Plast in Ukraine marks 90th anniversary, holds seventh national congress

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Newly elected National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko, who heads the Our Ukraine political bloc, addressed a 90th anniversary celebration of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, stressing the responsibilities of Ukraine's youth to continue the fledgling democratic tradition established in Ukraine and voicing the expectation that members of the scouting organization would take the lead in ensuring a free and open Ukrainian society.

"I believe that those who are here have the same feelings within themselves that I do, a painful desire to see Ukraine become all that it can be," said Mr. Yushchenko at the opening of the seventh national congress of Plast of Ukraine on April 19.

The popular politician, whose political bloc led the by-party voting in recently completed parliamentary elections, gave his address to national leaders of Plast who gathered just outside Kyiv for their annual meeting, which took on extra significance because of the 90th anniversary celebration. Plast's International Chief Scout Lubomyr Romankiw and other leading figures of the international organization were also on hand for the three-day meeting.

Another significant event occurred a week earlier, on April 12, when Plast members from the Kyiv branch gathered to commemorate the exact day nine decades earlier that scouting was established in Lviv, western Ukraine, through the efforts of educator Dr. Oleksander Tysovsky. The name he chose for his scouts, "plastuny," was the historic designation given to scouts of the Kozak Brotherhood.

Plast members young and old joined in a prayer service followed by a short program at St. Nicholas Church, located on the hills overlooking the banks of the Dnipro River in Kyiv.

The highlight of the jubilee commemorations, however, came when Mr. Yushchenko along with fellow member of Parliament Ihor Yukhnovsky addressed the opening of the Plast congress, held at the Berehynia Sanitarium in Puscha Vodytsia.

Mr. Yushchenko, who became an honorary member of Plast in November 2000 during a meeting of the Conference of Ukrainian Plast Organizations in Kyiv, told about 170 delegates of Plast in attendance that they are Ukraine's future and it was their responsibility to prepare to lead.

He also said that it is time for Ukrainians to focus on recent social and political accomplishments that unite them rather than the negatives that divide them.

"We need to be united by what we have rather than be divided by what we lack," explained Mr. Yushchenko.

His colleague, Mr. Yukhnovsky, while also stressing the leading role Plast must take in the formation of a democratic society, called on the scouting organization not to shirk from political activism. He underscored the need for Plast to become part of every city and every school. Mr. Yukhnovsky, another honorary Plast member, first became involved with the organization when it began to re-establish roots in Ukraine in 1989.

After the addresses by the two leading politicians and greetings by various governmental and non-governmental officials, including a representative of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate and Ihor Symchych of the Ukrainian Youth Association (SUM), the congress proceeded to discuss pertinent organizational matters.

Among the most important was a determination made by the delegates that the organization in Ukraine would remain a single, unitary organization and not consider ideas to evolve into a federative body.

However, the leadership did uphold a decision to join a larger association of scouting called the All-Ukrainian Union of Scouts of Ukraine, which includes the Ukrainian Scouting Brotherhood.

Andrii Harmatii, the outgoing head of the Plast executive in Ukraine (Krayova Plastova Starshyna), said the decision, while passed with little fanfare, did not come about without protest.

"This was not an easy decision, even while it passed smoothly," explained Mr. Harmatii. "Earlier there were several misunderstandings with other scouting organizations in Ukraine."

Among the problems were Plast's unequivocal stand on patriotism and dedication to the nation of Ukraine, and its uncompromising attitude in support of exclusive use of the Ukrainian language - principles with which other, independently developing Ukrainian scouting organizations disagreed. He said that an earlier dispute with a regional scouting organization in Dnipropetrovsk had dissipated over time, with that group even embracing use of Ukrainian at its recent camps, while a disagreement with a recently formed Kharkiv municipal group continues.

Plast is the oldest scouting organization in Ukraine. It was the first to develop in the country after Lord Baden-Powell developed the concept of scouting and formed the first units of Boy Scounts in England in 1907. As well, Plast was the first scouting organization re-established in Ukraine as the Soviet Union crumbled.

It was Dr. Tysovsky, a teacher at the Academic Gymnasium of Lviv, who in 1911 saw a need to build character and discipline in Ukraine's youth and copied the ideas of Baden-Powell. The concept spread rapidly and within a year an organizational structure and two handbooks appeared by 1913. In 1915, a girls' organization was added and by 1917 there were scouts in both the Austro-Hungarian and Russian-controlled areas of the country.

After World War I and the Communist revolution, Plast and scouting as a whole went into decline in the central and eastern, Communist-held parts of the country, and by 1921 had disappeared in favor of the Communist-run Young Pioneers organization.

Plast continued to thrive in Halychyna until 1930, when Poland banned the organization over concerns about the Ukrainian consciousness it promoted. Plast was forced to continue its activity underground.

Some 60 years later, in July 1990 a rebirth was completed when the first scouts from Ukraine, led by their newly elected national head, Oleh Hryniv, swore the Plast oath and accepted its creed in special ceremonies in Toronto.

"I was very nervous," admitted Mr. Hryniv nearly 12 years later as he recalled the moment.

The event was the culmination of more than a year's work, during which the first Plast groups were formed and the first summer camp in decades were held in the Carpathian Mountains. Plast officially declared its renewal in Ukraine on December 18, 1989, and registered the youth organization with Lviv municipal authorities a month later.

Since then success and progress have come quickly, along with many firsts. Among them: the swearing in of the first new Plast members in Shevchenko Meadow in Lviv in 1991; the first international Plast training camps, "Lisova Shkola" and "Shkola Bulavnykh" in 1993; the first All-Ukrainian Jamboree in 1996; first-time participation in the World Jamboree of Scouting in Chile in 1998-1999; and the first visit by a high-ranking Ukrainian official, Defense Minister Oleksander Kuzmuk, who toured a Ukrainian-Polish Plast camp in Crimea in 2000.

Today some 11,000 Ukrainians call themselves members of Plast. Plast groups exist in 20 oblasts and in Crimea; there are 94 branches in major cities and towns. Since 1990 Plast has overseen 576 summer camps in which 28,800 Ukrainian youths have participated.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 5, 2002, No. 18, Vol. LXX

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