1996: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Ukrainian diaspora: organizations, issues (12/29/96)

1996: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Ukrainian diaspora: organizations, issues

As it was for most Ukrainians, for the Ukrainian World Congress, the Ukrainian diaspora's West-based umbrella body, 1996 was a year of portentous anniversaries (the10th of Chornobyl and the fifth of Ukraine's independence) and cheerleading for the Atlanta Olympiad-focused fund-raising effort to aid the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine.

More importantly for the UWC as an institution, it was a year when concerns over its past debt were finally laid to rest, when its Religious Council was revived, and when irritation with its Kyiv-based counterpart, the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council, came to a head.

Early in the year, at the Presidium of the Secretariat's meetings on January 26-27, UWC chief financial officer William Sametz implored constituent national representations and international bodies to honor their financial obligations. As 1996 drew to a close, Mr. Sametz had engineered a minor miracle: total fiscal solvency, thanks to a sleight of hand. At the Presidium meetings of November 22-23 it came to light that requests for budgetary appropriations had been ignored or put on the back burner. As a result, there was no more deficit.

After being in hiatus for over 10 years, the UWC's Religious Council was formally resurrected at the May 31-June 1 Presidium meetings, with Bishop Yuriy Kalishchuk of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada to act as its chairman, and the Rev. Vasyl Makarenko of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada, the Rev. Roman Dusaniwsky of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of Canada, the Rev. Mike Melnyk of the UOC-Constantinople Patriarchate and Pastor Iwaskiw of the Ukrainian Evangelical-Baptist Alliance of Eastern Canada making up the secretariat.

The UWC's Religious Council was re-established barely a month after the passing of Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of Canada, the man who had dedicated so much energy to making this revival a reality. The council chairman drew up communiqués on its renewed activity, on the need to give former Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarch Volodymyr Romaniuk a decent reburial, and on the controversy surrounding the disassembly of the cupola atop the former Ukrainian Catholic cathedral in Peremyshl (Przemysl in Polish), Poland.

Peremyshl cupola furor

No doubt, Poland's Ukrainian community appreciated every expression of sympathy and solidarity it could get, given the rising tensions in Peremyshl, a city about seven miles from the Ukrainian border.

The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, also known as the Church of St. Theresa, an edifice that over the years has served alternately as a shrine of the Polish Roman Catholic Carmelite Order and the cathedral of a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Eparchy, has long been a symbol of ethnic divisions plaguing the city.

In late March the Carmelite Order began acting on its intentions to dismantle a dome placed by Ukrainians atop the church in the late 19th century, intentions announced in 1992 when Polish Cardinal Josef Glemp handed control of the controversial edifice back to them.

Miroslaw Czech, a Ukrainian deputy to the Polish Sejm, spearheaded a barrage of entreaties sent by the Ukrainian Polish community to the Carmelites and to national and local Polish authorities. The Ukrainian World Congress sent a letter to the mayor of Peremyshl, calling on him to allow the dome to remain as "a symbol of Christian tolerance, reverence for historical patrimony and proof of the friendly co-existence of our two peoples."

These efforts were bolstered by letters from Lviv Mayor Vasyl Kuibida and Lviv Oblast Council Chairman Mykola Horyn, but in the end they had no effect.

The Carmelites, backed by defiant Polish municipal officials who attacked the Ukrainian petitioners as "nationalist extremists," disregarded orders issued by the conservator general of historical monuments in Poland, Prof. Andrzej Tomaszewski, to stop work. By April 30, most of the structure was gone.

On May 14 in Warsaw, Polish Minister of Culture and Art Michal Jagiello hosted a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Ostapenko, to apologize for the incident. "Days of Polish-Ukrainian Friendship" scheduled to take place later in the month proceeded without a further hiccups, and it appeared that a landmark of Ukrainian culture in Poland was sacrificed to the new-found political comity between Kyiv and Warsaw.

Polish Consulate's panel on relations

A willingness to set aside historical differences in favor of a pragmatic approach in the present was well in evidence on February 23 during a panel discussion on "Poland and Ukraine: Perspectives for the Future," held at the Polish Consulate in Toronto, and co-sponsored with the Ukrainian mission in the city.

Panelists Prof. Orest Subtelny of York University and Prof. Piotr Wrobel of the University of Toronto examined the troubled past and the present amity enjoyed by the two countries, and the opportunities inherent in future harmony.

Both Serhii Borovyk, Ukraine's consul general in Toronto, and Polish Consul General Wojciech Tenchinski made much of the fact that Poland was the first country in the world to recognize Ukraine following the historic referendum on independence of December 1, 1991.

