FACES AND PLACES: What's in a name? Everything! (04/26/98)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

What's in a name? Everything!

For the past number of years, the Ukrainian National Association has been involved in merger discussions with the Ukrainian Fraternal Association, formerly the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association.

I am not absolutely convinced that a merger is a good idea (can two declining organizations combine to form a flourishing organization?), but I am convinced that changing our name to the Ukrainian National Fraternal Association in order to accomplish the merger is a bad idea.

The Ukrainian National Association has a corporate image that has endured for more than 100 years. We are the premier organization in the diaspora. The UNA has helped form, maintain and defend the Ukrainian national identity in North America vigorously and consistently. We publish Svoboda, the oldest Ukrainian-language daily newspaper in the world. We publish The Ukrainian Weekly, the most significant publication for the younger generation.

The UNA has been involved in every significant event in our community from its inception, including the ethno-national metamorphosis that transformed Rusyns into Ukrainians, the struggle for an autonomous Ukrainian Catholic bishop, raising thousands of dollars in 1918 for the Ukrainian National Republic, demonstrating against the abominations of Polish "pacification" and Stalin's Great Famine, defending Ukrainian nationalism against the onslaught of Soviet-inspired defamation, establishing the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, resettling displaced persons, lobbying on behalf of the Shevchenko monument, defending John Demjanjuk and maintaining a vigorous press that printed the truth about Ukraine and her people.

Are we ready to obliterate our history and start all over again with a new name? Are we prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars to change our name on every piece of stationery, new insurance policies, contracts, investments, and in every state insurance office where we do business? Will the younger generation understand that our new corporate image has a one hundred-plus-year history?

The UNA has always been larger than the UFA. Today, we are four times as large. We are better known. We have the largest market share of the fraternal business in our community. We've accomplished more. Why destroy a name that is so well-known in our community? Why should we sacrifice our corporate identity to satisfy a few die-hards in the UFA? Cui bono - who benefits?

When financial institutions merge, the name of one of them is retained. Bell Atlantic and Nynex merged and the result was Bell Atlantic. When Banc One merged with First Chicago, the result was Banc One. Bank of America and Nations Bank merged and the result was Bank of America. Why did this happen? Two words: brand identity.

The Ukrainian Fraternal Association has changed its name a number of times. It was founded in 1910 when 17 branches of the Russkyi Narodnyi Soyuz broke away to establish the "new" Ruskyi Narodnyi Soyuz. Reflecting its socialist mindset, the name was later changed to the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association (UWA). During the 1930s and 1940s the UWA was vehemently anti-UNA. This was not simply the result of healthy competition as some have suggested. Through its press organ Narodna Volya, the UWA was a key player in a long defamation campaign which suggested that The Ukrainian Weekly and its parent organization were "fascist" in orientation. "We would not go as far as to say that their editors are fascist," wrote Paul Stachiw in the September 2, 1939, issue of Narodna Volya, "though we do have the distinct impression that many of their writings have looked that way."

Fortunately, the ideology of the so-called "Scranton Socialists" changed dramatically after the second world war, once the leadership changed. Some Ukrainian Americans believe that the real reason the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association later became the Ukrainian Fraternal Association was to purge itself of its negative image. Having changed its name once, it's less of a problem for the UFA to do it again.

These are hard times for all Ukrainian fraternal organizations. Once a proud and dynamic institution, the Ukrainian National Aid Association of America (known in Ukrainian as Narodna Pomich) is now sinking fast. Merging with the Ukrainian National Association will save it, but the cost to the UNA is still unclear. The UWA is in far better shape, but it too is experiencing bumps in the road. Fortunately, the UNA still has its head above water though our membership also is declining.

Times have changed and Ukrainian fraternal organizations have not kept up. Established originally as "burial societies" for the purpose of providing funeral expenses for Ukrainian miners in eastern Pennsylvania, these grass-roots voluntary organizations quickly transformed themselves into mutual benefit societies and later into full-fledged fraternal associations with goals that were far more ambitious than those envisioned by their founders.

While the day-to-day management of our fraternals was generally left in the hands of professionals, the leaders were usually people who had been active in the community, who were familiar with community needs, who had a vision. Paradoxically, it was during the Great Depression of the 1930s that the UNA experienced its greatest gains and its most productive era. By 1974, UNA membership had climbed to 89,117. Today, we're down to 59,000.

What went wrong? Why did we lose our edge in the community? Why did we fail to anticipate what was coming? Why did we fail to modify, to adjust, to move with the times?

The UNA convention in Toronto may provide some answers, and it may not. What is important, however, is the future. Many mistakes have been made in the past and the best that we can do in Toronto is to assure ourselves that the same mistakes are not repeated, that the same old road is not taken, that easy answers are not accepted for sentimental reasons or because they "feel good."

Given what the Ukrainian National Association has accomplished over the years, we have every reason to remain proud of our name. It defines our existence and has remained the only constant in our history. In our negotiations with the UFA, the UNA name should remain the one non-negotiable.

If UFA leaders are looking to the future, if they truly want to benefit their membership, they will understand that it is in everyone's best interests to keep the UNA name.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected]