November 28, 2019

Ukrainian Heritage Consortium convenes at Harvard

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UHCNA

2019 participants at the UHCNA: (seated, from left) Maria Shust, The Ukrainian Museum, New York; Andrew Fedynsky, Ukrainian Museum-Archives, Cleveland; Maria Klimchak, Ukrainian National Museum, Chicago; (standing) Tetyana Chervinska, Ukrainian National Museum; Marko Slyz, Shevchenko Scientific Society, New York; Lubow Wolynetz, Ukrainian Museum and Library, Stamford, Conn.; Olha Aleksic, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute; Jurij Dobczansky, Shevchenko Scientific Society and the Library of Congress; Lev Chaban, Harvard University; Aniza Kraus, Ukrainian Museum-Archives; Zorian Stech, Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center, Toronto; Christine Fedynsky, Ukrainian Museum-Archives; Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, Prairie Center for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Ukrainian Heritage Consortium of North America (UHCNA) convened its 2019 meeting at Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI). The UHCNA is a voluntary group that coordinates the exchange of information, fosters friendships and cooperation among Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions and professionals in the United States and Canada.

Past conferences have included the initial 2011 meeting at Cleveland’s Ukrainian Museum-Archives (UMA) and the following: 2012 at the Ukrainian Museum and Library at Stamford, Conn., 2013 at Chicago’s Ukrainian National Museum, 2015 at the Library of Congress in Washington, 2017 hosted by the Ukrainian History and Education Center in Somerset, N.J., and The Ukrainian Museum in New York.

The sixth conference opened on Thursday evening, October 17, with a reception in the Omeljan Pritsak Memorial Library of the Ukrainian Research Institute. Faculty members, university librarians, research fellows and associates of the institute welcomed participants. The following day HURI Director Dr. Serhii Plokhy delivered opening remarks emphasizing how important it is to preserve Ukrainian culture and history and uncover their lost or little-known aspects.

The conference began on Friday, October 18. Olha Aleksic, the Petro Jacyk Bibliographer for Ukrainian Collections at Harvard University, served as organizer and host. She put together a fascinating program focused on library collections and research. Presentations included information about the vast library system at Harvard and its diverse collections of Ukrainian and other Slavic publications, along with photos and ephemera related to social movements. Experts described how to curate collections in the digital age and how best to serve users of these collections.

The group visited the Weissman Preservation Center to observe restoration and preservation operations first-hand. A special highlight of the day was a presentation of selected rare books and manuscripts at Widener Library. It included Ivan Fedorov’s primer published in 1574, a first edition of Shevchenko’s “Kobzar,” 17th century ecclesiastical books as well as rare 20th century editions. The day ended with a walking tour of Harvard Yard conducted by Dr. Lubomyr Hajda, followed by dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club.

On Saturday morning, October 19, Dr. Hajda, a member of the initial group of Ukrainian scholars at HURI, spoke about its 50-year legacy and led a tour of the special exhibition “From Vision to Reality.” HURI Fellow Viktoriya Sereda presented the MAPA Project’s “Digital Atlas of Ukraine” – a multilingual, interactive online resource http://gis.huri.harvard.edu/. Ms. Aleksic focused her presentation on preserving the institutional memory of the Ukrainian studies program at Harvard by discussing the 50-year -old collection of audio recordings from the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies.

After lunch, the group visited the Harvard Art Museums and then heard reports from the institutional members of the UHCNA.

Dr. Zorian Stech of the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center in Toronto outlined how the center began its activities by documenting the Holodomor. He then described a collection of documents he is working on pertaining to members of two Ukrainian military units of the German armed forces who led a mutiny and joined the French Resistance. Many of its participants later joined the French Foreign Legion. While researching in the French National Archives, Dr. Stech accessed 5,000 documents he will process for future study.

Andrew Fedynsky of the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland spoke about its extensive programming with festivals, summer intern projects, an archival displaced persons camp project with the Holocaust Museum, and cooperation with Ohio State University, Oberlin College, Baldwin Wallace University and other academic institutions. Curator Aniza Kraus related how the UMA incorporated the library from the now-defunct publisher Ukrainske Slovo in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She also reported on a project in Ukraine inspired by historian Timothy Snyder’s “Bloodlands” and supported by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur’s (D-Ohio) Anastasia Foundation.

Chryzanta Hentisz from The Ukrainian Museum in New York spoke about the museum’s programming and shared copies of several magnificent catalogues of recent exhibitions staged by the museum. Especially noteworthy is the “Full Circle” exhibition marking the centennial of Ukraine’s statehood in 1917-1920. She gratefully noted the number of museums in the U.S. and Ukraine that provided loans from their collections to enhance these exhibitions.

Marko Slyz from the Shevchenko Scientific Society’s library in New York reported on the challenges of downsizing the collection and creating an online catalogue. The effort to eliminate duplicates and out-of-scope materials created an unexpected opportunity to search the catalogues of the Library of Congress and university libraries, resulting in a chance to fill gaps in their collections.

Jurij Dobczansky of the Shevchenko Society and the Library of Congress showed how establishing authority records for new subject headings and proper names promotes Ukrainian scholarship and, indeed, cements the very notion of Ukrainian identity and nationhood. He encouraged his colleagues to focus their library collections to supplement and enhance their museum and archival holdings rather than acquire books indiscriminately. In light of the unique holdings of UHCNA member institutions, cooperative cataloguing of their diverse resources may well become a reality in the near future, he added.

Lubow Wolynetz, a renowned expert on Ukrainian folklore and director of Stamford’s Ukrainian Museum and Library, addressed the challenge of coping with growing collections – both new items and duplicates – and their progress with this ongoing project. Ms. Wolynetz is also a highly respected long-time curator of exhibits at The Ukrainian Museum in New York and decades-long instructor of workshops on Ukrainian culture.

Maria Klimchak, curator, and Tetyana Chervinska, docent, of the Ukrainian National Museum, reported on their extensive program of exhibits and outreach to similar institutions in Chicago. During a trip to Ukraine Ms. Klimchak participated in celebrations of Ukraine’s naval military legacy. She brought with her a century-old banner of Ukraine’s Black Sea Fleet from the museum’s collection to the frigate Hetman Sahaidachny, the flagship of Ukraine’s Navy, for a commemorative ceremony.

The final speaker was Dr. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen from the Prairie Center for the study of Ukrainian Heritage in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. A newcomer to the UHCNA, she spoke of documenting the experience of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada and the center’s most recent exhibition “Letters from the Old Country” featuring correspondence between Ukrainian Canadians and their homelands.

Discussion about coordination of efforts followed – especially consolidating catalogues to allow scholars easy access to available resources. As always, funding is a problem as all the participant institutions have limited paid staff and rely a great deal on volunteers. The Ukrainian Museum in Detroit and the Ukrainian History and Education Center in Somerset, N.J., were unable to attend this year because of scheduling conflicts.

The conference adjourned on Sunday, October 20, with the expectation of meeting once again in 2021 but the host location has not yet been determined.

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