Prof. Subtelny observed that "Poland and Ukraine both lost their political independence as nation-states, and struggled long and hard to get it back. No matter what the trend is toward continental integration, Poland and Ukraine will likely play a strong role in championing the idea of the nation-state."

Prof. Wrobel said the Solidarity movement and activists such as Adam Michnik laid the foundation for the present good will between the two newly independent states, but that Poland's handling of national minority questions will serve as a benchmark for its full acceptance into the club of Western European nations.

To conclude the evening, Consul Tenchinski said, "The emotions are strong and the path is difficult, but consensus is possible and within reach."

Diaspora's Olympic support

July 1996 was the UWC's "Ukrainian Olympic Month" and the culmination of international fund-raising efforts, led by Atlanta's Larissa Barabash-Temple, official U.S. representative of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Ukraine and Canadian Friends of the NOC's Stan Haba of Toronto.

At the November meetings of the UWC's Presidium, Sports Commissioner Vsevolod Sokolyk praised the diaspora for helping make Team Ukraine's first independent participation in a summer Olympiad not only a reality, but a success.

Mr. Sokolyk reserved special accolades for the Ukrainian Youth Association (SUM). As part of its 50th anniversary celebrations this year, SUM held its sixth quadrennial jamboree, or "Zlet," to coincide with the Olympic Games.

The Weekly carried coverage of SUM's Zlet, attended by over 100 youths from the U.S., Canada, Ukraine, the United Kingdom. and Australia. The jamboree's program included volunteer work in support of Ukraine's athletes at the Olympiad.

However, Mr. Sokolyk did not have only positives to report at year's end. He said communications with Ukrainian sports authorities at the intermediate to lower levels continue to be poor and that the exodus of trainers from Ukraine is continuing. "If this trend goes unchecked," he said, "there could be a collapse of the country's sports system."

Trouble with the UWCC

UWC dissatisfaction with the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council came to a head in 1996. At the UWC Presidium's January sessions, UWC President Dr. Dmytro Cipywnyk and General Secretary Yaroslaw Sokolyk reported on the snubbing of Eastern diaspora members by UWCC organizers of meetings with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, to general displeasure.

Evhen Czolij of the Conference of Ukrainian Youth Organizations (CUYO), the Ukrainian Canadian Congress's Oleh Romaniw and Askold Lozynsky, of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America continued to voice their dissatisfaction with the UWCC, as they had at previous meetings.

Mr. Lozynskyj criticized the UWCC's anemic response to problems of discrimination against Ukrainians beyond its borders. Others joined in with criticism of UWCC officials' constant deviations from by-laws. Many expressed exasperation with UWCC President Ivan Drach's "administrative incompetence."

In January, Mr. Czolij went so far as to suggest that there is no need for an umbrella body based in Ukraine, only a mechanism ensuring that international Ukrainian congresses take place every four years or so. By November, the UWCC's mishandling of this basic task (the second world conference is now scheduled for August 1997 instead of May) was making people angry.

At the November Presidium meeting the UWC effectively issued an ultimatum to the UWCC that it would not participate in the world gathering unless an agenda was set by late January at a meeting in Kyiv attended by Dr. Cipywnyk and Mr. Lozynskyj. Dr. Cipywnyk added that if the level of disorganization persists, the UWC should seriously consider withdrawing from the UWCC.

The UWC will be marking two anniversaries in 1997. One is the 50th anniversary of the notorious "Akcja Wisla," the Polish government's operation involving the forcible internal deportation of Ukrainians from ethnographic territories in the Lemko and other regions to points in western Poland, and the UWC's own 30th anniversary, as it was constituted as the World Congress of Free Ukrainians on November 16-19, 1967, in New York.

Historic Prnjavor church to be rebuilt

In July, The Weekly carried a heartening report from a zone of devastation in the former Yugoslavia. Yurij Holowinsky, who completed an extended active duty tour in Bosnia with the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, wrote about signs of revival among the Ukrainians of Prnjavor that he had witnessed.

Capt. Holowinsky's photograph showed the ruins of the Transfiguration Ukrainian Catholic Church, built in 1910, and completely destroyed during the recent war.

"Nevertheless, the indomitable Ukrainian spirit has not been crushed," Capt. Holowinsky wrote. "The faithful have already razed the ruins and are beginning rebuilding. According to the Rev. Petro Ovad, the parish priest, the Ukrainians of Prnjavor will once again have a church of their own."

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