1989: A LOOK BACK: Visitors from Ukraine (12/31/89)

1989: A LOOK BACK

Visitors from Ukraine

During 1989 an unprecedented number and variety of Ukrainians from the Soviet Union visited North America, Europe and Australia, apparently as a result of loosened travel restrictions and a strong and long-repressed interest in the West.

These visitors that filled our pages with memorable words and images, were indeed of a various sort: from individuals seeking medical treatment to prominent and lesser-known figures in the worlds of art, scholarship, literature, theater, music, politics; many participants in the national renaissance, former political prisoners, USSR people's deputies; groups ranging from schoolchildren to soccer teams to ballet troupes.

Here is a chronological list of these visitors, who came for conferences, exchanges, private visits, medical treatment, speaking tours and family visits.

While on assignment (January 12-26) covering President George Bush's inauguration as the 41st president of the United States for the Chicago Tribune, Ogonyok editor Vitaliy A. Korotich addressed a Ukrainian American audience in Washington on January 25. The evening featuring Mr. Korotich, who later in the year was elected a USSR people's deputy representing a Kharkiv district, was sponsored by The Washington Group of Ukrainian American professionals.
Four high schools from Ukraine, including three from Kiev and one from Lviv, participated in U.S. student exchanges in 1989: in February, students from Kiev School No. 155 visited a Tuscon, Ariz., high school; in March, students from Kiev's School of Intensive English Language No. 51 spent a month at Detroit area schools; also in March, Lviv School No. 76 sent 12 students to a Glastonbury, Conn., high school; and nine teenagers from Kiev School No. 125 visited a Chicago school in November.
Prominent composer Myroslav Skoryk of Kiev and world-class violinist Oleh Krysa of Moscow arrived in the United States in early February at the Invitation of the Las Vegas Symphony Orchestra and Virko Baley, its music director and conductor. The orchestra commissioned a violin concerto from Mr. Skoryk, which was premiered on February 6 by Mr. Krysa. After a spring concert tour of Ukrainian American and Canadian communities, Mr. Krysa and Kiev virtuoso pianist Alexander Slobodyanik each signed a two-year contract effective in mid-August with the Ukrainian Institute of America to do a series of solo recitals, chamber concerts and master classes under the title "Music at the Institute" (MATI).

Among the classical musicians and composers from Ukraine who appeared in North America this year were Kiev's Leontovych String Quartet, composer Ivan Karabytz and pianist Mykola Suk. The latter two participated in the MATI series this autumn.
Forty-year-old Stepan Sapeliak, former political prisoner, poet and activist of the Ukrainian Association of Independent Creative Intelligentsia, arrived on January 30 for a three-month visit to Canada and the United States in an effort to establish contacts with youth groups. The Kharkiv resident's trip was highlighted by an April 19 meeting with Canada's Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and visit to the House of Commons in Ottawa.
In its first North American tour in late February and early March, the Donetske Ballet entertained audiences along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and met with many Ukrainian Americans in Baltimore, Washington, New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
The arrival of individuals for medical treatment in the United States began with Oksana Hlebkyna, a 17-year-old from Stryi, Ukraine, who came on January 16 and still awaits a donor for a heart and lung transplant at the Arizona Heart Institute. Others who arrived were: Ivan Yonyk of Sniatyn, western Ukraine, in September for artificial limbs; Oksen Duda, 11, of Lviv, in October for open heart surgery at Deborah Hospital; and Iryna Chaban of Stryi, on a yearlong visit, for open heart surgery on December 12 at St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, N.J.
Olha Horyn, a former political prisoner and wife of Mykhailo Horyn, a leader of the Popular Movement of Ukraine for Perebudova, came to New Jersey on December 16 for breast cancer treatment. Pep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) gave her visa request a boost with a letter signed by 104 members of Congress to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Formerly repressed artist Feodosiy Humeniuk of Leningrad visited Canada for the first six months of 1989, beginning with a solo exhibition in conjunction with York University's symposium on "Glasnost in Soviet Ukraine," January 29-February 10. Mr. Humeniuk also exhibited at New York's Ukrainian Museum, June 3-25.

