NOTES ON PEOPLE (05/23/04)

NOTES ON PEOPLE

Honored by town's Cultural Commission

WARREN, Mich. - On Sunday, April 25, Olga Dubriwnyj Solovey was awarded the 2004 Warren Cultural Commission Fine Arts Award in the field of music. A plaque was presented to her at the spring program of the Warren Community Chorus and Concert Band performance.

Ms. Solovey was nominated by the area chapters of Ukrainian American Coordinating Council and the Ukrainian National Womens' League of America.

She has been actively involved for many years in the Warren community as an accompanist, choir conductor and program director. Recently, she was the accompanist for the Ukrainian Immaculate Conception High School senior presentation of the Ukrainian operetta "Sharika."

For the past 10 years, Ms. Solovey has been the director and accompanist for the Ukrainian senior singing group, Zoloti Dzvony, based at the Ukrainian Village. Her newest singing group, a quartet of young women, Soloveyky (Nightingales) performs a wide variety of Ukrainian music.

Representatives of the Ukrainian community sang "Mnohaya Lita" when the Fine Arts Award was presented to Ms. Solovey.

Ms. Solovey is a member of Ukrainian National Association Branch 292.

Featured in newsletter of regional Arts Guild

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The Central New York Art Guild newsletter recently ran a story on Ukrainian artist Anna Perun. Ms. Perun immigrated to the United States in 1991 and has spent much of her time since then teaching Ukrainian culture, history and the art of making "pysanky," traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs.

For the past 10 years Ms. Perun has put on a demonstration at a local shopping mall near her home in Syracuse, N.Y., to show how the Easter eggs are made and to explain their place in Ukrainian culture. She has appeared there annually at the invitation of the shopping center several weeks before Easter and often attracts a large, curious audience. Ms. Perun told the art newsletter that "The Ukrainian egg tells a story. The artist needs to think about what the egg is going to symbolize when it is finished."

"The Ukrainian Easter egg is a symbol of life. It represents hope for happiness, prosperity, strength and health from God," said Ms. Perun, who holds two master of arts degrees - one in artistic expression from the Technical School of Fine Art in Lviv, Ukraine, and the other in interior art from the Lviv-based Ivan Franko National University.

Anna Perun is a former secretary of Ukrainian National Association Branch 39 and works as a teacher at the Lesia Ukrainka School of Ukrainian Studies in Syracuse, N.Y.

Profiled in newspaper from Auburn, N.Y.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - The Citizen newspaper of Auburn, N.Y., carried a story on Dr. John Hvozda, a Ukrainian American professor who "who walked across Eastern Europe to newly liberated Austria and learned English from the GIs."

"Dr. John Hvozda survived the Nazis and Communists in World War II Ukraine. ... Determined to live in freedom, he worked his way to our country, and, between factory shifts, earned his law degree. He taught political science at Auburn Community College and is now retired," the newspaper wrote in its December 23, 2003, story.

The article's author, Roger Hare, explained that Dr. Hvozda's first-hand account of communism was in direct odds with other information Mr. Hare had previously learned about that period of history.

"A survivor of Stalin's roving death squads, he explained Cold War history from all sides," the author wrote in his commentary titled "A tribute to Doc Hvozda."

The article continued by saying that, "although no side was spared his criticisms, [Dr. Hvozda] put forth the possibility that everything I knew was wrong. I have not been the same since. I wish more people knew this man. A middle-class American kid has no idea what this country means until they talk to an immigrant who suffered to get here."

Dr. John Hvozda is a member of Ukrainian National Association Branch 39.

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