Canada marks 125th anniversary of Shevchenko Scientific Society

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - The Canadian branch of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) marked the 125th anniversary of the scholarly body's founding in Lviv (which coincides with the Toronto branch's 50th), by holding a symposium on the international scholarly association's activities and by sponsoring a banquet, both at the Ukrainian Canadian Art Foundation's gallery on September 19.

Keynote speakers for the events were NTSh-Ukraine President Dr. Oleh Romaniv of Lviv University and NTSh-U.S. President Prof. Leonid Rudnytzky of LaSalle University in Philadelphia. They are also general secretary and president, respectively, of the World Council of Shevchenko Scientific Societies.

Dr. Romaniv delivered a wide-ranging overview of the society's history, beginning with its founding on December 11, 1873, and the days in the 1870s when it served as the carrier of an emergent national consciousness in direct confrontation with imperial Russia's anti-Ukrainian policies (such as the Ems Ukase of 1876).

The headiest days of the NTSh began in 1894, when historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky arrived in Lviv to head up the society's "Golden Triad," which included the polymathic scholar and writer Ivan Franko and the similarly versatile ethnographer, translator and journalist Volodymyr Hnatiuk. Through personal effort and an authoritative charisma that attracted other contributors, they filled the society's journal, Zapysky NTSh, with material whose influence cannot be overestimated.

As Dr. Romaniv related proudly, from the 1890s to the early years of the 20th century "the imprimatur of NTSh was the most glorious and respected in the Ukrainian world." The Lviv-based scholar also enumerated the various journals devoted to ethnography, history, philology, the social sciences, medicine and the natural sciences that came into being under the society's aegis.

Dr. Romaniv also listed the "first wave" of full members of NTSh, which read like a who's who of Ukrainian scholarship and activism, including jurist and parliamentarian Oleksander Barvinsky; historians Ivan Dzhydzhora, Ivan Krypiakevych and Stepan Smal-Stocky; jurists Kost Levytsky and Volodymyr Starosolsky; physicist Ivan Puluj; archaeographers Fedir Vovk and Mykhailo Vozniak; and literary scholar Serhiy Yefremov.

The Ukrainian NTSh president recounted how the society pressured Lviv University to establish eight chairs in Ukrainian studies and secured full recognition as an academic institution from the Austrian imperial authorities just as the first world war broke out in 1914.

Surviving tsarism and Polish rule

Dr. Romaniv said that when Russian tsarism's marauders took Lviv in 1915, they destroyed significant amounts of the society's library and archival collections, despoiled its museum holdings, and confiscated its printing presses, moving them to Moscow. After the war, Poland's so-called Sanacja regime (1926-1939) provided no reprieve, as students along with their NTSh pedagogues were subjected to a wide range of repressions.

Nevertheless, Dr. Romaniv related, in 1922-1927 the society still managed to provide the backbone to Lviv's Underground Ukrainian University, and in the 1930s a new generation of scholars emerged, including physicists Yulian Hirniak, Volodymyr Kucher and Oleksander Smakula; metallurgist Ivan Feshchenko; geographer Volodymyr Kubijovyc; anthropologist and zoologist Ivan Rakovsky; and ethnographer, linguist and historian (eventually also Orthodox metropolitan) Ivan Ohienko. Their work was of such caliber, Dr. Romaniv asserted, that it enabled them to maintain ties with luminaries of world scholarship such as Albert Einstein, Vatran Jagic, Abram Joffe, Max Planck and Tomas Masaryk.

Stalinist devastation

The most devastating assault on the institution was launched after the Soviet occupation of western Ukraine in 1939. Local Stalinist authorities dissolved the NTSh on January 14, 1940. Dr. Romaniv said that while the Bolsheviks claimed to have parcelled out the society's holdings and archives among various branches of the USSR's and the Ukrainian SSR's Academy of Sciences, in actuality much of the library and art collection, regenerated in part under the Polish regime, were physically destroyed.

The society's scholars and supporters fared no better, the current NTSh president said. Most were either executed in situ or died in labor or extermination camps. Roman Zubyk, an economic historian who had the temerity to express an official protest at the meeting liquidating the society, was barbarically tortured to death in a Lviv prison by the NKVD as the Soviets reeled from the Nazi advance in 1941. Literary scholar Kyrylo Studnytsky and Petro Franko (Ivan Franko's son) were "evacuated" and met their fate en route in unknown circumstances.

