February 2, 2018

2017: The noteworthy: events and people

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Cover of “Plast: Ukrainian Scouting, a Unique Story” by Orest Subtelny et al, which was launched on January 14.

This section features the noteworthy events and people of 2017 that defy easy classification (or could fit under more than one of our Year in Review categories).

Cover of “Plast: Ukrainian Scouting, a Unique Story” by Orest Subtelny et al, which was launched on January 14.

• An English-language history of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization was presented at a book launch near Philadelphia in January. The book’s main author is renowned historian Orest Subtelny (who died in 2016); an editorial and coordinating committee was formed under the auspices of the World Plast Executive. The book is the result of extensive archival research both in Ukraine and the diaspora.

• The United Ukrainian Organizations of New York and the New York City branch of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America in March hosted an evening with Sergei Loiko, renowned journalist, war correspondent and author. Mr. Loiko presented his novel “Airport,” a fictionalized account of the four days he spent imbedded with the Ukrainian “Cyborgs” during the 2014 siege of Donetsk airport, stressing that many of the book’s characters and plot lines were inspired by people he met and events he personally experienced.

• An observer from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – 36-year-old American paramedic Joseph Stone – was killed on April 23 when the armored vehicle he was in likely struck a landmine in the village of Pryshyb in occupied Luhansk Oblast. This was the first death of an active duty OSCE observer in Ukraine since the monitoring mission began in March 2014. Two other monitors, a German woman and a Czech man, were injured in the blast.

• Software development projects have long been outsourced to Ukraine. Now, several technology product companies and start-ups are working on making “made in Ukraine” a label signifying high-quality technology products, with an eye towards the EU and beyond. In January the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association invited eight technology startups from Ukraine to exhibit their products at the Consumer Technology Association’s trade show in Las Vegas. These included The Hideez Group, which specializes in cybersecurity and authentication devices and services (their first product, the Hideez Key, is available on Amazon.com); Ecoisme, a home automation and smart home company whose product is an energy monitoring unit that can help consumers save money by understanding how electricity is being used; Agrieye, which helps farmers make decisions based on the collection of real-time data retrieved from observing, measuring and responding to interfield and intrafield variability in crops; and Jooble, which assists online job boards and corporate career sites with additional candidate traffic for their employment postings. A story about Ukrainian technology companies by Mike Buryk appeared in our April 30 issue.

• The Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations hosted an exhibit titled “Ukrainian Insights,” which featured works by contemporary artists from Ukraine: Victor Sydorenko, Oleg Tistol, Mykola Matsenko and Valentin Popov. The exhibit was curated by Natalia Shpitkovskaya and art director Tamara Shevchenko and was on display at the Delegates Entrance Hall on May 16-26. Organizers of the exhibit described it as creating “a platform that will further promote Ukraine’s independent identity within the international arena and bring greater recognition to the achievements of its people.”

Vladimir Gontar/UNIAN

The winner of Eurovision 2017, Salvador Sobral of Portugal, is seen with the 2016 winner, Crimean Tatar singer Jamala from Ukraine. The contest was held in Kyiv on May 9-13.

• The Eurovision 2017 song contest was held in Kyiv on May 9-13. Ukraine earned the right to host the contest because Jamala, a Crimean Tatar singer from Ukraine, had won Eurovision 2016. Jamala performed as an interval act during the 2017 final, which was won by Salvador Sobral of Portugal. Ukraine’s entry, the rock band O. Torvald, finished 24th out of 26 entries, but the event earned praise from President Petro Poroshenko for its high level of organization. Jon Ola Sand, executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, also noted the extremely high level of organization, saying that the contest was “held flawlessly.”

• Congressman Brenan F. Boyle (D-Pa.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) were recognized as “Distinguished Friends of Ukraine” by the American Center for a European Ukraine (ACEU) in recognition of their work in Congress to assist Ukraine. The awards were presented on May 24 at an ACEU-sponsored event titled “U.S.-Ukraine: Partners in the Battle for Democracy and Security in Europe” at which Rep. Boyle was the keynote speaker. Both Sen. McCain and Rep. Boyle are strong proponents of providing lethal weapons to Ukraine. Rep. Boyle introduced legislation, H.R. 1997, the Ukraine Cybersecurity Cooperation Act, to encourage cooperation between the United States and Ukraine on matters of cybersecurity.

Presidential Administration of Ukraine

President Petro Poroshenko presents the Hero of Ukraine medal to the parents of Mikhail Zhyzneuski in Kyiv on June 13. Zhyzneuski, a Belarusian, was one of the first protesters killed during the Euro-Maidan protests in 2014.

• Mikahil Zhyzneuski, one of the first martyrs of the Euro-Maidan protests of 2014, was posthumously awarded the Hero of Ukraine medal by President Petro Poroshenko, making him the first foreigner awarded the high honor. Mr. Poroshenko presented the medal to Mr. Zhyzneuski’s parents in Kyiv on June 13, hailing him as “a hero who was a great Belarussian and a great Ukrainian in his heart.”

