ANNIVERSARY REVIEW: The editors of The Ukrainian Weekly: youth at work (10/10/93)

ANNIVERSARY REVIEW

The editors of The Ukrainian Weekly: youth at work

by Khristina Lew

By the 1930s, the Ukrainian American community had come to a crossroads: Ukrainian-born activists and community leaders were getting old or dying out without enlisting the American-born generation to replace them, and the youth, the first generation to be born in the United States, was struggling to balance its Ukrainian heritage with an American way of life. Few organizations beyond the churches and fraternal organizations were strong enough to keep the community unified, and many community activists feared that the fruits of their labor would shrivel and die.

Some would argue that when Svoboda Editor-in-Chief Luke Myshuha proposed at the Ukrainian National Association's 18th convention in 1933 that the 39-year-old UNA publish an English-language newspaper, it was for the purpose of bringing the American-born back into the community fold. Others would say that the readership was already there, and clamoring for a vehicle to explore its Ukrainian heritage.

The first issue of The Ukrainian Weekly appeared on October 6, 1933. The goal of the four-page supplement to the Ukrainian daily Svoboda was to provide a news forum written for the youth, by the youth. In its 60 years of existence, The Weekly has always been edited by young, community-oriented editors. In 1976, under the helm of editor Zenon Snylyk, The Ukrainian Weekly expanded to a 16-page tabloid. In 1981, under the leadership of editor Roma Hadzewycz, The Ukrainian Weekly again became independent of the Svoboda daily. (Originally independent, The Ukrainian Weekly in 1957 was placed under the supervision of the editor-in-chief of Svoboda, who also supervised the Veselka magazine for children, the Almanacs of the Ukrainian National Association and all UNA publications.) In 1991, The Ukrainian Weekly began publishing 20- and 24-page editions.

In the Weekly's inaugural issue, its first editor, Stephen Shumeyko, wrote in his editorial that The Weekly was "for the youth. The youth alone shall be its matter...In youth one dreams and hopes; that is what we need. We want the youth that dreams, and then goes to work and makes the dreams come true."

"We are living in a mighty country which was built upon dreams and ideals, a country where nothing is impossible, where air castles are succeeded by concrete achievements and where the dreams of yesterday are the realities of today. Such is the spirit that we, the American Ukrainian youth need. Such is the spirit which shall raise high our Ukrainian name and our culture here in America."

Today, 60 years after it first went to press, The Ukrainian Weekly has captured the dreams of yesterday - by evolving from a four-page supplement to Svoboda - to what it is today - a 24-page independent tabloid with a press bureau in Ukraine's capital. And it is because of the work of its "youth," its editors, that The Ukrainian Weekly grew and matured.

In 1933, 25-year-old Stephen Shumeyko faced an enormous task: to launch a newspaper that would appeal to the American-born youth. A native of New Jersey, Mr. Shumeyko was active in the Ukrainian American community, becoming the first president of the Ukrainian Youth's League of North America (UYL-NA) in August 1933 at its founding congress at the Chicago World's Fair, where the Ukrainians had organized their own pavilion.

The head of a powerful new organization, Mr. Shumeyko gave up a career in law, which did not interest him, to take on the responsibility of editor of the newly born Ukrainian Weekly that fall. He wrote of the current problems in the Ukrainian American community as well as national and international issues, reacting strongly to U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union. He wrote of the Great Famine and the Polonization of western Ukraine in the 1930s, encouraged support for the United States war effort in the 1940s, and focused on the new immigrants in the 1950s.

An avid enthusiast of literature, he introduced English translations of Ukrainian works to The Ukrainian Weekly, himself translating Shevchenko, Franko, Stefanyk, Kotsiubynsky and others.

In 1957 he was joined by Helen Perozak, who served as The Ukrainian Weekly's first associate editor for one year. Ms. Smindak hailed from Ontario, where she worked as a newspaper reporter, radio copywriter, film supervisor for a television station and a summer hostess of a television home show in London. After leaving the staff of The Ukrainian Weekly in 1958, Mrs. Perozak Smindak continued to submit articles to the paper and does so from her home in New York to this day.