Several other non-conformist artists from Soviet Ukraine visited North America in 1989. Lviv artist Andriy Humeniuk, 32, held several exhibits in Canada during a six-month stay. He was featured in an exhibit in New York in March, which included works by his twin brother Petro, and Volodymyr and Liudmyla Loboda of Lviv at the Ukrainian Artists' Association of America Gallery. Ivan Marchuk of Kiev and Volodymyr Patyk of Lviv have exhibited at the Canadian Ukrainian Art Foundation in Toronto, in October and December, respectively, while Mr. Marchuk's works are on display through January 14 at New York's Ukrainian Museum.
Popular performers from Ukraine delighted Ukrainian audiences throughout North America with extensive concert tours in 1989. Three Ukrainian soloists, Lviv's Ihor Kushpler and Marian Shunevych, and Kiev's Lidia Mykhailenko, known collectively as Svitlytsia, toured the U.S. East Coast in June. The Zoioti Kliuchi trio - Nina Matvienko, Marusia Mykolaychuk and Valentyna Kovalska - appeared at the annual Kvitka Festival in London, Ontario, in late June and early July. Bandurist Halyna Menkush and actress Nila Kriukova, both of Kiev, performed Lina Kostenko's "Marusia Churay" in Canada in August. Lviv's popular Ne Zhurys theater-studio concertized in cities throughout Canada and the United States in October and November.
The Dnipro soccer team from Dnipropetrovske made its first ever tour of the United States in August, playing a number of top-rated American teams.
Prominent Kiev literary critic Ivan Dzyuba, author of "Internationalism or Russification?" and three other cultural figures, Mykola Zhulynsky, literary critic and deputy director of the Institute of Literature at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; Raisa Ivanchenko, novelist and historian, an authority in 19th-century Ukrainian political thinker Mykhailo Drahomanov; and Ihor Rymaruk, Kiev poet and poetry and drama editor of the Dnipro publishing house, all arrived in North America at the end of February for a Shevchenko lecture tour of major Canadian cities. In mid-March they crossed into the United States visiting the major Ukrainian American communities on the East Coast - in Newark, Philadelphia, New York, Washington and Boston.
Fifty-one-year-old Vitaliy Kalynychenko, a former Perm Camp 36 inmate and Ukrainian Helsinki Group member, and his wife, Yaryna, emigrated to the United States from Kharkiv, Ukraine, on April 6. They now reside in suburban Maryland.
Dr. Yuriy Shcherbak, a 55-year-old USSR people's deputy from Kiev and leader of Zelenyi Svit, visited Edmonton, Alberta, in May as a guest of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
Former political prisoner Bohdan Rebryk, a Ukrainian Helsinki Union activist and editor of the unofficial Karby Hir journal, visited Great Britain and West Germany in June on a speaking engagement. Another former political prisoner, Yuriy Badzio, also traveled to Europe this fall, as did UHU president and longtime political prisoner Lev Lukianenko who arrived in June as a guest of Amnesty International in Brussels, Belgium. Mr. Lukianenko, who also made appearances in Great Britain and West Germany, held a press conference and met with delegates during the Conference on the Human Dimension, part of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, in Paris.
Kiev writer Dmytro Pavlychko, head of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian Language Society, visited Australia in late July and early August as a guest of the Ukrainian Professional and Business Association.
Les Taniuk, a noted theater director, and his wife, Nelli Kornienko, a theater historian and an editor of UNESCO Courier in Moscow, traveled around Canada and the United States for some three months this summer, taking part in various conferences, lectures and theater performances. These included a conference of the Canadian Association of Slavists on June 2-4 in Quebec City, Quebec, the formation of the International Kurbas Society, a "Glasnost, Perestroika and Ukraine" conference in late June at the University of Illinois, a theater workshop at Harvard's Ukrainian Summer Institute and with Toronto's Avant-Garde Ukrainian Theater. Traveling with them most of the time also was Kiev poet Pavlo Movchan, a Rukh activist, who was invited for the Ukrainian Research Program's conference at the University of Illinois.
Hryhoriy Syvokin, a senior academician from the institute of Literature at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Kiev, took part in the annual weeklong seminar sponsored by the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Hunter, N.Y., in late August. He also lectured at Harvard's Ukrainian Summer Institute.
Mykola Horbal, 43-year-old former Perm Camp 36 inmate, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union and a leader of Rukh's Kiev organization, and his wife, Olha Stokotelna, paid a three-month-long visit with family in the United States from late September through mid-December. A poet and musicologist, Mr. Horbal also spoke at a number of community events in the U.S. and Canada.
Oles Berdnyk, a science fiction writer and founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, spent several weeks, beginning in September, in the United States and Canada, on a private invitation.
Sviatoslav Dudko, secretary and founding member of the ecological association Zelenyi Svit (Green World), was in the United States for several weeks in October. He took part in The Washington Group's leadership conference in Washington on October 7-8.
Volodymyr Yavorivsky, USSR people's deputy and chairman of the Kiev regional branch of Rukh, went on a whirlwind speaking tour of the United States in October on the invitation of Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Rep. James Florio (D-N.J.). In addition to raising funds for a Rukh Chornobyl fund, Mr. Yavorivsky, a writer, met with a number of members of Congress, press, and other government officials in Washington.
This year Kiev poet and Rukh president Ivan Drach became the first writer from Ukraine to be invited to the International Festival of Authors in Toronto in October, where he read his poetry. He also addressed a public meeting in the city organized by York University's Ukrainian Studies Committee.
Popular writer and translator Yuriy Pokalchuk of Kiev visited Canada and the United States for three months this fall on the invitation of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies in Edmonton, Alberta.
Renowned Kiev literary critic Yevhen Sverstiuk traveled to West Germany, Italy, Canada and the United States, beginning in November and extending into the beginning of the new year. While on speaking engagements, the former political prisoner is visiting with his son's family in Philadelphia.
Lina Kostenko, distinguished Ukrainian poet laureate from Kiev, arrived in the United States in early December for at least two months at the invitation of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where she will serve as poet-in-residence, and then will go on to Pennsylvania State University, where she will be a Woskob fellow in the humanities.