The Ukrainian Weekly: a great idea whose time had come
by Dr. Myron B. Kuropas
Fifty years ago, the Ukrainian American community was losing its youth. It was a familiar pattern. As children, the American-born generation attended Ridna Shkola where they perfected the Ukrainian language, learned about Ukraine and her people, and came to appreciate their cultural heritage. As young adults, however, they felt estranged from their community. Believing that no one from the older generation cared about their ideas, their feelings and the problems they faced in attempting to reconcile their two environments, they tended to drift away.
Concern for "saving our Ukrainian youth" reached crisis proportions during the early 1930s when articles on the subject began to appear with increasing frequency in the Ukrainian press. "If we are honest with ourselves," Providence Association Vice-President Theodosij Kaskiw warned the older generation, "we must realize that we are old and that the time to die is just around the corner. And let's ask ourselves if we really have anyone to whom we can leave that inheritance which we have developed in this new land. Will anyone be left to attend our churches, our schools, our national homes and the other institutions which now exist?...Let's save our children, our blood, before it's too late!"_1_
The gravity of the youth problem was analyzed by the venerable UNA activist Dr. Volodymyr Simenovych shortly before his death. "Among our older organizations involved with our political work we see very few young people. Our immigration is diminishing from day to day not because we're not receiving any more immigrants from Europe or because they are dying out but because our immigrants are getting older. Tired by old age and hard work, they are slowly leaving the field of national work and they are leaving behind people who are also old. The youth, however, our school youth, our university youth, and our professional youth, is not with us...In large measure we ourselves are to blame because we still believe that an older person, even one without the slightest education, is wiser and more worthy of leadership that a younger person with a higher education. An older person has more dignity and experience but a young person has more education and views life with wider horizons. Let's bring in our youth, let's give some of them our work, let's give them an opportunity to develop themselves in our midst as Ukrainian patriots: only then will our task be easier and only then will we double our progress..."_2_
An awareness of the lack of youth involvement in Ukrainian American life was also felt by the younger generation some of whom attributed the roots of the problem to culture conflict. American-born youth, wrote Joan J. Skuba in The Ukrainian Review, "see different home standards, discipline and numerous other conditions in their contact with American children which seem radically removed from their own surroundings. Realizing this, what happens? They are embarrassed at being 'a foreigner.' They do not seem to 'fit in' with the pattern of the New World. Hectic in their desire to become thoroughly American, they go to the extreme and imitate the worst that American has to offer in dress, manners and customs. They cut themselves off from all that is fine in their ancestral heritage and attach themselves to the low and degrading features of modern life in America."_3_
One of the few members of the older generation to appreciate the dilemma of the American-born was Luke Myshuha, editor of Svoboda. Explaining his views at the 18th UNA Convention in 1933, Mr. Myshuha emphasized the affective dimension in attempts to reach the younger generation. We should always stress the joy, beauty and excitement of Ukrainian history, culture, music and language to our youth, he declared. But we should also be aware of the fact that every generation must develop its own Ukrainian identity.
The education of our youth is composed of "elements found in the home of the Ukrainian immigrant, in Ukrainian community life and in Ukrainian schools...A young person who has been exposed to such an education is decidedly different from an immigrant. In addition to American life, he's familiar with the life from which parents emerged." While biculturalism is an adequate alternative, argued Mr. Myshuha, it too has its drawbacks for the younger generation:
"...the life of their parents is not a model for them simply because their environment is different. It may be easier for them to break into American mainstream life than it was for their parents but it is still not as easy as it is for the children of American-born parents."
The problem must be solved by the youth itself, concluded Mr. Myshuha, and to do that, they need a news forum that is written and edited exclusively by them._4_
Mr. Myshuha's proposal was accepted by the UNA delegates and, on October 6, 1933, the first issue of The Ukrainian Weekly appeared with the following editorial:
"The Ukrainian Weekly is for the youth. The youth alone shall be its matter. Its voice alone shall be heeded here.
