1996: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Meanwhile, back at The Weekly ... (12/29/96)

1996: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Meanwhile, back at The Weekly ...

Here at The Ukrainian Weekly the year was full of special issues covering special events and anniversaries. Yes, 1996 was the year that this newspaper brought you reports on Ukraine's Olympic successes direct from Atlanta as Staff Editor Roman Woronowycz was officially accredited to cover the Games. The results of his work were seen in The Weekly issues from July 28 through August 18. Prior to the Olympics, Mr. Woronowycz did a series of articles under the heading "On the road to Atlanta," while Associate Editor Marta Kolomayets, then stationed in Ukraine at the Ukrainian National Association's Kyiv Press Bureau, covered the capital city's official send-off for Ukraine's top athletes.

It was also the year that The Weekly planned to do a special issue dedicated to the 10th anniversary of Chornobyl - and that special issue (dated April 21) was followed by two more special issues and five more issues containing special sections on Chornobyl. All of which prompted us at The Weekly to decide that we should prepare a special book devoted to the 10th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear accident. That book, dear readers, is nearly ready to go to print. More on that in the new year.

Both the Olympic coverage and the Chornobyl issues appeared also on the Internet on the Ukraine FAQ Plus page, with the added attraction of photos that are seen in color.

For those of you who don't remember, or have already forgotten, highlights of The Weekly's top stories appear each week on that site under the Current Events section. For the record, The Weekly has been on the Internet since the issue dated July 14, 1995. According to Bohdan Peter Rekshynskyj, the computer consultant who helped connect us to the Internet and suggested putting our newspaper's highlights on the World Wide Web, The Weekly excerpts have become one of the most popular sections on the Ukraine FAQ Plus.

Soon after his Olympian feats at the Olympics, Mr. Woronowycz was off to Ukraine for his second tour of duty at our Kyiv Press Bureau. Ms. Kolomayets then returned "home" to our editorial offices in Jersey City for a few months. However, in December Ms. Kolomayets left The Weekly after working on our staff for 11 years (1982-1984 and 1988-1996), as she had decided that home for her was in Kyiv with her husband. We wish Ms. Kolomayets well in her new endeavors and we will miss her, but there is some consolation in knowing that she will continue to write on a free-lance basis for The Weekly. (In fact, she's covering for Mr. Woronowycz during the two weeks that he is on home leave at The Weekly in Jersey City, N.J.)

Back to our special issues, for just a moment. The Weekly also published two issues commemorating the fifth anniversary of Ukraine's independence proclamation. The materials for these issues (August 18 and 25) were prepared by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and put together by The Weekly editors. The sections in the first issue included an oral history of Ukrainian independence, a photo essay on the first years of independence and a sampling of youthful perspectives on independent Ukraine; the second issue featured analytical discussions and articles on contemporary Ukraine, covering the political scene, economic development, foreign affairs, literature and culture, contemporary music, and religious life.

Concerning special topics, much space was devoted to Forbes magazine's scurrilous attack in an article headlined "Tinderbox" and a sidebar titled "Messianic Mission," both written by Paul Klebnikov. "The world hasn't seen the last of ethnic turmoil in Eastern Europe. Keep your eye on Ukraine," Forbes warned ominously. Responses to the article from the Harriman Institute and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, among others, were published on the pages of The Weekly along with editorials.

The scoop of the year had to be The Weekly's news story by Ms. Kolomayets about the adoption of the new Constitution of Ukraine following a marathon all-night session of the Verkhovna Rada on June 27-28. Parliament had approved the Constitution on Friday, June 28, at 9:18 a.m. Kyiv time. Ms. Kolomayets e-mailed the story about this historic event to the home office by early Friday morning Eastern time, the day The Weekly goes to press, so that it still made the front page of the paper dated June 30.

As R.L. Chomiak noted in an item published in The Washington Group's newsletter, a TWG forum held on June 28 " included an unscheduled speaker: the Ukrainian Embassy's press attaché, Vasyl Zorya, who briefed the audience about this fundamental law [the Constitution] that took at least three years to write. And, Orest Deychakiwsky [of the Helsinki Commission], came armed with photocopies of Marta Kolomayets' news story for The Ukrainian Weekly printed hours earlier and faxed to him from the paper's Jersey City editorial offices."

Mr. Chomiak continued: "Readers of the local paper, The Washington Post, had to wait until the next morning to read James Rupert's story about the Constitution, but those attending the forum could read about it 12 hours earlier, which reinforced Mr. Rupert's contention made a few months earlier at another TWG forum that, in Washington, Ms. Kolomayets' coverage gets more attention than his own."

Speaking of the earlier forum, held January 19, Mr. Rupert had said he considers The Ukrainian Weekly "a very important element of the Western press presence in Ukraine." He called Ms. Kolomayets "by far the most influential" of foreign correspondents because, as he explained, "there are very few of my readers who are going to get up in the morning after I've written a story about this or that going on in Ukraine and are going to leap to the phone to call their congressman. But within the Ukrainian American community, of course, that tendency is much greater, and they're reading very attentively The Ukrainian Weekly."

A word about our staff is in order here. Besides Mr. Woronowycz and Ms. Kolomayets, who were both mentioned above, The Weekly staff during 1996 included Assistant Editor Khristina Lew (who covered the Washington visits of President Leonid Kuchma and Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko), Staff Editor Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj of the Toronto Press Bureau (who keeps tabs on the Ukrainian Canadian community and the Ukrainian World Congress, which is based in Toronto), Editorial Assistant Ika Koznarsky Casanova (who works part-time and serves as our arts editor) and Yarema Bachynsky (who filled in as editorial assistant for more than half a year while Ms. Casanova was on leave in Austria). Oh yes, there is also the editor-in-chief, Roma Hadzewycz, typesetter Awilda Arzola (who this year became Mrs. Angel Rolon) and Serhiy Polishchuk, our layout artist and computer troubleshooter. Now the staff has been joined by Irene Jarosewich, who worked for the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund in 1996 and prior to that worked in Ukraine (1991-1995), first for the Rukh Information Center as liaison with the foreign press and later for various other entities, including UTEL, Ukraine's long-distance telephone company, and the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Unfortunately, there was some bad news for The Weekly during 1996, as the number of our subscribers fell markedly - due mostly, as we saw from subscribers' letters, to the steep increase in our subscription fees. That, and other developments within our community in the United States and in Canada, led us to question our readers via several editorials published during the year whether they value our community and how they see its future.

Certainly, we at The Weekly hope there is a future for our Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities, as we pledge to continue serving them both in 1997 and beyond - as long as we are needed.

To all our readers and our correspondents we send best wishes for the New Year. May 1997 bring you good luck, good health and much happiness.

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