Activist reports on Ukrainian life in Russia (06/22/97)

Activist reports on Ukrainian life in Russia

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - An official representative of the Ukrainian Eastern diaspora on May 31 addressed the 30th anniversary session of the Ukrainian World Congress's plenum, providing compelling testimony of Ukrainian life in Russia.

Vasyl Kolomatskyi, a representative of the Union of Ukrainians of Russia, recently obtained landed immigrant status in Canada, and is currently acting as the UUR's spokesman in North America.

Mr. Kolomatskyi gave a brief sketch of the UUR's history, from the first congress of Ukrainians in Russia of October 1993 and the UUR's official registration in February 1994, to its role in establishing the Congress of Nationality Associations of Russia (CNAR) in April 1994 and the assumption of the CNAR presidency in 1995 by UUR President Oleksander Rudenko-Desniak.

Mr. Kolomatskyi said that, notwithstanding the Russian Federation's poor record in providing minority language and cultural instruction in the largest of the post-Soviet states, the government has actually been quite supportive of minority organizations. The UUR delegate said Russian President Boris Yeltsin's administration provided the funding for the first Ukrainian congress in 1993, and will likely do so for the upcoming conclave scheduled for October.

Mr. Kolomatskyi hailed the introduction of the Law on the Autonomy of National and Cultural Minorities, signed by Mr. Yeltsin on June 25, 1996, as a significant achievement, and he credited Mr. Rudenko-Desniak with considerable influence in this regard. In accordance with the law, a 23-man consultative council has been established, with Vice Prime Minister V.M. Serov as chairman, and Minister of Nationality Affairs and Federative Relations V.A. Mikhailov as deputy chairman. Mr. Rudenko-Desniak is also a member.

A rigorous accounting

Mr. Kolomatskyi pointed out that the UWC's sixth congress took place a month after the UUR's inaugural convention. He quoted the UWC's resolution to consider as a top priority "assistance to the Eastern diaspora, that is, Ukrainians living in the former republics of the USSR," adding that Ukrainians in Russia were very pleased to read such a declaration.

"However," Mr. Kolomatskyi continued, "I must state that I am aware of very few instances in which such good intentions were realized." The UUR representative cited specific examples of aid (books, monetary and computer-equipment support for the Ukrainian library in Moscow; donations to the newspaper Ukrainian Choice), which by themselves were faintly damning in their small size (total estimated value: $3,000), adding that "these individual facts still cannot serve as evidence of a coordinated program of assistance to the Eastern diaspora."

Mr. Kolomatskyi also sought clarification of an item published in the Svoboda Ukrainian daily's November 19, 1994, issue, in which the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council's Fund for the Rebirth of Ukraine allocated $4,500 for the Eastern diaspora. "I can affirm with confidence," the Ukrainian Russian delegate said, "that neither the UUR president nor the UUR secretary received any of these funds."

"We would be very interested to learn," Mr. Kolomatskyi added, "who in the Eastern diaspora did get them."

Send books, music, videos, not money

The UUR representative said the needs of the Ukrainian community, numbering well over 5 million, are far beyond the purview and the resources of the Western diaspora. "Today we have enough experience to realize that in order to sustain our work we need to seek support from the Russian government and from local business," Mr. Kolomatskyi said.

"Let's take the upcoming second UUR congress, for example," he continued. "This will cost about $50,000 (U.S.). Can the Western diaspora provide assistance on this scale? Should it? Of course not. Now if you take the funding for a full-time Ukrainian-language school, of course the costs will be even higher."

In the meantime, he suggested the UWC should focus its efforts on a few strategic causes. Mr. Kolomatskyi said what Ukrainians in Russia need most are high-quality publications in their language about any subject under the sun - from folk customs, to literature, business and science - as well as recordings of Ukrainian music, literary works and films.

The UUR representative said that in instances when Ukrainians managed to secure a spot on the airwaves at local radio and television stations in Ufa, Kursk, Cheliabinsk and elsewhere, they quickly run out of material, original or not, to play or screen.

He also said that scores of Ukrainian libraries are springing up throughout the Russian Federation and would welcome any donations of books.

Official visits, scholarly debates

Mr. Kolomatskyi explained that the most effective measure would be for representatives of the UWC to arrive in Moscow as guests of the Russian government (a matter he said could be easily arranged), thus giving a high-profile forum for the examination of Ukrainian minority issues in the Russian Federation, and for a re-appraisal of the history of Ukrainian-Russian relations.

"The UWC should exert its political will by conducting an information campaign through the Russian press, possibly by triggering an exploration of the true face of Russian-Ukrainian history," Mr. Kolomatskyi said.

He also suggested that scholarly contacts could greatly facilitate matters. Mr. Kolomatskyi said that thanks to the efforts of Prof. Yaroslav Vahramenko at the Moscow Pedagogical University, an institute of Ukrainian studies could be established as early as this fall.

The UUR delegate distributed a leaflet with information about a UUR-sponsored conference to be held on August 18-20 in Moscow, titled "The Ukrainian Diaspora in Russia." One of the sections of the conference is to be devoted to "Ukrainian history as an object of study for the scholars of Russia, Ukraine and the world."

Mr. Kolomatskyi was terse in his assessment of Ukraine's relations with the Eastern diaspora. He said he could understand the Ukrainian government's unwillingness to provoke further disturbances in an already tenuous relationship with Moscow, but that Kyiv has kept a line of communications open nevertheless. On the other hand, the recent immigrant to Canada opined that the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council apparent unwillingness to maintain contact with the UUR's representatives has been "unhelpful" and "perhaps cowardly."

For further information concerning the UUR and the above-mentioned Ukrainian library in Moscow, contact: Biblioteka Ukrainskoi Literatury, Belozavodskaya 11/1, Moscow, Russia 109280; telephone/fax, 011-7-095-118-91-92; e-mail, [email protected]

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