Drama anthologies presented in Philadelphia (12/27/98)

Drama anthologies presented in Philadelphia

by Dr. Jaroslaw Zalipsky

PHILADELPHIA - A presentation of two anthologies of Ukrainian drama, compiled and edited by Larissa M.L.Z. Onyshkevych, was held on October 17 at the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center.

The event was sponsored jointly by the Philadelphia chapter of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) and Branch 43 of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America.

The two anthologies, published in Ukrainian are "The Twins Shall Meet Again: An Anthology of Ukranian Drama in the Diaspora" (Kyiv/Lviv, Chas publishers, 1997) and "An Anthology of Modern Ukrainian Drama" (Edmonton, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1998), which gives an overview of Ukrainian drama from the turn of the century up to the 1990s.

The program was opened by Anna Maksymovych, president of UNWLA Branch 43, who introduced Dr. Onyshkevych and briefly spoke of the significance of her work, while Svoboda editor Olha Kuzmowycz, who chaired the program, spoke of Dr. Onyshkevych as an NTSh and Plast activist.

Prof. Leonid Rudnytzky of LaSalle University and NTSh president, spoke of Dr. Onyshkevych's scholarly achievements and the significance of the 1997 anthology. Prof. Hanna Chumachenko of the Kherson Pedagogical Institute, currently a Fulbright scholar at the Harriman Institute, considered the two anthologies in terms of their significance for the study and understanding of Ukrainian literature.

The last presentation was by Dr. Onyshkevych, who in discussing the Ukrainian drama of the disapora, gave an overview of the three waves of playwrights, the main attributes of their plays, and the balancing factor they provided to literature in Ukraine by being attuned to current Western literary trends. Dr. Onyshkevych also referred to the modernist and post-modernist aspects of the plays in both anthologies.

Dr. Onyshkevych, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, is past president of the Princeton Research Forum and executive vice-president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. She is the author of numerous articles and reviews on Ukrainian literature, especially drama; author and editor of five books, among them "Existentialism in Modern Ukrainian Drama" and "Lytsar Neabsurdnykh Idei: Borys Antonenko Davydovych"; and co-editor of five compilations, including a chapter on Ukrainian poetry in "Shifting Borders: East European Poetries of the 1980s" (Rutherford, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1993) and "Essays on Ukrainian Orthography and Language" (New York, NTSh, 1997).

As a Fulbright senior scholar she taught last fall at the Ivan Franko Lviv State University, where her anthology of Ukrainian drama in the diaspora was presented. The work was received with widespread interest and acknowledgment as an important contribution to the field.

Taking part in a musical interlude to the literary program were Prof. Yaropolk Lassowsky of Clarion University and Dr. Daria Lassowsky Nebesh.

Ludmyla Chaikowska, organizer of the entertainment program, took the opportunity to introduce to the public former actors of the Ukrainian stage who were present in the audience.

The program was closed by Dr. Jaroslaw Zalipsky, president of the Philadelphia branch of NTSh.

(For the New York presentation of Dr. Onyshkevych's anthology of drama of the Ukrainian diaspora, see Tania Keis's article in the April 5 issue of The Weekly.)

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