In 1959 Mr. Shumeyko retired as editor of The Ukrainian Weekly after 25 years. During his helm, he served as president of the newly formed Ukrainian Congress Committee of America in 1940, and again in 1943 and 1946. He was also the president of the Ukrainian Professional Society of North America, a twin organization of the UYL-NA for professionals, and was instrumental in creating the Pan-American Ukrainian Conference in 1947. In the summer of 1962, he died of a stroke at the age of 54.

In keeping with The Ukrainian Weekly's emphasis on youth, Svoboda Editor-in-Chief Anthony Dragan hired Walter Prybyla to succeed Mr. Shumeyko in 1959. Mr. Prybyla, like his predecessor, was born in the United States and was active in the youth movement, serving as president of the Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations of America (SUSTA) and various other student organizations in Syracuse, N.Y., and Washington. Mr. Prybyla returned to Syracuse in the spring of 1960 and today serves as the deputy director of the Environmental Review Division for U.S. Housing and Urban Development in Washington.

He was succeeded by R. L. Chomiak, who became editor of The Ukrainian Weekly on July 5, 1960. The Ukrainian Weekly continued to be published as a four-page supplement under the supervision of Svoboda Editor Dragan, although Mr. Chomiak recalls page 4 frequently being pulled to make room for other news. Mr. Chomiak left The Ukrainian Weekly in September 1961 to pursue a master's degree in journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa. Today he is the managing editor of the press service to Africa at the United States Information Agency in Washington.

In 1962, Zenon Snylyk, 28, a graduate of the University of Chicago with a master's degree in political science and three-time member of the U.S. Olympic soccer team, was named editor of The Ukrainian Weekly. For the first eight years of his 18-year tenure, however, Mr. Snylyk worked almost exclusively on Ukraine A Concise Encyclopedia, which was underwritten by the UNA.

Throughout the period of 1959-1965, when editor succeeded editor in rapid succession, The Ukrainian Weekly was intermittently edited by Dr. Walter Dushnyck, who put the paper out working three days a week. Dr. Dushnyck was a frequent contributor to Svoboda, sending articles as early as the 1930s from Louvain University in Belgium where he studied politics and social studies. In the United States, he worked on staff at Svoboda in 1941-1942, and after leaving The Ukrainian Weekly in 1965, he edited The Ukrainian Bulletin and The Ukrainian Quarterly. Dr. Dushnyck died in September of 1985.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mr. Snylyk, juggling the helm of The Ukrainian Weekly and his editorial work for the Ukrainian encyclopedia, covered the first North American visit of Patriarch Josyf Slipyj and wrote about the Ukrainian dissident movement.

Because the staff of Svoboda comprised older reporters, Mr. Snylyk covered major news events for both papers, writing in the Ukrainian and English languages.

In 1973 he was joined by Ihor Dlaboha, newly graduated from the City College of New York with a bachelor's degree in political science, who served as editorial assistant and later as assistant editor. In 1974 The Ukrainian Weekly's staff expanded to include part-time editorial assistant Roma Sochan, who was studying journalism and psychology at New York University.

In 1976, the year of the bicentennial of American independence and the centennial of Ukrainian settlement in the United States, Mr. Snylyk convinced the UNA to expand The Ukrainian Weekly to a 16-page tabloid. The first issue of the 16-page Weekly appeared on July 4.

In 1977 Ms. Sochan joined Mr. Dlaboha as assistant editor of The Ukrainian Weekly. With the retirement of Svoboda Editor Dragan in 1978, Mr. Snylyk began working for Svoboda while supervising the staff of The Ukrainian Weekly. In March of 1980, he was elected by the UNA Supreme Assembly as editor-in-chief of Svoboda, a post that he still holds today.

