1984: A LOOK BACK: Scholarship and academia (12/30/84)

1984: A LOOK BACK

Scholarship and academia

1984 was a year filled with evidence of the interest Ukrainians in the diaspora have in scholarship and scholarly publications. A fair number of book reviews appeared on The Weekly's pages over the months, various Ukrainian institutions were awarded government grants, and symposia on Ukrainian religious topics were held at two universities.

Among the books The Weekly received was the first volume of the English-language Encyclopedia of Ukraine edited by Volodymyr Kubijovyc. The impressive tome, covering the letters A to F, represents 25 years of research by more than l00 scholars. Also published was an accompanying map and gazetteer. It was published at a cost of $1 million by the University of Toronto Press for the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Shevchenko Scientific Society based in Sarcelles, France, and the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies.

In August, the Canadian government announced that grants totalling $100,000 were approved for research projects on the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33). Half the monies were allocated to the Toronto-based Ukrainian Research Committee for completing production of the film "Harvest of Despair," which premiered there in the fall. The other half went to the Lachine, Que., Foundation to Commemorate the 1933 Ukraine Famine and is earmarked for the production of a project to record on videotape the personal experiences of Canadian citizens who survived the famine. The tapes will eventually be deposited in the Public Archives of Canada and other educational institutions, where they will be accessible to researchers, academics and students.

Meanwhile, the New Jersey-based Ukrainian American Professional and Businesspersons Association and the journal Suchasnist sponsored over 50 interviews with famine survivors living in the United States. Information compiled for the oral history project (some 90 hours of interviews have been taped and are awaiting transcription) will be made available to the yet-to-be-formed Congressional Famine Commission.

Four universities, two in the United States and two in Canada, stepped up efforts to reinforce Ukrainian studies.

The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta launched a project that will encompass: the preparation of a published guide to archival/manuscript materials; a constantly updated computerized data base of archival repositories and detailed inventories and checklists of their collections; acquisition of primary source materials; summer internships at leading archival institutions; scholarships for archival science students interested primarily in working on ethno-cultural and specialized collections; a major publicity and education Program within the community; and an oral history dimension.

At the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, the Ukrainian Research Program was established back in February. It will function as an autonomous institution with its own executive committee, research advisory council and associates. The program will concentrate mainly on: organizing scholarly conferences and publishing their proceedings; supporting its associates and other scholars, as well as graduate students in research on Ukrainian subjects; supporting courses on Ukrainian subjects at the University of Illinois; and further developing the Ukrainian collection at the university library.

Some weeks later, the Ukrainian Canadian Committee committed itself to establishing a $100,000 endowment fund at Toronto's York University. The fund was created to ensure the permanent availability of Ukrainian history courses at York, to make the study of Ukrainian politics an integral part of the university's curriculum and to appoint to York's faculty a leading specialist in that field. The fund will also allow for research and publication in Ukrainian studies, public lectures, conferences, student scholarships, library acquisitions, the initiation of refresher courses for teachers of Ukrainian and for the preparation of teaching materials. In what should be an encouragement to the scholars in Toronto, the UCC announced that student enrollment in Ukrainian history courses tripled since last year.

Then in April, after nearly a year of preparatory activity, the Committee on the Millennium of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine for the Realization of the Harvard Project was officially established in New York. The committee's goal is to implement the Harvard Project for the millennium which includes: the establishment of a Harvard University chair devoted to research on religious thought in Ukraine; the publication of a mammoth 120-volume collection of Ukrainian literary treasures through the year 1798; and the publication of a three-volume work on 1,000 years of Ukrainian Christianity.

In October, LaSalle University in Philadelphia hosted an international symposium on "Ukrainian Christianity on the Threshold of Its Second Millennium." The proceedings of the symposium will be published in a special volume by the St. Sophia Religious Association of Ukrainian Catholics.

In November, a three-day conference focusing on the life and works of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was held at the University of Toronto. Over 250 registrants from all over the world and 25 speakers from eight countries attended.