Harvard Ukrainian Summer Program marks 25 years with reunion (07/14/96)

Harvard Ukrainian Summer Program marks 25 years with reunion

by Roman Woronowycz

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Even before the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard had the Ukrainian Summer Institute, where students from across the United States with an interest in matters Ukrainian have gathered during the summer to learn Ukrainian history, literature and language. For 25 years more than a thousand students have done so.

The program is an intensive eight-week program of seminars and lectures given by some of the world's most respected scholars on Ukraine. But it has been more - a chance to meet and to socialize with peers from across the United States, Canada and the world. Even those who found it difficult to pursue academic study in the summer months had little problem immersing themselves in the social distractions of the Cambridge area. Lifelong bonds have been formed among the students, some have even married.

The weekend of June 28-30, students of the 25 annual summer programs, which were first held in 1971, returned to Harvard to renew friendships and take a look at the program and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI).

They came from across the United States and from the outer reaches of Canada. Ten former students came from California, one who attended now lives in British Columbia, Canada, and three came from Ukraine. In all, 177 alumni, spouses and those attached to HURI were on hand to reflect and recollect, representing 24 of the 25 summer programs.

But to make sure they hadn't forgotten what learning at Harvard is all about, a roundtable featuring three Ukrainian scholars was held on Saturday morning at the Center for European Studies. The professors of the three chairs of HURI, Profs. Roman Szporluk, George Grabowicz and Michael Flier, gave presentations on post-Soviet Ukraine in a stimulating two-hour panel, moderated by HURI assistant director, Prof. Lubomyr Hayda, and attended by a majority of the reunion-goers.

Prof. Szporluk, the new director of HURI, who is also Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History, centered his presentation on what has occurred in Ukraine in the 25 years since the summer program was begun.

"We could not have imagined that the things that have happened would," he explained at the outset. He continued, "What happened in 1991 is not due to the failure of the Kremlin, my argument is that Moscow failed because Ukraine didn't."

Prof. Szporluk spoke of the key role that poets, artists and literary figures played in rekindling national identity and even before them, the role of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in keeping alive the flame of Ukrainian statehood.

He said that in Ukraine today there is sufficient reason to believe Ukrainian independence can be sustained. "When careerists and political hacks start defending Ukrainian independence, we are getting somewhere... when, like what happened in 1991, generals and the military start joining the cause, then we are there."

Up next was Prof. Flier, Oleksandr Potebnja Professor of Ukrainian Philology, who spoke on current problems with the use of Ukrainian in the country.

He labeled his talk "The Ukrainian Language: Prospects for the Future," and said there is much room for optimism because usage of Ukrainian is increasing and will continue to do so.

He noted that Ukraine has maintained a flexible policy towards languages, unlike Estonia and Lithuania, which has effectively reduced potential ethnic tensions. With the official status of Ukrainian as the state language (now further reinforced in the new Constitution) "despite cries from Communists and Socialists for a two-language policy, the existing policy has had the beneficial effect of elevating the status of Ukrainian in affairs of state, in the Ukrainian mass media, and in Ukrainian culture in general," according to Prof. Flier. The scholar on Eastern Slavic languages sees more publications and newspapers printing in the Ukrainian language. However, he believes it could take decades before the language is firmly entrenched in the population.

At one point Prof. Flier cited the words of Oleksandr Taranenko, the director of the Ukrainian Language Institute of the Academy of Sciences who wrote recently in Literaturna Ukraina that it is difficult for scholars to produce handbooks and dictionaries on Ukrainian language usage when they have not been paid in a half year, which forces them to find other work. "The government must not abandon the cause of literary Ukrainian at this important juncture in the history of Ukraine," explained Prof. Flier.

Finally, Prof. Grabowicz, Dmytro Cyzevskyj Professor of Literature, who is finishing his seven-year tenure as director of HURI, spoke of his experiences while in the country and of the daunting tasks facing it. He was far less optimistic than Prof. Flier on the state of affairs.

Prof. Grabowicz called the Ukrainian Parliament not a legislative body but "two warring factions who are not shooting at each other." He said the Soviet mentality is still all too evident and gave as an example stores being closed during business hours.

