Stephan Chemych, 72, president of Ukrainian Studies Fund, dies (02/18/01)

Stephan Chemych, 72, president of Ukrainian Studies Fund, dies

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Stephan Chemych, a civil servant and administrator, and a fund-raiser and community activist who was best known for his decades of activity as president of the Ukrainian Studies Fund, died suddenly at his home in New York on February 8. He was 72.

Mr. Chemych was born September 27, 1928, in Drohobych, Ukraine, to Illia and Olena (née Maksymovych). He had three brothers, Mykhailo (born 1926), Theophil (born 1932) and Taras (born 1942). He completed elementary school in Drohobych.

As a war refugee, he finished high school at the gymnasium at Schleisheim, near Munich. As a functionary of the 159th Station of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in Traunstein, Bavaria, he helped Ukrainian refugees from the central Dnipro region (which had been part of the USSR before the war) avoid forced repatriation to the Soviet Union.

During 1950 and 1951 Mr. Chemych worked in the administration of the Funk Kaserne Emigration and Repatriation Camp near Munich. In 1952 he arrived in the United States and began his studies at Oregon State College in Corvallis, Oregon. He continued his studies at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he received his B.A. in 1956, having been elected to Phi Beta Kappa upon graduation. In 1957 he became an American citizen.

From 1958 to 1961 he was a lecturer of Ukrainian language at Columbia University in New York, where, as a recipient of a Ford Foundation scholarship, he continued his studies in political science and sociology. He received an M.A. from Columbia in 1963.

During this time he also worked for the federal government as a researcher studying the administrative-juridical aspects of the reorganization of the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR. This project was undertaken in collaboration with the well-known economist Vsevolod Holobnychy, who worked on the economic aspects of the reorganization.

From 1963 to 1993 Mr. Chemych worked as a director in the Emergency Services Section of the Human Resources Administration of New York City. He also worked part-time in retail banking with institutions located in the Ukrainian section of New York City (1976-1989).

He took an important and leading role in Ukrainian student life in the United States: he was the president of the Ukrainian Student Association of Columbia University (1957-1958); president of the fourth congress of the Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations of America (SUSTA) in 1959, and chairman of the SUSTA Adjudication Committee (1961-1962).

He was also the founder of the Ukrainian Studies Fund (USF) and was its president after its incorporation in 1957 as a non-profit educational organization.

In addition he was vice-president of the Ukrainian Students' Society in New York (1957-1958). It was in that society that he met Maria Kuzyk, whom he married in 1959 and whom he considered to be a vital and equal partner in his work in Ukrainian studies. The Chemyches had two children: Roxane and Askold.

Mr. Chemych felt that the crowning achievement in his work in the promotion of Ukrainian studies was the creation in 1968 of a permanent Ukrainian studies program at Harvard University. As president of the Ukrainian Studies Fund for over four decades, he presided over many campaigns that established a stable financial base for Harvard's Ukrainian studies program.

Robert De Lossa, president of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies, wrote in a letter of condolence to the Chemych family that Mr. Chemych's "organizational work in the field [of Ukrainian studies] - fiercely driven and yet magnificently insightful and well informed - has yielded bounteously. Every student who learns about Ukraine at Harvard carries on his legacy. The same is true of every scholar who visits Harvard for its Ukrainian studies, every book that is published by HURI, every person who visits the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies. And now - almost 35 years after the founding of the Standing Committee on Ukrainian Studies at Harvard - Mr. Chemych's legacy emanates from programs and institutions all over the world."

Condolences/memorial tributes were placed in the Ukrainian-language weekly newspaper Svoboda by the Shevchenko Scientific Society, of which Mr. Chemych was a member, as well as the Ukrainian Studies Fund and the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.

A panakhyda was offered at the Peter Jarema Funeral Home in New York on February 11. The funeral liturgy was offered that next day at St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church in New York; interment followed at Holy Spirit Cemetery in Hamptonburg, N.Y.

The family has requested that memorial donations be made to the Ukrainian Studies Fund, Harvard University, 1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138.

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