleksandr Ginsburg.

Specifically, Mr. Lukianenko referredto the entry of Andrei Amalrik, an avant-garde playwright from Moscow.

We know his work of course, butwhat relation does he have to Ukraine?Mr. Lukianenko, a legendary Ukrainiandissident asked rhetorically. If to speakof general resistance to the Soviet gov-ernment, then we know political prison-

ers and sat with hundreds of Lithuanians,Latvians and Estonians who did no lessthe Amalrik, yet werent included here.

He also criticized the inclusion ofCommunist Party members, such as theSoviet literary icon Borys Oliinyk, 75,who dec lared in 1986, I m aCommunist, and that says it all.

Hes a talented poet, and I love hisbooks, Mr. Lukianenko said of Mr.Oliinyk, From time to time, I get hisbooks off a shelf and read his poems. Buttell me, what did he sacrifice during theperiod of his creative life? He sacrificednothing! I dont think he would beoffended at me because I suggest exclud-ing him from such a book.

Also included was Petro Shelest, the

former first secretary of the CommunistParty of the Ukrainian SSR, who was

despised by dissidents because of his rolein suppressing dissent.

But you cant ignore the fact that hewas among the dissidents all the same,and you cant ignore the fact that he bur-ied his manuscripts in his garden, whichwere later found wrapped in cellophane,

just as we did, said Yevhen Sverstiuk,82, editor of the newspaper, Nasha Vira(Our Faith).

Mr. Zinkewych anticipated such criti-

cism and defended the inclusion of con-troversial figures in the encyclopedia inhis opening remarks.

Mr. Oliinyk played a key role in thedissident movement during the 1960s as amagazine edi tor . Meanwhile Mr.Malynkovych deserves recognition for hismembership in the Ukrainian HelsinkiGroup and printing underground press inthe Ukrainian language, Mr. Zinkevychsaid, despite his current Ukrainophobepositions.

The presentations biggest controversywas sparked by Bohdan Klymchak, 73,the dissident most known for trying toescape the Soviet Union by sneaking intoIran in 1978, only to have been caughtand returned to Siberian prisons.

The Lviv Oblast native criticized theUkrainian Helsinki Group for cooperating

with the West and the Jewish communityrather than acting independently. Indeedhe had long criticized international humanrights organizations for ignoring theplight of Ukrainian dissidents in favor ofMoscow-based political prisoners.

Mr. Klymchak also criticized formerdissidents for accepting awards and med-als from former President ViktorYushchenko, whom he described as themost disgraceful lackey occupant of

Ukraine. He was loudly booed off thestage.Dissidents arent the only Ukrainians

featured. Before she became First Lady ofUkraine, Kateryna Yushchenko wasamong influential advocates of Ukrainiandissidents in Washington as a specialassistant to the assistant secretary of statefor human rights and humanitarian affairsin 1986 to 1988.

Ulana Mazurkevich was also a keyWashington ally for Ukrainian dissidentsas chair of the U.S.-Ukrainian HumanRights Committee for decades.

The publication contains many photosfrom Washington protests held during thelast three decades of Soviet rule to dem-onstrate that Ukrainians in the diasporawere also active in the fight for liberty

and justice.While foreigners were mentioned in

the publication, dissatisfied dissidentstook turns naming their colleagues withwhom they endured suffering in Siberia who fell through the cracks and didntmake it. Editors said a second versionwas being planned with a November 15deadline for submissions and suggestions.

They encouraged those dissatisfiedwith this edition to contribute.

Its easy to criticize, but working isvery difficult, said longtime UkrainianAmerican activist Andrew Chornodolsky,drawing vigorous applause. I call every-one to future work. We see that the taskbefore us is indeed colossal and we mustagain return to work so that the next gen-

eration has Ukraine, because theres apossibility that they wont if were satis-fied with what has happened.

Security Section (DSS) and Office ofSpecial Investigations (OSI).

The Justice Department release notes:This case is a result of the JusticeDepartments ongoing efforts to identify,investigate and take legal action againstformer participants in Nazi persecutionwho reside in the United States. Since the

inception of this program in 1979, theDepartment has won cases against 107individuals who assisted in Nazi persecu-tion. In addition, 180 suspected Axis per-secutors who sought to enter the UnitedStates have been blocked from doing soas a result of the departments watchlistprogram, enforced in cooperation withthe Department of Homeland Security.

* * *In related news, the JTA news service

reported that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court ofAppeals in Chicago on February 14upheld a deportation order against OsypFirishchak of Chicago, who was strippedof his citizenship for his role in a Nazi-

operated police unit in Ukraine.The JTA noted that Mr. Firishchakimmigrated to the United States in 1949and became a U.S. citizen five years later.He was stripped of his citizenship in2005 by a federal district court, whichruled that he was a participant in anorganization that perpetrated some of themost horrific acts against human decencyever known in history.


Immigration judge...


11/24


Kobzar Choir ends season with concert of koliady and schedrivkyby Luba Poniatyszyn Keske

LOS ANGELES The KobzarUkrainian National Choir of Los Angeles,under the direction of Gregory Hallick,carried on the Ukrainian tradition of koli-adnyky, (carolers) California-style. Withthousands of Ukrainian Americans scat-tered throughout southern California, it

was not logistically feasible for the koli-adnyky to visit all the homes starting inand around Los Angeles and travellingsouth to San Diego and vicinity.

To bring this wonderful tradition ofkoliadky and schedrivky to as many peo-ple as possible in this region, the KobzarChoir held two concerts to celebrate theChristmas season. The first concert washeld on Saturday, January 22, at St. Johnthe Baptizer Ukrainian Catholic Church inLas Mesa (a suburb of San Diego).Despite the balmy southern Californiaweather, the inside of the Church reflectedthe spirit of the holidays with a litChristmas tree and festive decorations that The Kobzar Ukrainian National Choir of Los Angeles under the direction of Gregory Hallick (seated in the middle).

The Kobzar Choir sings to hospodar Paul Bilecky (left).

system. But comparing the two people,one shouldnt look at differences on nar-row points. One should look at how theybroadly see Ukraine in the near future.

Tymoshenko sees Ukraine as aEuropean country that must integrate into

the European system of security and val-ues. When I was economy minister,Tymoshenko and I did much to ensureUkraine would enter the World TradeOrganization in 2008. We had 13 roundsof talks with the European Union overthe creation of a free-trade zone. Nowthose talks are ending. There were manysuch processes. I frequently held talkswith the European Commission over


Exiled Ukrainian...

adorned the walls. The recent addition oficons, which were blessed last fall byBishop Richard Seminack during thechurchs 50th anniversary, created a beau-tiful and serene setting for the concert.

The church filled quic

The Ukrainian Weekly 2011-08

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