The Sixties: of heroes, monuments and infrastructures (10/10/93)

ANNIVERSARY REVIEW

The Sixties: of heroes, monuments and infrastructures

New political and cultural organizations continued to multiply in the Ukrainian diaspora in the 1960s, while older ones increased their memberships, including the UNA, which would attempt to crack the 100,000 membership barrier before decade's end.

The Ukrainian Weekly was growing too. It had a new columnist in Clarence Manning, a Columbia University professor and expert on Soviet affairs who contributed regularly, and Theodore Lutwiniak, who continued writing a column on UNA affairs. Articles were shorter but more numerous, covering a wide spectrum of local and national events. The paper reported more on how community organizations were making contact and influencing changes in American government geared to make Ukraine's plight better known. In the first part of the decade, sources of news from Ukraine seemingly dried up as less and less was written.

The tumult of 1959 surrounding the assassination of OUN leader Stepan Bandera and Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev's first visit to the United States, continued into the early part of the 1960s. In early February, the French government announced it would temporarily intern specific Ukrainian leaders in order to guarantee the safety of Khruschev, who was to visit the country in March. The Ukrainian world community protested to no avail.

In September, the Soviet premier was back in New York at the U.N. and more than 3,000 Ukrainian Americans were there to greet the person they called "the hangman of Ukraine." Unfortunately, they could not stop his appearance or the shoe-banging fit he had in the General Assembly.

The murder of Stepan Bandera was more easily resolved when in November 1961 Bogdan Stashynsky confessed to murdering the Ukrainian underground leader. He was subsequently found guilty and sentenced in West Germany to eight years' hard labor

But Taras Shevchenko most dominated Ukrainian diaspora life in the U.S. and Canada through the early part of the decade. In June 1960, the U.S. Congress authorized land to be set aside in Washington for a Shevchenko monument. Ukrainians eagerly went to fund-raising, increasingly a favorite task of theirs.

In 1961, the diaspora commemorated the 100th anniversary of the death of Shevchenko, and the Weekly reported on that. While the monument in Washington moved from vision to reality, Ukrainians in Canada unveiled their own shrine to the Great Bard in July in Winnipeg with Prime Minister John Diefenbacher in attendance.

By February 1962, The Weekly had announced that $190,000 of the $400,000 goal for the statue's construction had been reached. The coffers steadily grew and on September 21, 1963, more than 2,000 turned out to witness the dedication of the site. Just over nine months later, on June 27, 1964, more than 100,000 Ukrainians gathered between 22 Street and 23 Street and Avenue P in Washington as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, former president of the United States, unveiled the Shevchenko monument in the 150th year since the poet's birth.

Commemorations were the norm in 1963 as well. The Weekly celebrated its 30th anniversary by changing its flag from Gothic-style lettering back to the Olde English typeface of its early years. Svoboda celebrated its 70th. The diaspora observed the 30th commemoration the Great Famine of 1933, a genocide of which the world still knew very little. Forty-five years had passed since Ukrainian independence in 1918. In 1968, Ukrainians world-wide would celebrate the 50th. The Weekly noted them all.

Another milestone the Ukrainian diaspora prepared for in the early part of the decade was the UNA-funded publication of the first English-language encyclopedia titled Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia. The first volume was released on November 18, 1963 after a 10-year effort spearheaded by its editor, Prof. Volodymyr Kubijovyc. Unfortunately, the story reached The Weekly the same week President John Kennedy was murdered and received little space.

Two giants of the UNA passed away in the early 1960s. On March 26, 1961 Dmytro Halychyn, supreme president of the UNA since 1950 and president of Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) died prematurely after a freak accident. Just over a year later, on August 25, 1962, Stephen Shumeyko died. He was the first editor of The Ukrainian Weekly, founder of the Ukrainian Youth League of North America and co-founder of UCCA.

Around mid-decade a couple of changes occurred in the newspaper. The price of a single issue went up a whopping nickel, from a dime to 15 cents. And slowly information from Ukraine again began to appear on the paper's pages.

The biggest single newsmaker of the late 1960s in The Ukrainian Weekly had to be Archbishop Josyf Slipyj, who at the beginning of the decade was still persecuted in a Soviet slave labor camp and by its end was traveling the world to visit his flock as Josef Cardinal Slipyj, leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

On February 10, 1963, Archbishop Slipyj arrived in Vatican from the Soviet Union after having spent 18 years in Soviet detention. He was elevated to the status of cardinal, a prince of the Church, by Pope Paul VI on January 25, 1965.

Much talk then concerned his desire to form a Ukrainian Patriarchate, and by 1968 a lay organization had been formed to achieve this goal. The event of that summer was Cardinal Slipyj's arrival in North America for an extended visit. His plane landed in Toronto on June 22 where 50,000 worshipers celebrated a pontifical liturgy with him, reported The Weekly. By August, he had visited New York and Philadelphia.

He was not the only prominent political/religious prisoner to make the pages of The Weekly in the 1960s. Beginning in 1966, more and more stories appeared about the plight of Soviet dissidents in Ukraine. The arrest of Ivan Svitlychny and Ivan Dzyuba in 1966 was carried on The Weekly's front page. In 1967, "The Chornovil Papers" were smuggled to the West, and The Weekly carried a story about their impact on the Western press. Both Mr. Chornovil and Valentyn Moroz were arrested later that year. And in 1968, the arrest and death of another Ukrainian religious leader, Bishop Vasyl Welychkowsky shocked the diaspora. By the 1970s, news about political prisoners would occupy an overwhelming portion of The Weekly's pages.

Three events toward the end of the decade expressed the continuing growth and evolution of the Ukrainian diaspora. In November 1967, the World Congress of Free Ukrainians held its first conference in New York City with 1,003 delegates from 17 countries in attendance. The Weekly headline of November 27 screamed: "World Congress Turns into Inspiring Demonstration of Unity and Steadfast Dedication to the Cause of Ukraine's Freedom."

On January 1968, the 50th anniversary since Ukrainian independence, Stephen Chemych, president of the Ukrainian Studies Chair Fund, along with Harvard University President Nathan M. Perry announced the establishment of a Ukrainian Studies Institute, which would have three chairs: literature, history and language. A goal to raise $330,000 by September was also announced.

Just over a year later, the UNA celebrated its 75th year of existence as its membership approached 100,000.

- Roman Woronowycz

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