1989: A LOOK BACK: The scholarly world (12/31/89)

1989: A LOOK BACK

The scholarly world

The major development in the world of academia, as far as Ukraine and Ukrainians are concerned, was the establishment in June of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies at a worldwide conference of scholars in Naples, Italy.

Dr. Vitaliy Rusanivsky, director of the Potebnia Institute of Linguistics at the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences, was elected the IAUA's first president. Elected as vice-presidents were: Dr. George Grabowicz (U.S.), Mykola Zhulynsky (USSR), Dr. Riccardo Picchio (Italy) and Dr. Ryszard Luzny (Poland). Dr. Olexa Nyshanych (USSR) is the academic secretary of the association

In Ukraine, the Association of Ukrainian Studies was founded during a conference held on October 19. Ivan Dzyuba was elected president of the association, which is a member-organization of the international Association of Ukrainian Studies.

In the United States, the founding meeting of the American Association of Ukrainian Studies was held December 8-9 at Harvard University. Its president is Dr. John Fizer of Rutgers University.

There were other developments in the realm of scholarship as well. The following are a sampling of the most important.

The first scholarly conference held specifically to address the changes taking place in Ukraine in the context of glasnost and perestroika was held January 28-31 at York University, just outside of Toronto, bringing together experts in various fields from Canada, the United States, England and Ukraine.
Three scholars from Ukraine - Ivan Dzyuba, Raisa Ivanchenko and Mykola Zhulynsky - participated in a historic scholarly conference dedicated to Taras Shevchenko on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of his birth. The conference, organized by the Shevchenko Scientific Society, the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN) and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, was held in New York on March 25.
At the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) in June, the Ukrainian Research Program's annual weeklong conference this year focused on "Glasnost, Perestroika and Ukraine" and brought together more than 150 scholars and specialists from North America, Ukraine, West Germany, England, Australia, Israel and China.
The Shevchenko Scientific Society was re-established in Lviv on October 23 at a special meeting convened by an organizing committee of leading scholars. Prof. Oleh Romaniv was elected president of the renewed society, which had existed in Lviv from 1873 through 1940.
Dr. David Marples' second book on the nuclear accident that shook Ukraine in 1986, titled "The Social Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster," was featured on the front page of the January 1 issue of the Los Angeles Times Book Review and hailed as "a shining example of the best type of non-Soviet analysis into topics that only recently were absolutely taboo in Moscow official circles." In June, Dr. Marples traveled to the Chornobyl area and Kiev on a fact-finding mission.
The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, in association with Macmillan published "Chernobyl: A Documentary Story" by physician, writer and environmental activist Yuriy Shcherbak of Kiev.
Dr. George G. Grabowicz, Dmytro Cyzevskyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature at Harvard University, was appointed director of the university's Ukrainian Research Institute. He assumed his new duties on July 1.
Dr. Frank Sysyn was appointed on July 1 as director of the newly established Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies based at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.