FACES AND PLACES: Hola Argentina! (05/28/00)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Hola Argentina!

For years an old friend Michael ("Mishko") Kos has been promoting Argentina. Like other Ukrainian American notables - Bohdan Futey, Ihor Wyslotsky, Oleh Wolowyna - Mishko spent his formative years there and is now Argentina's biggest booster among Ukrainians in Chicago. He prides himself on preparing the best "asado" (Argentinean barbecue) in our community.

"Argentina is wonderful," Mishko would exult at every opportunity, "the people, the climate, the food, the style of life; you haven't lived until you've experienced it."

Another friend of ours, the Rev. José Hazuda, an Argentinian native and pastor of our Ukrainian church in Palatine for a few years, also is an enthusiast of the land of the pampas. Father José now serves Argentinian Ukrainians in the northern province of Posades and has been urging us to visit for years.

After accumulating enough frequent-flier miles, Lesia and I were able to make the 12-hour flight to Buenos Aires a few weeks ago. We were not disappointed. Autumn was barely under way and the weather was mild - sunny days with temperatures in the high 60s and lower 70s. Perfect!

The food was outstanding. Steaks like you wouldn't believe. We saw more restaurants in Buenos Aires (sometimes three to a block) than in any other city we've visited. Called "portenos" (people of the port), the people of Buenos Aires generally go out for dinner between 9 and 10 in the evening. The only advantage of being early eaters like us (we were starved by 5 p.m.) was that we were usually the only people in the restaurant at 6 p.m. Great service, but little opportunity to observe portenos at play.

Leather goods and silver are a bargain in a country where one peso equals $1 (U.S.). Argentinians have even adopted the dollar sign ($) for the peso. For Americans this was most convenient.

Tango bars made us wish we were younger, although I doubt Lesia and I could ever dance the tango the way they do in Buenos Aires - one has to be an acrobat. We learned to tango at Soyuzivka back in the 1960s when tangos were the rage among people our age. Today the only tango we hear is at Ukrainian weddings.

We visited an estancia (ranch) to see how the gauchos live. There are few gauchos on the pampas any more, so what we witnessed was a performance for tourists. It was still marvelous. As I looked across the pampas I was reminded that the Hollywood film "Taras Bulba" was filmed in Argentina because at the time it was the only country that still had large numbers of men who could ride horses. Our hosts invited us to ride horseback, but at our age we opted for a less strenuous experience, a horse and buggy ride. Safe and sedate.

Buenos Aires, one of the largest cities in the world (some 12.5 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area) has often been described as the "Paris of the Americas." We've never been to Paris so we can't comment, but the city was very cosmopolitan, reminding us of Budapest and Vienna. Everyone seemed to be fashionably dressed, except American tourists and teen-agers, the latter having adopted the American hip-hop/gang style.

The first Ukrainians to settle in Argentina were 12 families who arrived from Galicia in 1887 and established a community in Apostoles, in the province of Misiones, a sparsely populated region of subtropical forest and pampas. As in the United States there were four waves of immigration: prior to the first world war (some 10,000 to 14,000), between the wars (approximately 50,000), following the second world war (some 5,000 still remain) and the post-Soviet immigration, estimated at approximately 4,000. It is estimated that Argentina is home to about 200,000 persons of Ukrainian ancestry.

I had the privilege of breaking bread with Prof. Mychailo Vasylyk, an immigration historian whose book "Inmigracion Ucrainia en la Republica Argentina" was recently published to honor the 100th anniversary of Ukrainian community life in Argentina. Dr. Vasylyk explained that while the rate of assimilation among Ukrainians in the cities is proceeding at a pace not unlike our own, the province of Misiones, some 800 miles north of Buenos Aires, seems to be holding its own. There the Ukrainians live in more tightly knit communities, similar to the way Ukrainians live in the western Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. As much as we wanted to visit Misiones, our time constraints were against it. Next time.

As in the United States, the Ukrainian community was once politically divided among the old Ukrainian Communists and the nationalists, who in turn were divided between the Melnykivtsi, OUN(M) and Banderivtsi, OUN(B). Two pre-World War II organizations, Prosvita and Vidrodzhennia, are today associated with OUN(B) and OUN(M), respectively. In 1947 the Ukrainian Central Representation (UCR) was established as an umbrella organization similar to what was once the UCCA.

Thanks to the efforts of Oleh Jachno (who invited us to his home and treated us to an exceptional dinner) and Alexjandro Cham (who showed us the Shevchenko monument and other sights), UCR Chairman Jorge Ivanyk, invited me to speak to the community about Ukrainians in the United States. Some 50 people attend the presentation, including two young representatives from the Embassy of Ukraine, Victor Kharaminsky and Ihor Tumassov. The two gentlemen were most impressive, speaking fluent Ukrainian, Spanish and English. Their willingness to openly discus shortcomings in Ukraine was refreshing. (The varenyky served following my remarks were superb, as was the wine and local "Nacional" beer.)

Since the reception was at the Prosvita Hall, I decided to visit the Vidrodzhennia Hall in order to keep peace in the Kuropas household. I was greeted by the erudite Bohdan Kowal, an Argentinian-born Ukrainian with whom I had an opportunity to discuss Ukraine and Ukrainian politics in the diaspora in general, and the actions of OUN(M) leader Mykola Plawiuk in particular. Mr. Kowal remains a Plawiuk loyalist.

During my trip I was informed that The Ukrainian Weekly is read in Argentina, occasionally arriving within a week or two after publication. Considering how long it takes for The Weekly to get to Canada and my hometown of DeKalb, Ill., this was an amazing revelation.

Lesia's and my sojourn to Argentina met all of our Mishko-generated expectation and more. What a country!

Only one disappointment. I learned that the Banco de Galicia, which has branches throughout Buenos Aires, is not headquartered in Lviv. Bummer!

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

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