Bostonians celebrate “Vyshyvanka” Day

BOSTON. – More than 80 greater Boston Ukrainian Americans gathered together in the Grille Room of the Boston College Club, located on the 35th floor of the Bank of America Building in the city’s downtown Financial District, for a “Vyshyvanka” Day dance party co-sponsored by the Ukrainian American Educational Center of Boston and Ukrainian Boston and deejayed by Ivan Kril of Salem, Mass., on Thursday evening, May 16.

Enroll for the 49th session of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute

The Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI) will hold its 49th annual session at Harvard University’s main campus on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass., for upper-level undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students, particularly those of Ukrainian heritage, as well as university students from Ukraine and professional, government and military specialists who need to hone their skills in the field of Ukrainian Studies. 

Boston UAYA holds 15th annual pysanka raffle

JAMAICA PLAIN, Mass. – For the past 15 years, a dozen women members of the Boston Branch of the Ukrainian American Youth Association (UAYA) have been gathering in their local “domivka” (club house) every Sunday after the sung liturgy for five or six hours to write pysanky from Meatfare Sunday until the fifth Sunday of the Great Fast. They do so in anticipation of the annual pysaanka raffle and sale that is always held on new calendar Palm, or Willow, Sunday at Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic Parish Center. This year they decorated approximately 300 eggs.

Boston parish marks 110th anniversary

JAMAICA PLAIN, Mass. – The parishioners of Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic Parish of Boston celebrated the 110th anniversary of the canonical erection of their parish by Bishop Soter Ortynsky of Philadelphia in 1907 with a pontifical divine liturgy followed by a luncheon in the parish center on Sunday, October 29, which was also celebrated by the church as the Feast of Christ the King.

Parish celebrates choir director’s 70th birthday

JAMAICA PLAIN, Mass. – On Saturday afternoon, November 11, some 80 members of Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic Parish in Boston gathered together with family and friends of Ihor Kowal, long-time choir director and cantor, to celebrate his 70th birthday and to mark his many years of liturgical service to the parish as well. The gathering began with the celebration of vespers in the church by candlelight by the pastor, the Very Rev. Dr. Yaroslav Nalysnyk, with the full choir under the direction of guest choirmaster Alexander Kuzma of Hartford, Conn., who also served as cantor. The service was followed by a reception in the Parish Center which included a cocktail reception, a formal program, a buffet dinner, an impressive dessert station and, later in the evening, the official birthday cake which was in the form of a Ukrainian embroidered shirt, which was designed and put together for the occasion by Lyuba Demchyk. Parish Council Member Myron Kravchuk acted as master of ceremonies; Father Nalysnyk opened the program with a prayer.

Boston Friends of UCU sponsor Yevshan Choir at benefit event

BOSTON – More than 150 supporters of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) of Lviv gathered in Boston’s Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic Church after the last liturgy on Sunday, September 24, for a special concert of sacred and secular music by the 22 voices of the Yevshan Ukrainian Vocal Ensemble drawn from the greater Hartford Connecticut area under the direction of Alexander Kuzma and under the auspices of the Boston Friends of UCU.

Anne Applebaum speaks at Harvard seminar about the Holodomor

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Anne Applebaum spoke to a packed auditorium at Harvard University’s Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS) on the topic “The Holodomor Reconsidered: The Bolshevik Revolution and the Ukrainian Famine.”

The talk was part of a retrospective series of special events sponsored by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) that takes a new look at “Ukraine in the Flames of the 1917 Revolution.”

Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute presents series titled ‘Ukraine in the Flames of the 1917 Revolution’

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – In 1917, exactly 100 years ago, World War I was raging on for a third, brutal year. On the western front, it had devolved into a static, almost motionless trench warfare, in which neither the Germans nor the French, British and their allies had the ability or the momentum to move forward and overcome the opposing forces. It was war by a very slow process of attrition. On the eastern front, the situation was different.

Noted classical pieces from Armenian, Georgian, Ukrainian musical repertoire presented in Boston

BOSTON – Almost 100 music lovers turned out on Friday evening, September 15, for a special musical program in the ongoing concert series at Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic Parish Center in Boston. The concert drew on the rich classical musical traditions of Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine and featured some very well established artists from those three countries, as well as some young talent that had been educated both in Europe and North America. The program was put together as a joint venture by Talents of the World and a new organization based in Boston, Ukrainian Vocal Heritage. The mission of the partnership is to share the uniqueness and beauty of both the vocal and instrumental, particularly piano, music of these people and others with as wide an audience as possible. The idea that is the impetus for the project is that music transcends all boundaries and that during the performances representatives of the different cultures will be able to show off gems of their own musical heritage, and, at the same time, their artistic excellence.

Greater Boston celebrates Ukraine’s independence at multiple events

BOSTON – As has now become traditional, the Ukrainian American community of greater Boston and eastern New England began its celebration of the anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence on August 24, 1991, with a commemorative ceremony and raising of the Ukrainian flag on the ceremonial flagpole on Boston’s City Hall Plaza. Representatives of the state, city, clergy, community leaders, the Lithuanian community, and more than 250 Ukrainian Americans – most wearing Ukrainian embroidery – participated. The ceremonies were under the auspices of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America Boston Branch (UCCA-Boston) in conjunction with a number of local organizations and a host of volunteers. In addition to the ceremonial flag-raising at Boston’s City Hall, this year’s various events included a reception hosted in the City Council Chambers, a cruise in Boston Harbor, cooking classes on how to make varenyky and holubtsi, formal liturgies offered for Ukraine at all Boston-area churches, and a traditional Ukrainian picnic on the spacious nine-acre grounds of Christ the King Ukrainian Catholic parish. In all, some 2,000 people attended some part of the celebration, and, it should be noted, a very high percentage of those who took part were fairly young, wore Ukrainian embroidery (vyshyvanky), and were members of the Fourth Wave.