LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (12/08/02)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Soyuzivka articles awaken memories

Dear Editor:

After reading the articles by Myron Kuropas (November 3) and Roma Lisovich (November 10), dormant memories of the 1930s and 1940s were awakened. Drifting back, I recalled that the UNA and The Ukrainian Weekly, via its editor, Stephen Shumeyko, and his five brothers and sisters, together with a great group from New Jersey, including Daniel Slobodian and his sister Helen, formed the core for the establishment of the Ukrainian youth convention, which met annually in a major city, e.g., Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, New York City. These get-togethers were social and educational, the spirit fraternal. Leaders who gave us support and encouragement, attendance by at least one, namely: Dr. Luke Myshuha, Dmytro Halychyn, Roman Slobodian and Gregory Herman. (The only rivalry was from the Scranton Group, but we overcame.) This convention was composed of Ukrainian cultural and sports clubs. A Canadian delegation also attended, headed by Dr. Wachna.

My suggestion to Soyuzivka, via the UNA: invite Ukrainian American college students and graduates (age 18-25) during the month of June for Monday through Friday (weekends are reserved for weddings, right?) The UNA should do away with the Scholarship Fund and use these funds to pay the balance of the cost of this five-day publicity effort. This could encourage some who are not familiar with Soyuzivka.

I should note that my home from 1940 to 1978 was but 18 miles from Soyuzivka, and it was a joy to have Suzy-Q as a neighbor.

Mary Andreyko
Albany, N.Y.

Museum-Archives a community effort

Dear Editor:

It was nice of Myron Kuropas to mention me recently in connection with the donation of thousands of books and periodicals to the Ostroh Academy ("Ostroh immigration center announced," November 17), but he gives me far too much credit.

The Ukrainian Museum-Archives (UMA) in Cleveland has a magnificent collection of Ukrainian memorabilia, books and periodicals and it's growing all the time as people bring in various items, including books and periodicals. Many of these are duplicates, so we pack those and send them to Ukraine. Not only have we helped to build the library at Ostroh, we've also sent hundreds of boxes of books to Kherson, Cherkasy, Donetsk, Lviv, Kyiv, Zaporizhia and the Burtyn village library in the Khmelnytsky Oblast.

To accomplish this, we depend on a lot of people who donate not only books, but also their time, energy and cash. I'm glad to do my part, but really the Ukrainian Museum-Archives is a community effort and I just wanted to make sure that was acknowledged.

Andrew Fedynsky
Cleveland

The letter writer is director of the Ukrainian Museum-Archives.

Offended by writer's choice of a word

Dear Editor:

I was deeply disappointed and offended in the morning on October 9 when I saw on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal the heading "Ukraine's Rogue President," although it may not have been particularly surprising considering almost universal inclination of the media to present Ukraine in a somewhat negative light. Adding insult to injury, I was shocked when, upon reading the essay, I found out that the choice of the derogatory word was not of the editor but of its author - Adrian Karatnycky, an American Ukrainian.

At issue is not his criticism of some ill-conceived action by Mr. Kuchma, but the manner of his criticism. Why did he resort to derogatory, offensive name-calling? Does it, perhaps, reflect an aspect of an inferiority complex, of subservience? Do we need to contribute to the generally negative image of Ukraine, to "add fuel to the fire," by using such inappropriate, offensive forms of expression and criticism? Constructive, civilized, dignified, well-intended criticism is much more likely to accomplish its goals.

While I do not disagree in general with his enumeration of "transgressions" of Ukraine in selling arms to certain countries, he must be well aware - as a matter of his position and in general as an alert, intelligent citizen - of a much longer list of even more serious transgressions, offenses and complicity of Russia, not only in the past but even more so now regarding Russia's dealings with and support of Iraq, Iran and China to say the least. How about President Vladimir Putin's protracted, merciless genocide in Chechnya? Would Mr. Karatnycky dare to write about "Russia's Rogue President"?

Also, he is wrong that Ukraine "was once the third biggest recipient of U.S . foreign aid." This phrase was used by Matthew Brzezinski in "Ukraine's Bureaucrats Stymie U.S. Firms" (The Wall Street Journal, November 4, 1996) in which he listed "the top three recipients of direct U.S. government aid" per year in 1994-1997: Israel, 3 billion ; Egypt, between 1.9 billion (in 1994) and 2.275 billion (in 1995); Ukraine, between 154.5 million (in 1995) and 228.2 million (in 1996). However, U.S. assistance to Russia, which Mr. Brzezinski did not provide - excluding the Cooperative Threat Reduction program - was some 4.5 to 5.0 times greater than such assistance to Ukraine.

The U.S. foreign aid numbers become even more revealing on a per capita basis. Using Mr. Brzezinski's data, annual per capita assistance in those years was: Israel - $412.31 (including the population of the occupied territories); Egypt - $34.16 to $40.86; Ukraine - $2.97 to $4.38. Considering that Russia's population is about three times that of Ukraine and that U.S. assistance to Russia was about 4.5 to 5.0 times Ukraine's assistance, the annual per capita assistance to Russia must have been in the range of $4.46-$6.57.

Z. Lew Melnyk, Ph.D.
Cincinnati, Ohio

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