UPDATE: News from the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard (03/10/02)

UPDATE: News from the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Department of Classics honored Ihor Sevcenko, the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History and Literature emeritus on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Prof. Sevcenko, a Byzantinist of world reputation, has for many years taught at Harvard and was a co-founder of HURI. A reception to celebrate his work and his place in the field was held at the Ticknor Lounge of Boylston Hall on the University campus.

Among those in attendance (about 50 people) were HURI Director Prof. Roman Szporluk, Chair of the Department of Classics Prof. Richard Thomas, HURI faculty members Michael Flier and George Grabowicz, other scholars, as well as colleagues and former students of Prof. Sevcenko.

Prof. Flier, chair of the Slavic department gave a brief overview of Prof. Sevcenko's biography and scholarly career. Greetings from all over the world - written in almost as many languages as Prof. Sevcenko speaks - were read at the reception. In his letter of greeting, Prof. Jerzy Akser of Warsaw University noted that Prof. Sevcenko continues to play a very important role in the activities of the Center for Studies of Ancient Tradition in Warsaw. Among the scholars who work at this research institution there are also Ukrainian academics.

Prof. Szporluk noted on the occasion of Prof. Sevcenko's anniversary that "the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute is honoring Mr. Sevcenko as a scholar of world import, as specialist in Ukrainian history in the context of world history, particularly in its connections with the world of Byzantium and Western Christianity."

He continued: "At the same time we see in Prof. Sevcenko an eminent historian of Ukrainian culture of both earlier times and the modern era, in particular of the 16th-17th centuries. In his works, he demonstrated how fundamentally important for the formation of Ukraine were its ties with Greek and Byzantine civilizations. He also emphasizes the great significance of its ties with the world of Western Christianity, with political and cultural institutions and movements of Europe. The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute is honoring Prof. Sevcenko as a man who, alongside Prof. Omelian Pritsak, was instrumental in establishing our Institute and in making it, from its very inception, a serious research institution."

A letter of greeting from Prof. Pritsak also was read at the reception. Prof. Pritsak reminisced about his personal and professional relationship with Prof. Sevcenko over many decades, and especially their collaboration at HURI.

* * *

The 2002 Maria and Vasyl Petryshyn Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Dr. Natalia Yakovenko, a historian from Kyiv. Dr. Yakovenko, senior research associate of the Institute of History at the Ukrainian National Academy of Science, a recognized authority on early modern Ukrainian history, is best known for her book "Ukrayinska Shliakhta z Kintsia XIV do Seredyny XVII Stolit: Volyn i Tsentralna Ukraina" (Ukrainian Nobility from the End of the 14th to the mid-17th Centuries: Volhynia and Central Ukraine).

Her articles have appeared in such noted journals as Suchasnist, Kyivska Starovyna, Krytyka and Nash Rodovid. Dr. Yakovenko's latest work, "Narys Istoriyi Ukrainy z Naidavnishykh Chasiv do Kintsia XVIII Stolittia" (Survey of Ukrainian History from the Earliest Period through the 18th Century), Kyiv, 1997, was recently translated into Polish. Her presentation will take place at 4 p.m. on April 22, in the Thompson Room of the Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, Mass.

* * *

In December 2001, Prof. Sevcenko was awarded an honorary doctorate in letters by Warsaw University. The awards ceremony took place at the university amidst an elaborate set of rituals that included an installation, reception and other events around Warsaw. Members of the university community, as well as representatives of the Polish and Ukrainian governments, were in attendance.

Prof. Sevcenko noted that not only did the award have personal significance for him, but also was important for Ukraine, since precedents were set for the awarding of a doctorate honoris causa.

Though he retired from active teaching in 1991, Prof. Sevcenko keeps an intensive academic schedule. A Ukrainian translation of his latest book "Ukraine between East and West" was published in Lviv in 2001.

* * *

HURI Director Szporluk, the Mykhailo Hrushevskyi Professor of Ukrainian History, received the 2001 Antonovych Prize for his contribution to Ukrainian studies, with special recognition for his book "Ukraine, Russia, and the Breakup of the Soviet Union" (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2000). The first printing of the book quickly sold out, and in January 2002 the book saw its second printing.

Prof. Szporluk received the award before 150 people at the Expocenter in Kyiv. In his remarks he emphasized that the fundamental nature of Ukrainian independence was not abrupt or unexpected, but represents an arc that spans the entire 20th century.

