Author: Andrew Sorokowski

What prompts people to undertake the extraordinary? Mykolai-Vasyl Diakiv was born in Bachiv, Peremyshliany district, Lviv region, on May 1, 1914. His father, a cultural and educational activist, participated in the Ukrainian war of independence of 1918-1919. Bachiv was “a patriotic village,” with Sich, Sokil, and Prosvita organizations. When, in the wake of the Polish...

Part II For many of us, the late 1960s and 1970s coincided with our student years. It is natural to idealize them. But were they really a time of “peace and love”? Last month’s column dealt with peace. What about love?  The summer of 1967 was the “Summer of Love.” A barge in Richardson Bay,...

Part I Where were you 50 years ago? This is chiefly a question for baby-boomers, who have largely determined the course of the United States since the 1990s and are now gradually leaving active public and private life, but for whom 1967-1969 were formative years. In a way, the answer to this question provides a...

Ukrainian Orthodox autocephaly may soon be a reality. According to Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, the tomos (decree) by the Ecumenical Patriarchate has already been drafted (Relihiina Pravda, May 26). The consequences would be profound. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church last April 17. The heads...

Will your grandchildren belong to your Church? That may be a question you’d rather not think about.  Now it may be that you don’t have children or grandchildren. Or it may be that your offspring are so alienated from Ukrainian life that the question does not even arise. Perhaps you think that it really doesn’t...

WASHINGTON – Ukrainians still do not have a sufficient knowledge and understanding of their own history. For while Ukrainian historical scholarship has made great strides since independence, its results have not penetrated the general population. Even the war of independence, the Holodomor, the second world war and the Holocaust are insufficiently known. Thus, there is a need for a responsible “popular history” that is more accessible than the writings of professional scholarship but more balanced and accurate than what is often presented by the media. 

Is liberalism dead? It is not surprising that some conservatives think so. It could be wishful thinking. But the atmosphere of doom and despair among liberals does not bode well. Some thinkers even speak of “post-liberalism.” There is, to be sure, a problem with all these “posts”: post-modern, post-Soviet, post-truth… “Posters” claim that a given...

We are all prone to stereotyping. Few areas of the world are the object of more stereotyping than Africa. Hence, the notion that there can be any connection between our ancient, venerable, European – and white – people and the “Dark Continent” may strike us as odd. But in fact, there are connections, and even...

Unlike the United States, Ukraine has more than a couple of neighbors, and they haven’t all been nice. But what is a neighbor? Is it only a nation inhabiting a contiguous space? Or can it be a people that, while sharing no borders, has exerted a strong influence? In fact, one such neighbor has been...

The church coffee room – that democratic, egalitarian forum where all the world’s great problems are solved – is filled with long tables and metal folding chairs. At one end, weary volunteers preside over a table spread with plates of sandwiches and donuts, a coffee urn, and a tray full of dollar bills and coins....

WASHINGTON – Poetry is first of all meant to be heard. Hence, poetry lovers flock to live readings – especially when the reader is the poet himself. Such was the case on Sunday, November 5, 2017, when the Shevchenko Scientific Society’s chapter in Washington, together with the Library of the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of...

One of the secondary lessons of the Putin regime’s persecution of the head librarian at the Ukrainian library in Moscow, which began in 2015 and culminated in her conviction last June, is the continued importance of the printed book. This is also evident in the success of the Lviv Publishers’ Forum, held every September, which...