UNWLA concludes 75th anniversary celebrations (12/24/00)

UNWLA concludes 75th anniversary celebrations

by Tamara Stadnychenko
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

ARLINGTON, Va. - Capping a yearlong series of festive and commemorative programs to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America (UNWLA), members and their guests gathered at the Crystal City Hyatt Regency in Arlington, Va., for a gala banquet which was held on December 2.

The banquet, hosted in an elegantly appointed private dining area, was well attended. Among the guests were Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, his wife, Natalia Gryshchenko; and Aileen Marshall, the wife of Carlos Pasqual, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

Attesting to the strong ties between the UNWLA and elected officials of American communities with a strong Ukrainian presence was the roll call of U.S. governors who had agreed to be listed as Special Honorary Committee Members in the UNWLA 75th Anniversary Banquet Program: John Engler of Michigan, George H. Ryan of Illinois, George E. Pataki of New York and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey.

UNWLA Vice-President Motria Voyevidka Sloniewsky, who served as Banquet Committee chair for the occasion, officially welcomed UNWLA members and their guests. UNWLA President Iryna Kurowyckyj greeted those assembled and spoke briefly about the UNWLA's traditions and its aspirations for continued success in the next century.

Natalia Hewko, president of the Detroit Regional Council, served as mistress of ceremonies for the evening. In her introductory remarks, Ms. Hewko praised the UNWLA as one of the most dynamic and productive organizations in the Ukrainian diaspora. She presented an optimistic view of the UNWLA's future, citing the organization's newest branches and new members as the key to its vitality and strength.

The program began with a presentation of colors, a formal processional during which the flags of the United States, Ukraine and the UNWLA were solemnly borne into the hall. Susanna Shpak, president of the newly formed UNWLA Branch 126 of Boston, carried the American flag, and Sophia Caryk of Branch 80 of Baltimore carried the flag of Ukraine, as Zhdana Krawciw played the national anthems of each country on the piano. As Anya Silecki-Piazza of Branch 80 carried the flag of the UNWLA into the hall, members sang the UNWLA anthem.

Ludmilla Hrabowska, president of UNWLA Branch 125 of New York City and the first UNWLA branch president representing the newest Ukrainian immigration to the United States, welcomed guests with the traditional greeting of bread and salt.

A symbolic candle-lighting ceremony followed. The first candle was lit by Honorary President Anna Krawczuk to honor the UNWLA's founders for their vision. The second, third and fourth candles, lit in recognition of the UNWLA's role in the national and international arena of women's organizations, were lit by Oksana Sokolyk, president of the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations; Sorosh Roshan, president of the National Council of Women/USA; and Shelby P. Hamlett, international president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. The final candle, representing the bright future of the UNWLA, was lit by President Kurowyckyj.

The program continued with a photo montage slide presentation, prepared by Marta Danyliuk and narrated by members of the UNWLA National Board, that paid tribute to the organization's achievements and accomplishments since it was founded in 1925.

The invocation was offered by the Rev. Myroslav Medvid. For many of those assembled, the clergyman's presence at the banquet was a testament to endurance and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. Now a priest in the service of God and the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the Rev. Medvid will always be remembered as the Ukrainian seaman who, in 1985, attempted to defect to the United States by jumping from the Soviet ship Marshal Koniev while it was docked at the port of New Orleans.

While guests enjoyed a sumptuous dinner, congratulatory messages and greetings from near and far were read. These included a letter from the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford, Conn., warm personal greetings filled with best wishes from First Lady and Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton and from the first lady's chief of staff, Melanne Verveer, who is a member-at-large of the UNWLA.

Other letters marking the UNWLA's anniversary celebrations were received from Soyuz Ukrainok of Ukraine President Atena Pashko, Prof. Leonid Rudnytzkyj of the Ukrainian Free University in Munich, the Children's Hospital in Lviv, the Ukrainian National Association, Govs. Engler, Patacki, Ryan and Whitman, and Bishop Efraim Krevey of Brazil.

Ambassador Gryshchenko delighted everyone at the banquet by reading two very special letters from Ukraine. In tribute to an occasion celebrating a women's organization, the envoy took a slight liberty with established protocol by first reading the warm and friendly letter sent to the UNWLA by Ukraine's First Lady Ludmilla Kuchma. The more formal, but nonetheless, cordial message of congratulations from President Leonid Kuchma took second place.

WFUWO President Sokolyk presented her organization's greetings in an envelope specially postmarked by the Canadian government with the letters WFUWO superimposed upon a silhouette of a woman's head and Ukraine's national symbol, the trident. Too numerous to mention here are the cordial and supportive letters received from scores of other groups and individuals.

An official congratulatory statement from the National Council of Women/USA was presented by NCW President Roshan and Vice-President Pamela Moffat. A longtime friend of UNWLA President Iryna Kurowyckyj, Dr. Roshan commended Ms. Kurowyckyj for her recent accomplishments and for her tenure as NCW President from 1993 to 1995. "How proud we are," she stated, "to have you as our president." In a personal gesture of friendship and affection, she presented Ms. Kurowyckyj with a bouquet of flowers.

Representing the General Federation of Women's Clubs, President Hamlett congratulated the UNWLA on 75 years of service to women. She commented that the UNWLA had made "major contributions to creating a better world - your founders would be very proud."

