1998: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Academia: marked by anniversaries (12/27/98)

1998: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Academia: marked by anniversaries

Major anniversaries were the hallmark of this year's scholarly events and publications schedule: the 125th anniversary of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, 200th anniversary of the publication of Kotliarevsky's "Eneida," 350th anniversary of the Khmelnytsky uprising, 100th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Hrushevsky's "Istoriia Ukraiiny-Rusy" were among the dates noted this year.

Anniversaries

Founded in Lviv on December 11, 1873, Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) has a history of survival and commitment to scholarly excellence during more than a century of dramatic international turmoil and upheaval. Twice shut down, in 1914 and in 1939, its archives and property appropriated in 1940 during the Soviet occupation of western Ukraine, the NTSh was resurrected in 1947 in post-war Munich, and later its European base moved to France. By the 1950s, Ukrainian emigres had set up autonomous society chapters, not only in Europe, but in the U.S., Canada and Australia as well. An executive council was established in 1978, and the NTSh was reactivated in Lviv in 1989. (At present, NTSh has more than 1,200 members and 15 active chapters throughout Ukraine.)

Commemorative events for the 125th anniversary, which included major conferences, banquets, seminars and artistic programs, were held in Canada on September 19, in the U.S. on October 2-4, and in Lviv on October 23-25. A roundtable discussion at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) conference September 26 in Boca Raton, Fla., also was devoted to the organization's anniversary.

One hundred years younger than NTSh, the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard nonetheless celebrated a milestone anniversary this year: its 25th. The first chair in Ukrainian studies, the Mykhailo S. Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History was funded in 1968, however, fund-raising continued in the community until funds were gathered not only for two more chairs, but for an endowment to establish the research institute as well, which opened its doors on June 4, 1973. The institute commemorated its anniversary with an exhibit of "Ucrainica at Harvard," a display of rare books and manuscripts from Harvard's collection, the largest collection of rare Ukrainian publications outside of Eastern Europe. Among the items displayed was a unique 1798 edition of Ivan Kotliarevskyi's "Eneida," the epic-poem in vernacular Ukrainian that was first published 200 years ago. The edition is part of the permanent collection of the university's Houghton Library.

Also at HURI, the Ukrainian literary critic and scholar Tamara Hundorova, visiting scholar at The Harriman Institute, Columbia University, spoke on the topic of "Eneida" as a national narrative, against the background of its Roman model by Virgil.

Also in honor of the 200th anniversary of the poem's publication, a facsimile edition of one of the early releases of "Eneida" was printed in Lviv.

The Khmelnytskyi uprising (1648-1649) was a defining moment in the histories of the Ukrainians, Russians, Jews and Poles. On May 18-20, at a conference in Israel, "Gezeroit Tah-Tak/Eastern European Jewry in 1648-1649: Context and Consequences," marking the 350th anniversary of this period, three scholars, Dr. Zenon Kohut, Dr. Frank Sysyn and Dr. Serhii Plokhy from the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) made presentations.

Later in the year, at the AAASS conference, a special session was held on the topic of Khmelnytskyi and the Jews, and in the fall, Dr. Kohut, who is the director of the CIUS, held a seminar before a capacity audience at Yale University on the topic "The Khmelnytskyi Uprising, the Image of Jews and the Shaping of Ukrainian Historical Memory." The seminar was co-sponsored by the Ukraine Initiative at Yale University, along with the Council on Russian and East European Studies and the Department of Judaic Studies - the first time in the history of the university that all three programs have jointly sponsored an event.

The first volume of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's "Istoriia Ukraiiny-Rusy" was first published in 1898. To commemorate this 100th anniversary, a book launch was held on August 24, the seventh anniversary of Ukraine's independence, for volume 1 of the English translation "The History of Ukraine-Rus'," which is part of the multi-volume Hrushevsky Translation Project funded by the Peter Jacyk Center. The launch was held at the Teachers' Building in Kyiv, the same building where the Central Rada, chaired by Hrushevsky, met during 1917-1918 and the site of the proclamation of the Ukrainian National Republic, of which Hrushevsky was president.

