OBITUARY: Anatol Kurdydyk, 95, longtime editor of Ukrainian Canadian newspapers (07/15/01)

OBITUARY

Anatol Kurdydyk, 95, longtime editor of Ukrainian Canadian newspapers

WINNIPEG - Anatol Julian Kurdydyk, longtime journalist and former editor of several Ukrainian Canadian newspapers, died here on June 25. He was 95.

Born in Pidhaitsi, western Ukraine, on July 24, 1905, as the eldest son of the Rev. Petro Kurdydyk and Stefania de-Ostoia-Steblecka, he received his elementary education in Ternopil, attended the Ukrainian gymnasium in Lviv and studied law at Lviv University.

A passionate Ukrainian above all, he forfeited the opportunity to practice law by virtue of his involvement in Ukrainian nationalist activity, first under the Polish and subsequently the German administrations of western Ukraine; he was a political prisoner in Polish and Gestapo jails.

Reverting to the Ukrainian literature he had loved from his childhood, he ultimately found his niche in life as a poet and author, and as a journalist and publicist of the Ukrainian press.

Rising from newspaper correspondent to co-editor in Ukraine his formative years in journalism were linked with the Lviv newspapers Ukrainsky Holos, Nedilia and Dilo.

When forced to flee western Ukraine during the 1939 Russian invasion for his uncompromising and militant anti-Communist positions in the Lviv press, he served as Vienna correspondent for Krakivski Visti and continued his literary and journalist activity in the Ukrainian post-war émigré communities of Poland, Germany and Austria.

The respect and confidence he enjoyed among his displaced compatriots resulted in his election as president of the Mannheim Ukrainian refugee camp, a position he held until its disbanding. His post-war travels and travails as political refugee took him randomly through the German cities of Ettlingen, Giessen, Berchtesgaden, Aschaffenburg, Ludwigsburg and finally Bremen, where with his family he boarded the Nelly bound for Canada in May 1951.

In the Ukrainian community of Toronto he was active in the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Ukrainian cooperative movement, the Ukrainian Business and Professional Club and the publishing house Nasha Slava.

His journalistic bent first found expression in the revival of the Ukrainian weekly Ukrainsky Robitnyk and in the co-founding and editing of Vilno Slovo, a weekly newspaper aimed at the post-war Ukrainian émigré readership. He founded the Convention of Ukrainian Artists and Literati of the U.S.A. and Canada in 1954 as president of the Literaturno-Mystetskyi Klub.

He moved with his family in 1960 to Winnipeg to assume the editorship of the Ukrainian weekly Novyi Shliakh and later, in 1962, the co-editorship of Postup. Even after retirement in 1970 he held part-time positions with the newspapers Kanadiisky Farmer and Ukrainsky Holos and continued to free-lance for as long as he could type on the trusty portable Remington typewriter that followed him in hand to Canada.

He was the author of thousands of newspaper articles, editorials, commentaries and reports scattered throughout countless Ukrainian newspapers printed in North America and abroad over seven decades of journalistic activity. Similarly, hundreds of poems and novellas in Ukrainian magazines, textbooks and almanacs, as well as a number of volumes of literature and publicistic works compiled during his lifetime are witnesses to his creative literary life.

When asked toward the end of his life how he would like to be remembered, he replied, quick as a flash: "As a mere editor of the Ukrainian press." For as long as possible he continued to take interest in events in Ukraine and particularly enjoyed reading hard copies of articles from Kyiv and Lviv dailies downloaded off the Internet, marveling at the availability, content and quality of these. Having yearned for his homeland's freedom all his living days, after Ukraine's independence in 1991 he regretted in silence being unable to ever see with his own eyes Lviv, the city of his youth and prolific literary/journalistic activity.

He is survived by his wife, Stefania; sons, Taras of Calgary, Les of Winnipeg, and Lew, with his wife, Halyna, and children, Klym and Maxym of Vita; his brother, Evhen, with his wife, Olha, of Toronto; as well as extended family in Canada and in Ukraine. He was predeceased by his daughter, Maria, in Germany and his son Boris in Australia, by his brothers Jaroslaw and Mykola of the United States, as well as by brothers Nestor and Lubomyr, and sister Lida of Ukraine.

Mr. Kurdydyk's contribution to the Ukrainian community in Canada has been duly acknowledged by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences with, respectively, the Shevchenko Medal and the honorary certificate.

Burial was in the Kurdydyk family plot of St. Demetrius Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery. A panakhyda was offered on June 29 at Klassen Funeral Chapel in Winnipeg, with Fathers Mykhailo Kouts and Ihor Royik officiating; a parastas was sung at St. Demetrius Ukrainian Catholic Church, Vita, Manitoba, on June 30 with the Rev. Royik presiding.

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