Ukrainian Congress Committee President Michael Sawkiw Jr., and Ukrainian American Coordinating Committee President Ihor Gawdiak attended the banquet and personally delivered congratulatory accolades from their respective organizations. A personal greeting from UNWLA member Lydia Ficalowych included a generous donation of $5,000 for the continued support of UNWLA programs. Ms. Ficalovych is a member of UNWLA Branch 66 (Connecticut).

A musical interlude combining the talents of pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky and baritone Oleh Chmyr followed. Musical selections included works by Mykola Lysenko, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Liszt and Volodyslav Zaremba.

For their longtime support of the organization, special UNWLA awards were presented to the Self Reliance New York Federal Credit Union, Svoboda, The Ukrainian Weekly, 1st Security Federal Savings Bank of Chicago and the Ukrainian Orthodox Federal Credit Union of New York. A special award for 30 years of service in preserving a visual history of the UNWLA was also presented to Ms. Danyliuk.

The banquet ended with brief closing remarks by UNWLA President Kurowyckyj and a benediction by Rev. Medvid. Ms. Kurowyckyj offered special thanks to the Banquet Committee, chaired by the indefatigable and very capable Ms. Voyevidka-Sloniewsky. Warm wishes were also extended to Branch 78 of Washington, whose celebration of the organization's 75th anniversary was the last in a yearlong series of festivities hosted by branches and regional councils throughout the country.

Conference focuses on Ukrainian identity

The UNWLA hosted a special conference chaired by Vice-President Maria Tomorug, on Sunday, December 3. The featured speakers were Dr. Daria Markus and Dr. Martha Bohachevsky Chomiak, who presented two distinct variations on a theme of vital import to all members of the Ukrainian community: Ukrainian identity.

Dr. Markus began her presentation with a commentary on Ukraine's interest in learning its own history for the purpose of learning from the past to avoid the mistakes of the past. She indicated that women in the diaspora should always keep this focus in mind as it is the only way they can avoid reinventing the wheel and succumbing to old habits and patterns that defeat successful endeavors. She emphasized that the longtime goal of the diaspora, an independent Ukraine, was now a reality and that the diaspora needs to refocus its attention on itself.

A historical overview of Ukrainian immigrant waves to the diaspora, especially to the United States, underscored the different needs and priorities of successive waves of immigrants. The newest wave of immigrants, according to Dr. Markus, is greater than most people realize, exceeding even the post-war immigration of the 1950s. They maintain few contacts with the established diaspora community, she noted, with the notable exception of banks and churches. In a sense, she contended, we cannot look to this new wave for a revitalization of the diaspora community any more than we can look to Ukraine as a focus for ourselves.

According to Dr. Markus, the Ukrainian diaspora's best hope for survival and growth is to look within itself for its best features and promote those features to its own children and grandchildren, as well as to the communities in which we live. We should, for example, focus on drawing attention away from our martyred political prisoners and bring attention to the fact that Sikorsky, the father of the helicopter, was a Ukrainian. We should, in addition, focus on the positive aspects of being Ukrainian, including the wonderful experiences our children are getting because they are growing up in a bicultural and bilingual community.

"Few of us," she contended, "are going back to Ukraine to live. Our roots are now here, and we need to recognize this." This, she explained, does not make us bad Ukrainians. No one, she continued, can claim that our main "diaspornyk," Taras Shevchenko, was unpatriotic. Yet in his own words - "meni odnakovo" (it is all the same to me - where he was mattered far less than what he was. The objective, she added, is to keep the Ukrainian spirit alive no matter where it is and to find ways to do so before it is too late.

In closing, Dr. Markus emphasized that the UNWLA is one of the organizations that understands the issues involved and has the ability to keep that Ukrainian soul alive and well.

A different viewpoint on this theme of the Ukrainian spirit and identity was presented by Dr. Bohachevsky-Chomiak who claimed that one of the biggest mistakes of diaspora Ukrainians and diaspora organizations has been the idealization of history - a false history that has often clouded reality. On occasion, she said, the false history was created and promulgated by Ukrainian leaders whose biographies and autobiographies were too often hagiographies that proclaimed "nothing before me." Compounding this problem is the fact that we have been, too often, the victims of someone else's history or rather, someone else's interpretation of that history.

Often, she continued, our worst enemy has been our own intellectualism. No society can be built on pure conceptualization. What is needed is hard work. Dr. Bohachevsky-Chomiak contended that this practical work ethic is most evident in women's groups, here and in Ukraine. "Every American who works in Ukraine comes back to America a feminist," she claimed. "Everyone sees what they have to contend with, what they accomplish from nothing and how hard they work."

The UNWLA, she continued, as well as the international women's movement as a whole, are greatly influential in Ukraine because they show what is possible. And what these groups teach, she added, is not how to be Ukrainian, but how to make life better for Ukrainians. They do not conceptualize - they deal with what is. And this matters to young Ukrainian women because they are looking for results and practical solutions, she underscored.

A spirited discussion on the speakers' positions and on related topics of interest followed. Among the issues touched upon were mixed marriages, ethnicity, the Fourth Wave, language, gender studies, the impact of the Internet and globalization.

A brief work session during which assorted proposed resolutions were discussed and voted upon by the UNWLA executive committee ended the weekend activities.

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