Hitler's occupiers did not allow the NTSh to function, and it was not until 1947 that Dr. Kubijovyc, along with Dr. Rakovsky, formally revived the society in Munich, in 1951 moving its headquarters to Sarcelles, on the outskirts of Paris. As members of the émigré scholarly community moved further westward, the U.S., Canadian and Australian chapters were established, respectively, by Drs. Nicholas Chubaty (1947), Yevhen Vertyporokh (1948) and Yevhen Pelensky (1950).

Ukraine vs. the émigrés

Dr. Romaniv provided a survey of the émigré NTSh's activities up to the present day, paying gracious tribute to the memory and labors of the late Dr. Kubijovyc, who oversaw work on the 10-volume Ukrainian-language Entsyklopedia Ukrainoznavstva (EU), undertaken as a direct challenge to the falsifications of the Soviet regime.

Dr. Kubijovych lived to see the first volume of the English-language Encyclopedia of Ukraine published in 1984, the Lviv-based scholar said, adding praise for the efforts of Prof. Danylo Struk, current president of NTSh in western Europe and editor-in-chief of the Toronto-based Encyclopedia of Ukraine Project, who brought work on the five-volume English edition to a successful conclusion in 1993 (although an index and subsequent companion volumes are still planned).

Dr. Romaniv related that, despite ongoing repressions over the years, the NTSh's ideals lived on in Ukraine. Thus, when the perestroika period's liberalizations allowed, the society was officially revived on its original home turf on October 21, 1989.

NTSh in Ukraine today

The NTSh-Ukraine president outlined the society's current status: over 1,200 members, of whom 90 are full members, organized among 35 scholarly committees. Apart from its headquarters in Lviv, there are another 15 regional branches in various Ukrainian cities.

The editorial offices of the Zapysky NTSh journal were relocated to Lviv from the diaspora in 1991, and a jubilee edition is expected to roll off the presses soon. The NTSh Chronicle has also been issued in Lviv (rather than Sarcelles) since 1990.

Dr. Romaniv said the 10-volume Ukrainian-language Entsyklopedia Ukrainoznavstia has been reprinted, as have Stepan Ripetsky's monograph on the Sich Riflemen and Volodymyr Kosyk's "Ukraine and Germany in the Second World War." Lev Shankovsky's "The Ukrainian Galician Army" is being prepared for release to coincide with the UHA's 80th anniversary.

Dr. Romaniv said the NTSh has petitioned the Ukrainian government to have "at least one of three" of the society's former buildings returned to it, in order to properly locate its library, archives, computer center, administrative offices and conference hall. However, he expressed doubt that such rightful restitution would come to pass.

He opined that "Austria had been a good mother [to the NTSh], but the government of a sovereign and independent Ukraine has been, at best, a step-mother."

Prospects for the 21st century

The NTSh-Ukraine president said that, while there is little doubt the society will continue to develop, conditions in the country are very difficult and thus threats are rife. Institutionally, Ukraine's academics have become accustomed to work with the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NANU) and state universities. Financially, even long-standing institutions such as the NANU have been left far short of the funding necessary for their operating needs. This means that the NTSh's scholars and adherents are in a constant day-to-day search for resources, Dr. Romaniv said.

He added that the NTSh "is not trying to compete with the NANU, only to act as a catalyst for scholarship that involves a national consciousness." The NTSh activist said the society will continue to consider its tasks to include the preservation of Ukrainian historical memory, ethnocultural values, language, literature and culture, as well as the development of a broad range of social scientific thought. Dr. Romaniv said the NTSh will also have an abiding interest in encyclopedic work.

Dr. Romaniv expressed his expectation that NTSh branches in the diaspora will continue to provide "spiritual/intellectual centers of gravity," but that unless scholars continue to migrate from Ukraine, difficulties in maintaining sufficient cadres are likely to be encountered.

In conclusion, the NTSh-Ukraine president sounded a high-minded and optimistic note, saying that, "difficulties notwithstanding, the NTSh both in the diaspora and Ukraine ... continues to be the berehynia (protectress) of the new Ukraine's spiritual values, the shrine to its spirituality, a temple that will eternally serve our people, as well as European and world culture."

