FACES AND PLACES: Slava was one of a kind (04/06/03)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Slava was one of a kind

The recent death of Slava Stetsko marks the end of an era, a time during which Ukrainian nationalism came of age.

I was born into a Ukrainian nationalist family. My father was a member of the Ukrainian Veterans Organization (UVO) in the United States. In 1931, at the request of Col. Yevhen Konovalets, head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Tato helped establish the Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine (known by its Ukrainian acronym as ODVU). He remained loyal to OUN and ODVU throughout his life, even during the early 1940s when the FBI, responding to growing pressure from America's powerful Communist-inspired Popular Front, investigated the organization. The Communists claimed that ODVU was part of a Nazi fifth column bent on sabotaging the American war effort.

For months, my father and other ODVU members had their bank accounts frozen and were forbidden by the FBI to leave town without permission. ODVU's membership dropped precipitously. Tato stayed the course.

ODVU was exonerated in 1943 and, when the war ended, FBI agents visited our home again, this time to inquire about Ukrainian Communists in America.

Tato was always proud of his nationalism. As a young boy I remember a huge portrait of Konovalets hanging in our living room. I also recall a visit to our home by Col. Roman Sushko, a member of the OUN Provid (Leadership). After the war, Tato took me to LaSalle Street Station to greet displaced persons who had been members of OUN. "Today," my father told me, "you will meet real Ukrainian heroes."

Not long after, my father and other ODVU members learned that OUN had experienced an unfortunate and deeply bitter split between the followers of Andrii Melnyk and Stepan Bandera. Forced to make a choice between the two factions, ODVU's leadership reasoned that the last international OUN conference was in 1939, and Col. Melnyk was elected head. From that moment on, ODVU came to be associated with the "Melynykivtsi." The bitterness between OUN(B) and OUN(M) was quickly transplanted to the United States as each side condemned the other for being "traitors" to the nationalist movement.

Many years later, I was elected national president of the Young Ukrainian Nationalists (MUN), an ODVU affiliate founded in 1933. Although I was never a "sworn" member of OUN(M), I, too, came to be associated with the Melnykivtsi.

Slava Stetsko, of course, was a leading member of the "Banderivtsi." I met her for the first time when I was a special assistant to President Gerald R. Ford. She visited my office in the Old Executive Office Building in 1976, requesting my help in her efforts to meet with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. She wanted Dr. Kissinger to understand that the Soviet Union would inevitably collapse and that it would be in America's interest to be more familiar with Ukraine's nationalist aspirations.

Dr. Kissinger was not interested. He had already decided that Europe should be divided into two permanent spheres of influence, one Soviet and the other American, a concept later floated by Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a State Department bureaucrat. To my deep dismay and chagrin, the so-called "Sonnenfeldt Doctrine" came to be associated with the Ford administration.

I met Mrs. Stetsko a second time in 1987 when, thanks to my late friend, Walter Chopiwskyj, I was appointed a delegate to the international conference of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Convened in Taipei, Taiwan, the gathering was an eye-opener for me. Mrs. Stetsko was there representing the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). The largest session during the conference was held in a high school gymnasium, with some 4,000 people, delegates as well as local citizens, in attendance. The featured speaker in English was Mrs. Stetsko.

Later, I requested a one-on-one breakfast meeting with Slava and she graciously agreed. For the first time I had an opportunity to speak with her at length. I reviewed ODVU's history and shared my feelings regarding how unnecessary and harmful the split within OUN was in the United States. She listened politely and sympathetically. She agreed that it was all unfortunate and ended by saying: "I know your father and respect him." Before we parted, she suggested I visit her if I was ever in Munich.

In 1989, as it happened, Lesia and I had accumulated enough frequent-flyer miles to fly to Europe. We rented a car in Munich and drove to Budapest and back, staying in Munich for two weekends, back to back. Both times, our host was Mrs. Stetsko.

She brought us to the cemetery where her husband, Jaroslav, is buried, not far from Dmytro Andrievsky and Osyp Boidunyk, two OUN(M) luminaries I had known during my tenure as president of MUN. Commenting on the differences that existed between her husband and the two Melnykites, Slava commented: "they are together now."

I met Slava one last time in Toronto a few years later. We greeted each other warmly.

As I reflect back on this woman's outstanding life and my brief moments with her, a number of thoughts come to mind.

Mrs. Stetsko's visit to the White House during my tenure there and her talking about the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union, was an act of irrevocable faith in the Ukrainian cause. Who at that time seriously believed that Ukraine would ever be independent in our lifetime?

Also worth meeting is the fact that my ideological affiliation aside, Slava still believed it important to come to the White House to meet with me.

In contrast to other so-called "nationalist" leaders in our American diaspora, it is clear that Mrs. Stetsko was interested in going beyond the confines of our narrow nationalist ghetto. She championed the Ukrainian cause throughout the world and lived to witness Ukraine's resurrection. Testimony to the respect she commanded in Ukraine is the fact that she was twice elected to the Verkhovna Rada.

Slava Stetsko was one of a kind, a woman of strong faith, vision and determination. She was busy all of her life, and yet she spent two full days with Lesia and me while we were in Munich. Politically, she had nothing to gain and yet she was warm, gracious and sympathetic. We will always remember her as a very classy lady.

"Slava Ukraini. Heroyam Slava."

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected].

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