Highlights from the UNA's 110-year history (07/11/04)

Highlights from the UNA's 110-year history

A special yearlong feature focusing on the history of the Ukrainian National Association.

One of the most impressive conventions in the Ukrainian National Association's history was the 23rd convention held in Washington on May 31-June 5, 1954.

Present were 437 delegates with a total of 920 votes, in addition to 19 supreme officers of the organization, each of whom had one vote.

During the course of the convention, UNA supreme executive officers, Svoboda editors and the chairman and vice-chairman of the convention

visited the U.S. State Department and held a conference with the head of the East European Desk to discuss U.S. policy toward Ukraine and its struggle for liberation. A memorandum was sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Representing the U.S. government at the conference were Attorney General William P. Rodgers and 17 members of Congress, including Sen. John F. Kennedy and Speaker of the House of Representatives Joseph P. Martin.

Reports presented to the convention by executive officers indicated that the UNA's membership had increased by 27,257 members - approximately 21,000 of them newly arrived Ukrainian immigrants to the United States - during the four-year period since the previous convention and now stood at 70,221. Assets grew by over $4 million to a total of $15,258,377.64.

The convention approved donations totaling $27,691.65 to various cultural and charitable causes in the United States and Europe, approved the Supreme Executive Committee's purchase of an estate that came to be known as Soyuzivka, and directed that a children's publication called Veselka should appear as a supplement to Svoboda, but should the situation warrant it, should be published separately as a magazine.

Dmytro Halychyn was re-elected to his second term as UNA supreme president.

Source: "Ukrainian National Association: Its Past and Present, (1894-1964)," by Anthony Dragan (translated from the original Ukrainian by Zenon Snylyk). Jersey City, N.J.: Svoboda Press, 1964. The border featured in this special feature is reproduced from a UNA membership certificate dating to 1919.

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