In terms of the condition of the language he was even more downbeat, at one point stating, "Ukrainian is threatened with going the way of Gaelic." He explained that he knew of instances where people who are promoting the language still go home and speak Russian to their children. "In Poland it is unheard of for a Pole not to speak Polish," asserted Prof. Grabowicz.

Dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club

Prof. Grabowicz had opened up the weekend events at the Friday night dinner, held in the historic and very proper Harvard Faculty Club, once the home of Henry James, the noted American literary figure. The outgoing director of HURI explained that the Harvard summer program is "one of the outreaches that has been most successful and most productive" in bringing attention to Ukrainian issues. He said the reunion was planned to develop an alumni association to ensure continuity within the program. Then, half tongue in cheek, he added, "And of course to tap you for some support."

He introduced Halyna Hryn, current director of the summer program, who gave a very brief synopsis of the 25 years. She mentioned that the program reached its highest enrollment in the years 1977-1979 and that currently one of the program's successes is that in 1995 55 percent of the students enrolled had no connection to Ukraine. "Even with the option of going to Ukraine, this is still one of the better places to come and study Ukraine," said Ms. Hryn. She was followed by the director of the Harvard Summer Program, Peter Buck.

After dinner everyone was off to the Carpenter Film Center to watch two uniquely Ukrainian films, a short feature produced in the U.S. and directed by Andrea Odezynska titled "Dora was Dysfunctional," followed by a full-length production from Ukraine, "Night of Questions," starring American-born Luba Demchuk and directed by Tatianna Mahar from Kyiv.

Saturday, after the roundtable and a group photo on the steps of the Widener Library, the "reunionists" attended a cook-out on the campus grounds, which was followed by a display of Ukrainian contemporary art from Kyiv's OR Gallery. That evening it was off to the official banquet at the Dudley House Graduate Center, where Jeffrey Sachs, the noted Harvard economist, gave the keynote address. He was introduced by Prof. Szporluk as "one of the major international players in today's politics and economics on a global scale."

Prof. Sachs, Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade at Harvard, gave a quick rundown on events and circumstances that caused the economic downfall of the last several years and what future prospects might be.

Prof. Sachs said Ukraine has come an extraordinarily long distance economically and politically since independence in 1991, but that it has been an extraordinarily painful and tumultuous process, as well.

"At the time of independence I think it is fair to say Ukraine had neither functioning political or economic institutions, nor did Ukrainian leaders have any sense of what was ahead," explained the foremost expert on economic reform in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

He said that, in his first visit with then President Leonid Kravchuk and other political elites, he was most taken by how unaware they were about the functioning of economies, and how they gave the impression that independence in itself would catapult Ukraine upwards.

Another major problem for Ukraine was in dealing with money in a new market economy, "Unfortunately the mystery even eluded the IMF in understanding what happened," explained Prof. Sachs. He criticized the IMF for proposing in 1992 that the 15 new republics share one currency. "An extraordinarily bad bit of advice that condemned all of these countries to another year of disastrous inflation that could have been nipped in the bud."

He said it seems Ukraine has turned the corner on the economy, but that Ukraine's new great task is creating a society run by the rule of law and "a government that itself understands and lives within the rule of law."

Other points that Prof. Sachs touched on: He said that Ukraine's tax laws are so confiscatory that "every day we see more and more of society disappearing from sight"; he called the privatization of land a fundamental step to Ukraine's future; he said the introduction of the hryvnia is no longer an economic problem but a psychological one - to convince people that it is secure; and he explained it is imperative that the world open its markets to Ukrainian goods. "It's not just the right thing to say here, it's the right thing to do," said Prof. Sachs.

With the formal portion of the banquet completed, there was time for music and dancing to complete what by all accounts was a special weekend.

Patricia Coatsworth of the Harvard Institute, who organized the affair, said she was pleased with the turnout and with how it turned out. "It exceeded our expectations, she explained. She suggested that another such weekend may be scheduled for 1998 when HURI celebrates it own 25th anniversary.

Finally, regarding couples who met at the summer program and eventually got married, Vasyl Bodnar of Troy, N.Y, and Kathleen Johnson Bodnar of Long Beach, Calif., met at the summer program in 1979. They were married in 1982 and 14 years later have four children (although at first Kathleen said it was three.)

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