Through it was reported in early 1998, the Conference on Ukrainian Orthography was held in Kyiv at the end of 1997, on December 12-13. Organized by Ukraine's National Committee on Orthography, the Shevchenko Scientific Society and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the conference was convened to mark the 70th anniversary of the All-Ukrainian Conference on Orthography held in Kharkiv in 1927, which resulted in a modern and unified set of rules of orthogrpahy and grammar for Ukrainian - standards that are still in use by many publishers in the diaspora, though they were greatly modified by the Soviet government.

Conferences and lectures

For the second year, the Harvard National Security Program was held at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. The first program, held December 1-12, 1997, and focusing on the topic of development of civil-military relations and strategic planning in Ukraine, was such a great success that a second session was held this year on November 29-December 9, with the topic expanded to include economic reform. Coordinated in part by the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard, speakers included economists Jeffrey Sachs and Marshall Goldman; military advisor Maj. Gen. Nicholas Krawciw, U.S. Army (ret.); as well as security advisors Sherman Garnett and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Approximately 30 participants from the U.S. military, Ukrainian military and security services, as well as Ukrainian parliamentarians attended.

This year, the annual Vasyl and Maria Petryshyn Memorial Lecture in Ukrainian Studies was given at Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute by John Armstrong, professor emeritus of political science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, on March 12 on the topic "Independent Ukraine in the World Arena: Prospects for the Republic and Implications for Studies." Prof. Armstrong focused on the need for regional alliances such as Georgia-Ukraine-Armenia-Moldova (the so-called GUAM group) and Ukraine-Poland relations as essential to Ukraine's independent development. Prof. Armstrong is the author of the classic work "Ukrainian Nationalism, 1939-1945," and other influential works on the study of nationalism.

An April 24-25 conference at Yale University, "Institutional Reform in Ukraine: Implications for Emerging Markets," drew approximately 150 participants from Europe and North America. The conference was the fourth in a series of the multi-year Ukraine Initiative established at Yale with funds from the Chopivsky Family Foundation to enhance Ukrainian studies at the university. The conference was bracketed by two unexpected developments in Ukraine, the murder of Vadym Hetman, head of Ukraine's Interbank Currency Exchange, and a court decision to invalidate the results of the election to parliament of Serhii Holovatyi, former minister of justice. Mr. Holovatyi, a speaker at the conference, heard of the results while at Yale.

Both events underscored points made by many speakers about the monopolistic tactics and "financial clan" struggles that are strangling the development of Ukraine both politically and economically. Besides Mr. Holovatyi, the speakers included former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Green Miller; National Deputy Serhii Teriokhin; Prof. Robert Kravchuk, Indiana University ; Scott Carlson, president, Western NIS Enterprise Fund; Morgan Williams, president, Ukrainian Agricultural Development Company; Prof. Louise Shelly, American University; and Bohdan Krawchenko, vice-rector, Ukrainian Academy of Public Administration.

The Chair of Ukrainian Studies at Ottawa University hosted the second "Towards a New Ukraine" conference in the Canadian capital on October 3-4, with this year's proceedings unfolding in a more pessimistic cast than the conference last year. The tone was set by the keynote address on the opening day of the conference delivered by Dr. James Mace, currently a lecturer at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and brought to a powerful conclusion by former dissident Yevhen Sverstiuk, the final speaker of the conference, who spoke about Ukraine's moral crisis.

Economists, including Anders Aslund and Volodymyr Lanovyi, jurists, including former Minister of Justice Holovatyi, and several political scientists all contributed to a rather gloomy portrait of the seven-year-old state. Surprisingly, cultural-philological panelists Mykola Ryabchuk, Michael Naydan and Natalia Berezovenko offered the most reason for optimism, offering an image of an ever more linguistically and culturally rich and complex environment in the country, rather than the simply "lumpen" and Russified stagnation that is often described.

