U.S. Shevchenko Society president addresses Verkhovna Rada (04/06/03)

U.S. Shevchenko Society president addresses Verkhovna Rada

Dr. Orest Popovych

HOWELL, N.J. - At the March 12 parliamentary hearings devoted to "The functioning of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine," which took place in Kyiv at the Verkhovna Rada, one of the invited speakers was the president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) in America, Dr. Larissa Zaleska Onyshkevych.

Addressing an audience of the parliamentarians, as well as guests from all corners of Ukraine, Dr. Onyshkevych pointed out that in 1933, as the Soviet regime perpetrated the Famine-Genocide of the Ukrainian people, it simultaneously launched a program of Russification of the Ukrainian language, designed to lead to its eventual elimination, or linguicide.

Dr. Onyshkevych informed her audience that Ukrainians who emigrated to North America did so in order to preserve their identify - indeed often to save their lives - but have remained part of the Ukrainian people. There they established Saturday schools in which their children and grandchildren could study the Ukrainian language and culture. Ukrainian scholarly institutions in North America, such as the Shevchenko Scientific Society and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN), conduct their activity in Ukrainian, she explained.

The Ukrainian language, said Dr. Onyshkevych, represents that invisible thread binding Ukraine with the diaspora, and it must not be broken. She urged the lawmakers to create the best possible conditions for the functioning of the Ukrainian language in all areas of life in Ukraine - particularly in the news media and in publications.

"Only when a country and its language present the same face, will that country be strong and respected," concluded Dr. Onyshkevych.

The hearings were opened with an address by Volodymyr Lytvyn, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. Other major speeches were delivered by scholar Ivan Dzyuba and by Les Taniuk, chairman of the committee that organized the hearing. There were short presentations by 20 other national deputies and scholars.

Dr. Onyshkevych was invited to speak at these hearings on the state of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine because NTSh has been in the forefront of efforts on behalf of the Ukrainian language for some time.

For the last nine years the Shevchenko Scientific Society has been organizing sessions on this subject at American and international scholarly conferences. In Kyiv it initiated two scholarly conferences on Ukrainian orthography; in the United States, it organized seminars on Ukrainian orthography for editors of Ukrainian American newspapers.

In addition, NTSh compiled and published a collection of scholarly articles on Ukrainian language. Both in Ukraine and in America, the society has been publishing and sponsoring scholarly works as well as providing scholarships and grants in the area of the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian studies in general.

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