"The Ukrainian National Association has undertaken to bear the extra cost of this publication in order to give our youth the opportunity of having an exclusive organ of their own, written in its own style and language, wherein it can meet, exchange its thoughts and ideas, come to a better understanding of each other and perhaps point out those paths of endeavor which shall lead to a newer and better life."_5_
Edited by Stephen Shumeyko, the Weekly soon became the most widely read youth publication in the Ukrainian American community. Just as Svoboda had helped Ukrainianize the first generation, the Ukrainian Weekly devoted itself to the Ukrainianization of the second. We write about Ukraine, Mr. Shumeyko explained in 1933, because the Weekly "must serve as a guide to our American Ukrainian youth by pointing out in its own inimitable language and style the road to the goal which is dear to all Ukrainians - a free and independent state of Ukraine."_6_
While much if not most of what appeared in the Weekly during the 1930s concerned itself with such matters as the Great Famine and other acts of Soviet repression,_7_ denationalization in partitioned Ukraine,_8_ the OUN trials in Poland,_9_ the dangers of pacifism and Polish-Ukrainian rapproachement in Galicia,_10_ Rumanian repression,_11_ Hitler's designs on Ukraine,_12_ Carpatho- Ukraine,_13_ American misinformation regarding Ukrainian aspirations,_14_ and Polish repression,_15_ domestic issues were also considered.
Military training for Ukrainian youth was supported because:
"...As the Ukrainian young men in Europe are deprived of the opportunity to learn the manipulations of modern war machines...it remains for us here in the United States, to produce the officers and instructors which the Ukrainian nation and its people need so badly! And which America can use too."_16_
Changing surnames was frowned upon because:
"We of Ukrainian descent are especially duty-bound to retain our Ukrainian family names. Our parents are among the latest arrivals and naturally they did not have the time nor opportunity to make any outstanding contributions to American development. Such opportunities, however, are confronting us now... And yet how will posterity judge our contributions to the development of this country if we lose our national identity by giving our Ukrainian names various Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Scandinavian forms?"_17_
No consensus was reached regarding the proper date for celebrating Ukrainian Christmas. Some youth argued that December 25 was acceptable "as long as all the traditions were maintained."_18_ Others supported the traditional Julian calendar date (January 7) because a change could, among other things, make it easier for Ukrainians in Galicia to change and thereby give Poland "more power in her attempt to Polonize the Ukrainians."_19_
Nor were any conclusions reached regarding intermarriage. Some believed that from a nationalistic and family perspective, Ukrainians marrying non-Ukrainians was inadvisable._20_ Other youth were convinced that one had to be realistic. No policy, pro or con, they argued, was possible._21_
Despite a decidedly nationalistic editorial policy, the Weekly did publish articles which were contrary to mainstream community sentiment. Especially popular (and controversial) was a column titled "Potpourri" written by an insightful gadfly who wrote under the nom-de-plume "Burma Capelin". Complaining that second generation organizations in 1936 were controlled by older immigrants, Mr. Capelin wrote:
"The attempt has been, in almost every instance, to inculcate Ukrainian culture or Ukrainian ideas - whatever the tinge may be, religious, nationalistic, socialistic or something else - into the second generation. While in itself this may be neither good nor bad, it is a luxury, if you please, which the second generation cannot afford... The immigrant organizations cannot reconcile themselves to the fact that the organizations including the church, which have served the immigrant tolerably well, are ill-adjusted ('out of date') to the second generation as the horse and buggy is in our motorized urban life. The second generation simply cannot fit into the scheme of thinking, the way of behavior, and the organization of the first generation. By virtue of having been born in America, its fates and fortunes lie within American conditions... Ukrainian youth organizations, if they are to achieve anything more viable than speech-making or paper publicity, must recognize that it is American and not Ukrainian conditions to which primarily the second generation must adjust..."