• Ukraine’s Acting Minister of Health Dr. Ulana Suprun received the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America’s (UCCA) Shevchenko Freedom Award, the highest accolade given by that organization. The award is given to individuals who have displayed a remarkable understanding and given substantial assistance to the Ukrainian American community and the Ukrainian people. Former UCCA president Tamara Olexy, current President Andriy Futey and Ukrainian National Information Service Director Michael Sawkiw presented the award to Dr. Suprun in Washington during the U.S.-Ukraine Working Group Yearly Summit on June 15. (The award was announced in 2016, but Dr. Suprun had been unable to attend the XXII Congress of Ukrainians in America to receive it.) Prior to Dr. Suprun’s appointment as acting minister of health, she was the director of Humanitarian Initiatives of the Ukrainian World Congress, and the founder of the Patriot Defence project that continues to provide tactical and emergency medical training to soldiers on the frontlines in Ukraine.

“Borders, Bombs, and… Two Right Shoes: World War II through the Eyes of a Ukrainian Child Refugee Survivor,” by Larissa Zaleska Onyshkevych, was featured in a book note on March 5.

• Larissa Zaleska Onyshkevych, a literary scholar of comparative drama and author and/or editor of several books on drama and literature, published “Borders, Bombs, and… Two Right Shoes: World War II through the Eyes of a Ukrainian Child Refugee Survivor.” Not just a memoir of the author’s family’s experience in Ukraine and their journey to the West as refugees, the book contains solid historical background intertwined with family history. What happens in the book is documented with an abundance of photographs, documents, letters, maps, etc. There is also a “Part II,” providing supplemental historical data and background information on events and on the family’s war experiences. Addenda include Ukraine’s historical timeline and a comprehensive glossary. A book review appeared in our June 25 issue.

• Part of New York’s “Lincoln Center Out of Doors” 2017 festival was a “Heritage Sunday” event on August 6 celebrating the music and dance traditions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, presented jointly by the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, the Center for Art, Tradition and Cultural Heritage, and Lincoln Center Out of Doors. The concert featured performances by the Cheres Folk Orchestra, representing the Carpathian region of western Ukraine, and Iskra Ukrainian Dance Ensemble; the acrobatic Georgian music and dance troupe Dancing Crane Dance Studio; the “Queen of Tajik Dance” Malika Kalontarova; and Albanian vocal star Merita Halili, with an orchestra led by the Republic of Kosova’s Raif Hyseni.

Courtesy of Holly Palance

Famed actor Jack Palance’s daughter, Holly Palance (second from right), is greeted on September 15 in his ancestral village, Ivano-Zolote in Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine.

• Holly Palance, daughter of Academy and Emmy award-winning actor Jack Palance, who was born Volodymyr Palahniuk to Ukraine-born parents in Pennsylvania, visited her ancestral village of Ivane-Zolote in Ternopil Olast on September 15. Ms. Palance was warmly welcomed with traditional bread and salt by the village head of Ivane-Zolote and educators and pupils from the local school, and received the Ukrainian red-carpet treatment, including a concert, a video presentation about her father’s life, an embroidered blouse, a five-course meal and access to church records about her family that were kept safely hidden during the times of oppressive Soviet rule. Ms. Palance, who spent summers in Pennsylvania with her Ukrainian grandparents, was always aware of her father’s Ukrainian heritage, but said she hadn’t realized how much it meant to him until he rejected the title of a “Russian People’s Choice Award” in 2004 (see The Ukrainian Weekly, September 5, 2004).

Kyiv Mohyla Foundation

Author Anne Applebaum receives an honorary doctorate from the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy on December 16. The honor is bestowed by university president Dr. Andriy Meleshkevych.

• Pulitzer Prize-winning author, journalist and commentator Anne Applebaum was honored with the 2017 Omelan and Tatiana Antonovych Foundation Award for her work and its effect on Ukraine. Ms. Applebaum has spent most of her career writing about the historic developments in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and Russia, and has authored a number of books, among them the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Gulag: A History,” “Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956,” “Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe” and most recently “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine.” Ms. Applebaum’s last book was described by The Wall Street Journal as a “lucid, judicious, powerful and heart-wrenching history of the Ukrainian famine.” It was published after the Antonovych Award committee had made its decision that she would be the 70th winner of the award since Vasyl Barka won the first one in 1981. The award was presented at a ceremony at the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington on October 28.