During Mr. Snylyk's transition to Svoboda in 1978-1980, Ihor Dlaboha and Roma Sochan Hadzewycz served as co-editors of The Weekly. In 1980 Mr. Dlaboha left the newspaper for Apparel World and Knitting Times and completed a master's degree in media studies at the New School for Social Research in New York. Today he is an editor of The National Tribune, a weekly Ukrainian-English language newspaper, and a national executive board member of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine.

In 1980, the 24-year-old Mrs. Hadzewycz, a recent graduate of NYU with a master's degree in journalism and an active member of Plast Ukrainian youth organization, became editor of The Ukrainian Weekly. On January 27, 1981, The Ukrainian Weekly again became an independent newspaper, and under Mrs. Hadzewycz's tutelage expanded rapidly during the ensuing 13 years.

In August of 1980, Mrs. Hadzewycz hired New York University graduate Ika Koznarska Casanova, who holds a master's degree in comparative literature, and Carleton University graduate George B. Zarycky as assistant editors. In 1981 Mrs. Koznarska Casanova left The Ukrainian Weekly, but returned in the fall of 1990 as a part-time editorial assistant.

In 1982 University of Illinois graduate Marta Kolomayets, who holds a master's degree in journalism, replaced Mrs. Koznarska Casanova, and Mr. Zarycky was named associate editor.

In 1983, on the 50th anniversary of the Stalin-perpetrated famine in Ukraine, Editors Hadzewycz, Zarycky and Kolomayets compiled an 88-page commemorative book titled "The Great Famine in Ukraine: The Unknown Holocaust."

Ms. Kolomayets left the staff of The Weekly in 1984, only to return in 1988 as associate editor. She was replaced by Assistant Editor Natalia Dmytrijuk, a graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo, in 1984.

In 1985, Carleton University graduate Michael Bociurkiw, who had worked as a summer intern at The Ukrainian Weekly since 1983, was reassigned to Canada as a full-time staff member and named assistant editor for Canada. Associate Editor Zarycky and Assistant Editor Dmytrijuk left The Weekly, and were succeeded by Assistant Editor Natalia Feduschak, a graduate of George Washington University.

In 1986, Rutgers University graduate Chrystyna Lapychak, a summer intern at The Ukrainian Weekly in 1984-1985, was named assistant editor. In 1987, Marianna Liss was named The Ukrainian Weekly's Midwest correspondent for one year. Mr. Bociurkiw and Ms. Feduschak left the staff of the newspaper in the fall.

With the return of Ms. Kolomayets and the promotion of Ms. Lapychak to associate editor in 1988, the triumvirate of Hadzewycz, Kolomayets and Lapychak remained in place until 1990, when Khristina Lew, a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, was named assistant editor.

In January 1991, The Ukrainian Weekly opened its Kyyiv Press Bureau, with Ms. Kolomayets as bureau chief. In May Barnard College graduate Tamara Tershakovec joined The Weekly as an editorial assistant. In June, Ms. Lapychak took over the Kyyiv bureau until January of the following year, at which time she left The Weekly staff.

Ms. Kolomayets returned to Kyyiv for her second six-month stint in January 1992. In the summer, Ms. Tershakovec left the staff of The Ukrainian Weekly, which had been supplemented by staff writers/editors Roman Woronowycz, a graduate of Wayne State University, and Andrij Wynnyckyj, a graduate of the University of Toronto.

In August, Ms. Lew took over the Kyyiv Press Bureau, where she remained through October. In February of 1993, Ms. Kolomayets returned to Kyyiv for the third time and is expected back in December.

* * *

In July 1991, Editor Hadzewycz was named editor-in-chief of The Ukrainian Weekly by the UNA Supreme Executive Committee. In naming her editor-in-chief, and not editor as everyone dating back to Mr. Shumeyko had been called, the UNA signaled that Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly were two distinct papers, not only independent of one another, but equal in stature.

| Home Page |