Browsing: Obituaries

PARSIPPANY, N.J. – George Sawchak, a former ranked U.S. Tennis Association Middle States player and member of the Ukrainian Sports Hall of Fame and the Ukrainian National Association (UNA), died on August 21 after battling a long illness, according to his wife.  He was 82.

KYIV – A prominent statesman who helped shape Ukraine’s nationhood during much of its formative years after renewed independence in…...

LVIV – Olexander Roytburd, a postmodern artist and a leader of the Ukrainian “New Wave” artistic movement, died on August 8. His death was first reported by the Odesa Fine Arts Museum where Mr. Roytburd was a director since 2018. He was 59.

TORONTO – The late professor Dr. Bohdan Medwidsky passed into eternity as a result of the COVID-19 virus. A brother, uncle, brother-in-law, founder and benefactor of the Kule Folklore Centre and the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Mr. Medwidsky was 84.

Dr. Bohdan R. Czepak (1937-2021), a long-time activist and community leader in greater Cleveland, passed away on April 9 after an extended illness. He was 83.

Professionally, Dr. Czepak was a plastic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University Hospital and Lutheran Medical Center specializing in hand surgery, helping thousands of patients over his more than 50 years of practice and winning widespread praise in the process.  He was especially devoted to the greater Cleveland Ukrainian community, serving as a board member of the Ukrainian Museum-Archives, securing very generous contributions and grants over the years which will be ongoing with his legacy contribution.

Serhiy Proskurnya, renown Ukrainian theater director, producer, winner of the prestigious Serhiy Danchenko Award and the laureate of the National Union of Theater Actors of Ukraine “Experiment” Award, died on February 1.

The following is the first article to appear on the digitized website of Our Sport (“Nash Sport”) magazine (www.nashsport.org). It was written in honor of Omelan Twardow­sky, who started Our Sport magazine and who ensured the publication continued for 54 years before his passing in 2019.

The Very Rev. Archpriest John Michael Fields of Frackville, Pa., entered into eternity on Friday, November 27. The son of the late John “Jack” Fields and Olga Uhryn Fields, John was born on February 19, 1950, in Butler Township, Pa., and is survived by his sister Diane M. Berkheiser and her husband Dennis, and sister MaryAnn Fields-Whyne; nephew Keith John Berkheiser and his wife Shawn, niece Kristen A. Berkheiser, niece Katharine A. Whyne and her husband Chris, and niece Maria A. Whyne; great-niece Caroline G. Berkheiser and great-nephew Wyatt “Jack” Berkheiser.

WALTHAM, M.A. – Answer: This man – who for 37 seasons played the quintessential host of a world-famous, widely beloved quiz show, and whose father, George Edward Terebeychuk, emigrated from Ukraine as a child – died of pancreatic cancer on November 8. He was 80.

Question: Who was George Alexander Trebek?

Born on July 22, 1940, in Sudbury, Ontario, Alex Trebek was synonymous with “Jeopardy!,” the Emmy and Peabody award-winning syndicated game show in which questions were presented to participants as answers, and answers were given in the form of questions.

OTTAWA – The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) expressed its deep condolences on the loss of Anna Kisil, a community leader, philanthropist, activist and volunteer, and president of the World Federation of Ukrainian Women’s Organizations (WFUWO), who passed away on November 16 in Toronto.

The UCC noted that Ms. Kisil “will be remembered by all who knew her for her kindness, humor, compassion and wisdom. She had a deep commitment to helping others and for serving her community and Ukraine. She will be profoundly missed.”

BRIGHTON, Mich. – Lydia (Lida) Czorny Matiaszek, a Ukrainian cultural and community activist both in the United States and Ukraine, died on September 17 at the age of 58.

Funeral services were held in Kyiv at the Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection on September 22. Burial was held later at the Baikiv Cemetery in Ukraine’s capital.

Ms. Czorny Matiaszek was born April 11, 1962, in Jamaica, N.Y. She grew up in a home with a very strong Ukrainian identity. Her father, Mykola Dosinchuk-Czorny, was a tireless promoter of the bandura, initiator of the New York School of Bandura and editor of Bandura magazine.

Former Ukrainian dissident Raisa Rudenko has died in Kyiv after an unsuccessful operation. Ms. Rudenko, who in a month would have turned 81, was the wife of Mykola Rudenko, a founder of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group who died in 2004, and acted as secretary for the group. Like her husband and essentially all members of the UHG, she paid for her commitment to freedom and human rights with years of imprisonment in the USSR’s political labor camps and forced exile. 

Raisa Panasivna Kaplun was born on November 20, 1939, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Her grandparents on both sides had been victims of Stalin’s campaign against so-called “kulaks” (more successful peasants), and her father was killed in World War II when she was still very small. The young girl had an accident in childhood that left her in a coma for a long time.