At the banquet later that evening, Dr. Romaniv read greetings from President Leonid Kuchma and said that NANU President Borys Paton is likely to attend 125th anniversary celebrations in Lviv.

In his greeting, Mr. Kuchma recognized that through its "development of scholarly knowledge in all facets of Ukrainian studies and in the exact sciences, [NTSh] aspired to awaken the national intellect and thereby ensure the eventual establishment of statehood."

President Kuchma praised the diaspora NTSh for its role in "safeguarding the objective development of Ukrainian studies and maintenance of spiritual values during the period of onerous prohibitions that reigned in our country."

Dr. Romaniv also read a greeting from Lviv Mayor Vasyl Kuibida.

Rudnytzky speaks of potential

In his address, at the banquet, the president of the World Council of Shevchenko Scientific Societies, Prof. Leonid Rudnytzky, stressed the society's international character, and mused that it is the best positioned scholarly institution to act as the representative of Ukrainian scholarship at international forums, but is not doing enough to realize its potential.

He averred that while the habit of poeticizing the past and turning a more prosaic eye on the present is a universal one, Ukrainians seem to be more in thrall to it, "perhaps because of the influence of Taras Shevchenko."

"The late NTSh scholars Volodymyr Janiw and the Rev. Prof. Petro Bilaniuk, whose recent passing we feel keenly, both often pointed out to me that we have a tendency to commemorate our defeats," Prof. Rudnytzky said.

The medieval epic "Slovo o Polku Ihorevi," the Philadelphia-based scholar pointed out wryly, concerns the defeat of Rus' forces, and ends not with the dramatic death or triumphant victory of the title's hero, as is the case of western European heroes, but rather his furtive deliverance from captivity thanks to the intercessionary prayers of his wife.

With gentle irony, Prof. Rudnytzky suggested this less grandiose approach, and its tempered acceptance of adversities, could serve as a guiding principle for the council as it seeks to rebuild the authority of NTSh in Europe and assist further in the development of the NTSh in Ukraine.

He saw as the world council's primary task to take maximum advantage of newly available communications technology to create a viable network of interaction among scholars, and thereby, more effectively mobilize Ukrainian intellectual resources, both in Ukraine and beyond its borders.

According to Prof. Rudnytzky, in this fashion, Ukraine's scholarly community would serve as a vehicle for raising their country's position from that of a state constantly in need of assistance, Prof. Rudnytzky said.

He proposed that NTSh members should conduct "local self-studies" of scholarship in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian diaspora, and prepare suggestions for solutions to the flaws perceived.

Canadian NTSh survey

During the symposium, Toronto-based historian Vasyl Veryha provided a dry but comprehensively detailed survey of the history of the NTSh in Canada, from the tenure of its first president and branch founder, Dr. Vertyporokh (1948-1973), to the current holder of the NTSh presidency, Dr. Volodymyr Mackiw.

Mr. Veryha enumerated the composition of NTSh Canada's executives over the years, as well as the conferences, seminars and various jubilees that were organized.

Former University of Alberta Chancellor Petro Savaryn gave a similar overview of the local Edmonton NTSh chapter, whose "small but impressive membership" included historian Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky, writer and editor Yuriy Stefanyk, and linguist Yar Slavutych.

"NTSh is interesting because soon after its founding it managed to remain active in various political climates and under various regimes, and because it endured even though it left the land where it was established," Dr. Savaryn said.

Zenon Yankovsky provided a sketch of the Ottawa chapter's accomplishments, most notable of which has been the compilation of statistical data about Ukrainians in Canada collected by the federal government's statistical service but not published in its official publications. Also worthy of mention was the work of Dr. Roman Osadchuk, currently a counsellor to the Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa on nuclear energy matters.

Prof. Yarema Kelebay of Concordia University outlined the work of the Montreal-based chapter founded by Dr. Vertyporokh, whose constituency in the 1950s-1960s included the publicist Dmytro Dontsov and biologist Yurii Rusov. Prof. Kelebay praised the efforts of the late Dr. Bohdan Stebelsky, who revived the Montreal chapter after it had remained essentially inactive through the 1970s until 1982.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 15, 1998, No. 46, Vol. LXVI

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