• Three historic anniversaries – the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known by its Ukrainian acronym as UPA; the 70th anniversary of Akcja Wisla, the ethnic cleansing of Ukrainian Lemko lands; and the 70th anniversary of UPA’s “Great Raid,” which spread documentary source material throughout the nations of Western Europe about Ukraine’s heroic struggle for independence – were marked with several events in October. On October 13, Prof. Volodymyr Serhiychuk, director of the Center of Ukrainian Studies at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, delivered a lecture titled “Ukrainian Victims of the 20th Century” at the Ukrainian National Home in New York. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Prof. Serhiychuk has combed through the declassified Soviet-era archives in Ukraine. On October 14 – the Day of the Holy Protectress, which is historically identified as the date the UPA was officially established – there was a commemorative concert at the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey in Whippany. The sold-out event featured well-known performers from Ukraine, the six-member a cappella group Pikkardiyska Tertsiya and singer, musician and songwiter Taras Chubay, as well as the Iskra Ukrainian Dance Ensemble, which premiered a new choreography by artistic director Andrij Cybyk that had been especially commissioned for the occasion. The final anniversary event was a scholarly conference at the Shevchenko Scientific Society in New York on October 29.

• The Ukrainian diaspora community in Los Angeles celebrated the restoration of its Ukrainian Culture Center with the production of an original bilingual dramatic play titled “Majestic Woman – Lesia Ukrainka” on October 22. Written in Ukrainian by artistic director Victoria Kuzina, the play was translated into English by Luba Keske, who also served as the English-language narrator; Asya Gorska, who partnered with Ms. Kuzina on the creative elements of the play, narrated in Ukrainian. The play, starring Halyna Stadnyk as Lesia Ukrainka, presented the life of this majestic woman through narration, poetry, music, interpretive dance and film. Integrating these media, Ms. Kuzina wove the story of Lesia Ukrainka’s life as a gifted writer of poems, prose, short stories and music, and as a linguist and translator of classics into her native Ukrainian language.

• Iryna Geraschenko, deputy speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament and the Ukrainian president’s commissioner for the peaceful settlement of the situation in war-torn Donetsk and Luhansk, is the highest-ranking woman in the ongoing process to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. On October 30 in London, Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security presented her with the 2017 Global Trailblazer Award in recognition of her efforts to restore peace in eastern Ukraine.

• The Ukrainian Technological Society (UTS) of Pittsburgh honored Natalie Ann Jaresko with its 2017 Ukrainian of the Year Award. The award was presented at the society’s annual dinner-dance on November 4. The UTS annually recognizes a Ukrainian of the Year or a Friend of Ukraine, individuals of local, national and international stature who have contributed to the Ukrainian community or Ukrainian scholarship, or who have demonstrated significant achievement, which brings recognition and prestige to the Ukrainian community. Ms. Jaresko was honored for her 25 plus years of successful management experience in government and business, and for perpetuating Ukrainian religious culture by her service to the Ukrainian Orthodox League. Accepting the award, Ms. Jaresko reflected on her experiences as a child of Ukrainian immigrant parents, noting that she had been inspired to public service by reading about leaders of both the U.S. and Ukraine.

• President Donald Trump on November 7 signed a proclamation recognizing the National Day for the Victims of Communism. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the day recognizes the more than 100 million people killed during the last century by Communist totalitarian regimes around the world, along with the countless more subjected to exploitation and violence.

• The centennial of the First Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar People, which proclaimed the Crimean People’s Republic and adopted a Constitution and national symbolism, was marked on December 9. In its congratulatory statement, the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) said the First Kurultai “remains a historic event of international consequence that testifies to the long-standing aspiration of the Crimean Tatar people for self-determination and establishes democratic traditions in the history of the Crimean Tatars.” The UWC’s statement re-affirmed its solidarity with the Crimean Tatar people and its continued support for the defense of their human, national and religious rights and freedoms.

• Investigative journalist Natalie Sedletska was presented the Light of Justice award on December 2, at the 10th gala dinner of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). The award recognizes Ukrainians who distinguish themselves for moral, spiritual and ethical leadership. Ms. Sedletska is a leading Ukrainian journalist with vast experience in investigations of the corruptions schemes of Ukrainian public officials. Her investigative TV program “Schemes. Corruption in Detail” has been regularly broadcast since 2014 by the First TV channel. She is part of the famous Yanukovych leaks project, and in 2016 received the Oleksandr Kryvenko Award, the most prestigious in Ukrainian journalism. Michael Bociurkiw, family representative of the award’s founder Dr. Anastasia Shkilnyk, described Ms. Sedletska as having repeatedly “demonstrated, through her probing investigative journalism, that even the most powerful figures in Ukrainian society are not immune from critical scrutiny. …Natalie has exposed many hidden schemes – often a great risk to herself.”

• Anne Applebaum, journalist, historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (known by the acronym NaUKMA). The degree was presented during a ceremony on December 16, following a lecture by Ms. Applebaum about her recent book “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine” about the 1932-1933 Holodomor. Ms. Applebaum’s visit to Ukraine also included a NaUKMA fund-raising event at the Kyiv Art Arsenal, a press conference, a book presentation and meetings with media and civil society reformers, as well as members of the executive and legislative branches of government, including an extensive private meeting with President Petro Poroshenko.

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