In his analysis, he stated that the declaration of independence of 1991 was the natural outcome of earlier Ukrainian history - a point that specialists on Ukraine should remember, rather than positing Ukrainian independence as somehow "unnatural."

The Omelan and Tatiana Antonovych Foundation has awarded its annual prize for 20 years. It is given to individuals who have made significant contributions to Ukrainian culture and society.

* * *

In February, HURI announced plans to launch a website devoted to the first Ukrainian translation of "Animal Farm." On April 11, 1946, a 25-year-old Ukrainian displaced person wrote to George Orwell, "Dear Mr. Orwell, About the middle of February this year I had the opportunity to read 'Animal Farm.' I was immediately seized by the idea that a translation of the tale in Ukrainian would be of great value to my countrymen."

Thus began a remarkable correspondence between the young Ihor Sevcenko and Orwell that would lead not only to a Ukrainian edition of "Animal Farm," but would also give the world Orwell's only account of the genesis of this landmark work - which appeared in the special introduction that he wrote for the Ukrainian edition.

Published in 1947 under Prof. Sevcenko's pseudonym "Ivan Cherniatynskyi," the book has long been a collector's item. It is well-known among serious Orwell scholars. Prof. Sevcenko's letters to Orwell are among the handful of non-Orwell letters included in the critical edition of his writing, since the connection with the East European intellectual circles was important to him and his cause of opposing Stalin's tyranny.

Mindful of the importance to world intellectual history of this encounter and honoring Prof. Sevcenko on the joyful occasion of his 80th anniversary, HURI is launching an ongoing project to make Prof. Sevcenko's translation available on line.

As part of the project, both the original version and a reviewed version that Prof. Sevcenko worked out with Orwell and that has never before been published, will eventually be made available, along with correspondence and analysis from Prof. Sevcenko's personal archives.

A growing interest in Ukraine and the ever larger number of Ukrainian specialists at Harvard have created the need for an additional discussion forum to supplement the long-standing Seminar in Ukrainian Studies. To satisfy this need, HURI has formed the "Ukraine Study Group" (USG).

While the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies meets usually on Mondays at 4 p.m. for formal presentation and critique of research papers, the USG gathers weekly on Thursdays or Fridays for preliminary reports on work in progress, discussion of methodology and debate of more contemporary issues.

Presenters in the fall term included Borys Tarasyuk, former minister of foreign affairs of Ukraine, who spoke on Ukraine's foreign policy over 10 years of independence; Volodymyr Kulyk, a Shklar fellow at HURI, who spoke political parties, parliamentary factions and voting blocs in Ukraine; Lubomyr Hajda, HURI associate director, who covered the history of Ukrainian studies at Harvard; Oleksander Riabchenko, national deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, who spoke on privatization efforts and potential in Ukraine, and Larry Wolff, professor of history at Boston College, who reported on methodologies for studying the 18th century history of the Slavs.

The Ukraine Study Group continues with an expanded program in the spring 2002 semester. The USG is lead by Dr. Lubomyr Hajda, HURI's associate director.

* * *

On February 11, HURI held a book presentation and reception for Patricia Kennedy Grimsted's trialblazing study "Trophies of War and Empire: The Archival Heritage of Ukraine, World War II, and the international Politics of Restitution" (Cambridge, Mass.: HURI, 2001). On this occasion, Dr. Grimsted presented an update on the recently published volume.

Dr. Konstantin Akinsha, author of numerous important studies of cultural trophies, was the discussant.

The event, attended by Harvard faculty, associates, and students, as well as by specialists from area libraries and museums, was yet another "Trophies" book launch in addition to the ones already organized or planned in Kyiv, Amsterdam, Paris and Washington.

Dr. Grimsted's book has been very well received over the six months since its publication. It has had the most review requests of any HURI book and has already won advanced praise from specialists in such diverse fields as archival studies, history, the Holocaust, restitution studies and international law.

The first review, a glowing tribute to the book was published in the noted Kyiv-based journal Arkhivy Ukrayiny (Archives of Ukraine) just a few months after its publication. Officials from the State Committee on Archives of Ukraine indicated that they would like to have the book translated into Ukrainian as soon as possible.

* * *

The University of Toronto on February 22, hosted Dr. Volodymyr Kravchenko, Shklar Fellow at Harvard University, and Head of the Department of Ukrainian studies at Kharkiv University, Ukraine, who delivered a lecture titled "The Ukrainian National Movement in Kharkiv in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries."

The lecture took place at the Munk Center for International Studies and was co-sponsored by the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Toronto Office).

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