Older generation support of American-born youth should be unconditional, Mr. Capelin suggested._22_ Work in Ukrainian youth organizations, he continued, was based on "gross unreality, the reference being to making the second generation hostages, if you will, to either the 'cause abroad' or to a special brand of Ukrainianism as conceived by parties of the older generation." The first generation Mr. Capelin observed, hasn't helped youth "to get jobs in American life" or "educated them on the values of contacts with Americans," or extended a helping hand "to scores of those who being 'at sea' land in American social agencies, juvenile courts, etc."_23_
The hope of older Ukrainians that youth will resist the "mania of Americanization" and help in some way in "fashioning the future Ukrainian state," rests on two fallacies: "One that by living in America and hoping to be Ukrainians they can be such and secondly, that they can be of significant help abroad... The most healthy situation for the individual," concluded Mr. Capelin, "is a respect for Ukrainian ways and only a gradual absorption of American culture. In this sense it can be truly said that one cannot be either a good Ukrainian or a good American without being both."_24_ Mr. Capelin's views, of course, generated a series of responses, mostly pro, which the Weekly published through the remainder of the year._25_
Articles and editorials were also devoted to efforts by Russian Americans to "capture" Ukrainian youth. "We cannot stand idly by and permit this Musophilism to entice our American Ukrainian youth away from their nationality"_26_ - assimiliation,_27_ the defamation campaign,_28_ and the American heritage:
"It is interesting for us to observe how much pleasure our American Ukrainians derive from taking part in the Fourth of July parades and manifestations... For our parents are very much aware of the fact that back in the old country they would not be allowed to parade freely, carrying flags and dressed in Ukrainian costumes... But what about us, the younger generation, born and raised here? Do we appreciate our American freedom and democracy? Does the Declaration of Independence mean as much to us as to our parents?"_29_
For the Weekly, American-born reluctance to become involved in Ukrainian affairs was due to immaturity, a lack of "clear self-orientation," vagueness regarding their role in the community, a lack of experience,_30_ and a debilitating emphasis on social activities._31_
The single most important issue to which the Weekly devoted consistent attention, however, was the problem of Ukrainian American unity. As early as 1933 Mr. Shumeyko wrote:
"...Our youth has long been witness to the fact that the principal cause of the weakening and destructive divisions among the older generation of American Ukrainians have been the irreconcilable religious and political differences among many of our leaders...
"We appeal...to our youth to not pay any attention to these petty squabbles, selfish ambitions, religious and political intolerances of many of our older generation. Shun them as you would the plague...
"Let us accept from the older generation only those elements which are good and honorable: tolerance, understanding and mutual self-respect; and ignore all of those which have been impregnable obstructions to our older generation's attempts to organize itself..."_32_
"The Ukrainians have a disease," Mr. Shumeyko declared in 1934, "that may safely be called great, not only because it is so widely prevalent but more so because its results are so vast. It is costing Ukrainians their country and their freedom. It is breeding discontent, fear and inertia... I am referring to that cancerous growth, 'discord'..."_33_
Admitting to certain shortcomings on the part of the younger generation in 1936, Mr. Shumeyko pointed to a "far more serious canker that threatens all organized American-Ukrainian youth life"...the "attempts being made to segregate our youth into religious and partisan camps..."_34_
A great idea
And so it went. Dr. Myshuha's dream to create a forum which would allow American-born youth an opportunity to develop their identity was realized. It was a great idea whose time had come.
Not all of our problems of the past have been solved, of course. Many of our youth are still segregated into partisan camps, we still suffer from the "disease of discord" and many American-born are still ambivalent regarding certain aspects of their bicultural communal existence.
But the process continues and as we reflect upon how far The Ukrainian Weekly has come during the past 50 years, we have much reason to rejoice.
Today The Ukrainian Weekly is still edited by our youth. It enjoys unparalleled status not only within our community but in American circles as well. It is a beacon of hope which richly deserves the support of all of us. Keep up the good work, Ukrainian Weekly, and Mnohaya Lita!
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, October 23, 1983, No. 43, Vol. LI
| Home Page |