BOOK NOTE: Olha Kuzmowycz reflects on "This and That" (10/22/00)

BOOK NOTE: Olha Kuzmowycz reflects on "This and That"

"Pro Tse i Te" (This and That, Collected Short Stories and Essays) by Olha Kuzmowycz. New York: published by the author, 2000. 387 pp. $15.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Journalist and editor Olha Kuzmowycz, who writes under the pseudonym "O-KA" in Svoboda, the Ukrainian-language newspaper published by the Ukrainian National Association, earlier this year released a collection of her columns called "Pro Tse i Te" (This and That).

On its 287 pages the Ukrainian-language book contains food for thought that spans several decades and generations, two continents and, indeed, two world orders.

Mrs. Kuzmowycz, who completed a journalism degree in Warsaw, is one of the most active journalists on the Ukrainian scene, and an active member of Ukrainian community organizations such as Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, in which she held several leadership positions, as well as the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

In 1996 Mrs. Kuzmowycz marked the publication of her 750th feuilleton. Keeping up her regular pace, she should publish her 1,000th in early 2001. "My pen has not yet dried up," the writer quipped at a special gathering held in her honor.

The introduction to "Pro Tse i Te" was written in 1994 by Mrs. Kuzmowycz's longtime colleague Ivan Kedryn Rudnytsky, who died in 1995 at the age of 98. Mr. Kedryn-Rudnytsky, a Galician and émigré political activist, was the doyen of Ukrainian journalists and long-time Svoboda editorial board member, whose journalistic activity spanned more than seven decades and two continents.

Writing "About the Author and Her Book," Mr. Kedryn-Rudnytsky noted that she comes from a patriotic family, the Fedaks of Lviv, and was an eyewitness to the activity of the Ukrainian Military Organization and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, as well as the searches, arrests and conspiracies that affected these organizations and their members.

Mrs. Kuzmowycz's father, Lev Fedak, was a political activist, and her mother, Olena Fedak-Sheparovych, was a leading activist of Soyuz Ukrainok, as well as an editor. All of this, of course, had a strong influence on the author's life, which is obvious in her writings.

Mrs. Kuzmowycz herself was a member of Plast at the time it was an underground organization. She went on to study journalism at the University of Warsaw, after which she was affiliated with the newspaper Dilo at the time World War II broke out. She and her husband, Mykola Kuzmowycz, a physician, fled to the West but then returned to Lviv, where Mrs. Kuzmowycz became co-editor of the youth magazine Doroha.

After surviving the upheavals of World War II, which found them in Austria at war's end, the Kuzmowyczes arrived in the United States in 1949. Mrs. Kuzmowycz resumed her activity in Plast and became the first woman to head the National Plast Command in the United States and the World Plast Bulava. She worked as an editor on several Plast magazines, was editor of the Plast page in Svoboda and was editor-in-chief of the Plast magazine Yunak from 1968 to 1992.

In 1976 she was elected president of the Ukrainian Journalists' Association of America, and five years later joined the staff of Svoboda, then a daily newspaper. In fact, Mr. Kedryn-Rudnytsky noted, she was hired to fill the vacancy left when he retired from the newspaper's staff.

Mrs. Kuzmowycz's columns in Svoboda, which appear under the heading "Pro Tse i Te," reflect her varied life experiences and depict the human side of the notable persons with whom she came into contact. Thus, they were, and continue to be, unique in the sphere of Ukrainian journalism.

A collection of the best or most significant of those columns, Mrs. Kuzmowycz's book was warmly received by a full house gathered at the Shevchenko Scientific Society's headquarters in New York to celebrate this latest achievement by the journalist.

The audience that Saturday afternoon, June 17, was welcomed by the society's newly elected president, Dr. Larissa M.L. Onyshkevych, while the mistress of ceremonies was the society's vice-president, Dr. Anna Procyk.

The event featured an introduction of the author and her book by Dr. Onyshkevych, as well as a reading of two selections from "Pro Tse i Te" by Mrs. Kuzmowycz.

Dr. Onyshkevych characterized the new book as a collection of "memoirs, thoughts, and observations about our life." The book provides "an illustration of our society, whether in Halychyna before World War II, or here in the diaspora." As such, she continued, it could be placed in a time capsule as a document of an era.

The columns also are a reflection of values, vignettes about notable personages and cultural activists, comments on historic events, and tales of life in pre-war Ukraine, the displaced persons camps and North America.

During the evening Mrs. Kuzmowycz also spoke about her work at Svoboda and with Editors-in-Chief Anthony Dragan and Zenon Snylyk, as well as about her mentor, Mr. Kedryn-Rudnytsky.

She noted that she considers this book to be her swan song - "there will be no other for me," she added. "And, it is thanks to two persons that it has been published."

The author credited both Mr. Kedryn-Rudnytsky and her grandson Nicholas Sawicki for their encouragement and support.

Mr. Kedryn-Rudnytsky, she explained, had always urged her to publish a collection of her feuilletons and he wrote the introduction to the book five years before it was published. "After he died, I was afraid that he would berate me from the afterworld for not publishing this collection," she added.

Her grandson, she explained, also had provided words of encouragement for her book as well as the design for its distinctive cover, which features an illustration of Lviv by Mykhailo Barabash that is based on a 19th century rendering of the city by Antoni Lange.

Readers and fans of "O-KA" had an opportunity at the book launch to share their thoughts about her column as well as to pose questions regarding her work.

Among those speaking in tribute and gratitude to the author was Mr. Snylyk, former editor-in-chief of Svoboda, under whose tenure Mrs. Kuzmowycz had begun her column almost 20 years ago. Offering congratulations on her book, Mr. Snylyk expressed his hope that there would be a second volume of "O-KA's" columns and that it would be published by the Svoboda Press.

The book is available for $15 by writing to the author at 64 E. Seventh St., New York, NY 10003. It may also be purchased at the Plast store, Molode Zhyttia, located at 308 E. Ninth St., in New York City.

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