THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION'S FIRST CENTURY

The history of the Ukrainian National Association is documented in a new book by Dr. Myron Kuropas, "Ukrainian Citadel: The First Hundred Years of The Ukrainian National Association," to be published by The University of Toronto Press. In this special 12-page pullout section of The Weekly, prepared on the occasion of our publisher's centennial, we offer excerpts from Dr. Kuropas' pre-publication manuscript, reprinted with permission from the author. (Please note that the Ukrainian National Association (UNA) was known as the Ruskyi Narodnyi Soyuz (RNS) for the first 20 years of its existence.)

The 1910s

Whereas the American Circle priests were careful not to allow their Catholicism to dominate, this changed with the arrival of a new generation of priests. Allowing Catholicism to become the focal point of their efforts, they began to intimidate the laity within Soyuz and to push for de-secularization This end was briefly achieved at the 1910 convention when Soyuz came under the control of Bishop Soter Ortynsky. In retrospect, the convention was a step back for the community. Out of one fraternal benefit society emerged three. Out of unity came strife. Out of cooperation evolved irrational competition. [Bishop Ortynsky helped establish the Association of Ruthenian Greek Catholic Brotherhoods, Christian Love, in 1911, later the Providence Association of Ruthenian Catholics of America. At the 1910 convention a committee protested the RNS's new direction. A year later it became the Ruskyi National Union; in 1918, the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association, today's Ukrainian Fraternal Association.]

The latter half of the 1910s was characterized by the UNA's active role in attempting to unify the Ukrainian population in the U.S. into a political coalition. It also conducted a number of fund-raising efforts to aid its brethren in Ukraine, collecting monies to aid Ukrainian war victims, then an autonomous Ukraine, then a united, sovereign Ukraine, and finally, due to historic circumstances, just Galicia.

Illustrations Published:

• 1914: The Supreme Assembly of the Ukrainian National Association elected at the 13th convention in Buffalo, N.Y. Among the officers pictured: Dmytro Kapitula, supreme president; Maria Bilyk, supreme vice-presidentess; Ivan Vaverchak, supreme vice-president; Semen Yadlovsky, financial secretary; and Aleksiy Sharshon, treasurer.
  
  
• 1919: A UNA membership certificate, dated June 30, 1919, illustrates the founding principles and aspirations of the Ukrainian National Association.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 20, 1994, No. 8, Vol. LXII

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