Publications

The CIUS Journal of Ukrainian Studies published a special double issue this spring on Ukrainian writer and philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda. The papers included in this volume were presented at a conference in 1994 to mark the 200th anniversary of the philosopher's death.
Schiffer Publishers released "Galicia Division: The Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division 1943-1945," a comprehensive account of the short and intense history of the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army, authored by military historian Michael O. Logusz.
Prof. Omeljan Pritsak's "The Origins of the Old Rus' Weights and Monetary Systems," was published by the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard. Prof. Pritsak, former director of the institute, surveys the weights and monetary systems extant in Eurasia in the seventh to 11th centuries; the publication is the most thoroughly researched and documented English-language study of this subject.
"Between Kyiv and Constantinople: Oleksander Lototsky and the Quest for Ukrainian Autocephaly" by the Rev. Dr. Andre Partykevich, published this fall by CIUS press, analyzes the little-known period of Ukrainian Orthodox Church history, the unsuccessful attempt by Oleksander Lototsky, writer, scholar and Ukraine's minister for religious affairs under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, to gain recognition of the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church from the Patriarch of Constantinople.
In September, Harvard Ukrainian Studies published a special volume on the topic "Ukraine and the World: Studies in the International Relations and Security Structure of a Newly Independent State," which incorporated papers from the 1996 conference in Washington of the same title, with additional articles and documents. Renowned international specialists examine the development of Ukraine's foreign policy and external relations after 1991, its role in rapidly changing regional security arrangements, and the country's path to de-nuclearization. This volume also appeared as a separate publication, under the same title, in the series Harvard Papers in Ukrainian Studies, edited by Dr. Lubomyr Hajda.
This fall, the Peter Jacyk Center published "Dokumenty do Istorii Zaporozkoho Kozatstva, 1613-1620," the first volume of documents from Russian archives on the history of the Ukrainian Kozaks, including many documents that remained largely unknown to scholars of this topic and shed new light on relations between Russia and Ukraine in the early 17th century.
"Crisis and Reform: The Kyivan Metropolinate, The Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest," by Rev. Dr. Borys Gudziak, explains and re-evaluates the controversial Union of Brest (1596). It was published by the Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies.

Scholars and their supporters

In July 1998, Dr. Hajda, associate director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, was also appointed editor of the journal Harvard Ukrainian Studies.
Dr. Kohut was the first visiting professor to be invited to Yale University as part of the Ukraine Initiative program, which is sponsored by the Washington-based Chopivsky Family Foundation. He was a visiting professor in history during the fall 1998 semester.
Through a gift from the Canada-based Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation, the Petro Jacyk Distinguished Fellowship in Ukrainian Studies was established at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. Also with funds received from the Canadian foundation, the Harriman Institute at Columbia University this year announced the establishment of the Petro Jacyk Visiting Professor of Ukrainian Studies. Both programs will begin in 1999.
Longtime supporters of the CIUS, Daria and Michael Kowalsky established an endowment of $1 million for the Kowalsky Program for the Study of Eastern Ukraine. The program will give grants to scholars and sponsor seminars dealing with problems related to Ukrainian identity in Eastern, Southern and Central Ukraine, support museum development, award a literary prize for historical novels for young people, as well as fund other projects.
The University of Alberta recognized Ukrainian studies as one of its centers of excellence in research within its university system and noted the role of the CIUS in providing support for Ukrainian scholarship, including programs in Ukrainian history, literature, language and culture, through its contacts with scholars worldwide.
The first recipient of the Dr. Robert Franklin Clark Graduate Fellowship in Ukrainian Language and Literature, a yearly fellowship of $15,000 to be granted to a graduate student pursuing a master's degree or doctorate in Ukrainian language or literature at the University of Toronto, is Marko Andryczyk, 29. Mr. Andryczyk holds a master's degree from LaSalle University in Philadelphia and has spent a substantial amount of time in Lviv, where he has been working on a paper on that city's underground literary movement in the 1970s. He met and befriended many of today's literary figures in Ukraine, and has reported on the Lviv cultural scene for The Ukrainian Weekly.

A "Symposium in honor of George Y. Shevelov" was sponsored by the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, on October 2 at the university's School of International and Public Affairs. Prof. Shevelov (above), a renowned linguist and literary critic, celebrated his 90th birthday this year. Paying tribute to a lifetime of achievement, speakers praised Prof. Shevelov as "phenomenal," "every inch a scholar" and providing "insights into Slavic languages ... findings that are truly impressive and won him a permanent place among Slavists." The daylong symposium was divided into two sessions, the morning devoted to linguistics, chaired by Dr. Alexander Motyl of the Harriman Institute, and the afternoon to literature, chaired by Dr. Danylo Husar Struk of the University of Toronto. Prof. Shevelov was also honored at another New York event that same weekend, on October 4, as the guest of honor at the Shevchenko Scientific Society's 125th anniversary banquet.

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