At the Shevchenko monument... (06/27/04)

ARAS SHEVCHENKO IN WASHINGTON: 1964-2004

At the Shevchenko monument...

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In 1989, literary critic and former Soviet political prisoner Ivan Dziuba shares his feelings with the press about being among the first official cultural representatives of Ukraine (then still part of the Soviet Union) to honor Shevchenko at his monument in Washington. Three years later, Mr. Dziuba would become minister of culture of an independent Ukraine, and his colleague, historian Mykola Zhulynskyi (standing behind him), went on to become deputy prime minister of Ukraine.

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A multiple first: Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, became the first president of Ukraine to pay his respects to Shevchenko in Washington while on the first U.S. visit by a Ukrainian president, in March 1994. Next to him is Ukraine's first ambassador to Washington, Oleh Bilorus.

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In addition to official visits and wreath layings, Ukrainian national and the poet's anniversary commemorations, Washington's Shevchenko monument has also been the venue for various other gatherings. During an evening protest vigil in mid-September 2002, as a tropical storm came through the nation's capital, Myroslava Gongadze addresses a large crowd on behalf of her murdered husband, investigative journalist Heorhii Gongadze, and other journalists and political activists killed in Ukraine over the past 10 years. (Photos in this series by Yaro Bihun)

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