Chicagoan brings legacy of Bohdan Lepkyi back to Berezhany

by Marta Kolomayets

BEREZHANY, Ukraine - For Dr. Roman Smyk, popularizing the name of Bohdan Lepkyi, writer, lecturer, poet and publicist, is more than just a hobby. It is his life's mission.

"It was Bohdan Lepkyi (1872-1941) who gave me an education, it was people like him and writer Andriy Chaikovsky (1857-1935) who molded me," said Dr. Smyk, referring to the native sons of Berezhany, a sleepy town of 20,000 people located just 30 miles from Ternopil and about 60 miles away from Lviv.

"Lepkyi instilled a spirit of patriotism in me. Reading his works, I was influenced by his Mazepa trilogy, (which includes "Motria," "Ne Vbyvay" and "Baturyn"), stimulated by his belief in the Ukrainian nation," explained Dr. Smyk, 85, during a recent interview in Chicago.

Although Lepkyi spent most of his adult life in Poland and Germany (1899-1941), he lived for Ukraine. And it was precisely because he lived for Ukraine that the Stalin regime classified him as an enemy of the state, a "bourgeois nationalist," and banned his writings for more than 50 years.

"He was a real ambassador for Ukraine. First and foremost he lived to serve his beloved Ukraine," said Dr. Smyk, who lived with the Lepkyi family in Krakow, where he attended medical school at Jagiellonian University in the late 1930s. He admits that he can go on for hours talking about his uncle (Lepkyi's father and Smyk's grandmother were brother and sister), who taught Ukrainian literature and language at this prestigious Polish university for many years and translated the works of Shevchenko, Franko, Stefanyk and Kotsiubynsky into Polish and German.

"How could I thank Lepkyi for all the good he had done not only for me, but for the Ukrainian people," wondered Dr. Smyk, who emigrated to the United States in 1950.

That answer came in the 1970s, when he received a letter from Bohdan Lepkyi's youngest daughter, who had settled in New York after the second world war. She asked Dr. Smyk to be the curator of the Lepkyi archives, which her brother Rostyslav had managed to bring to the United States right after the war.

"And when the time is right, I ask you to make sure that the archives find a home in one of our museums or prestigious universities," she wrote. Dr. Smyk and his wife, Lida (also a native of Berezhany) tackled the project with zest, setting up a traveling exhibit of Lepkiiana in the United States and Canada, which included stops in such cities as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, Edmonton and Winnipeg and Toronto.

The Smyk family established the Bohdan Lepkyi Foundation and contributed financially to the publication of Lepkyi's autobiography, "Kazka Moyoho Zhyttia" (A Tale of My Life), which was released in New York in 1967. That publication rekindled the Ukrainian diaspora's interest in one of the great writers of the 20th century, who is perhaps best known in the West for his poignant poem "Zhuravli - Chuyesh Brate Miy," set to music by his brother Lev. It is often sung at funeral services for veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and others who dedicated their lives in the fight for an independent Ukraine.

But Dr. Smyk's real mission was to bring Lepkyi back to the citizens of his native land. After his wife died in 1988, he fell ill and donated the Lepkyi archives to the Shevchenko Scientific Society in New York City, but remained the guardian of the treasures.

"I knew I had to wait for Ukraine to be independent before we could bring Lepkyi back to the pages of Ukrainian literature," he explained. As his health improved, that opportunity came in the summer of 1990, when he traveled back to Ukraine - the first time in 50 years - for the Ukrainian Medical Association convention and visited his native Rohatynschyna and walked the streets of Berezhany, where he spent many boyhood summers.

He wandered into the neophyte Book Museum and had a chance meeting with Nadia Volynets, the director of that museum, whom he now calls his guardian angel. That 20-minute meeting turned into a dozen years of collaboration to bring the works of Lepkyi back to the people in whom the writer fiercely believed.

Dr. Smyk also found out that the process of rehabilitating the productive Lepkyi - who had translated 62 books of Ukrainian literature into Polish and German and produced more than 77 of his own works that covered Ukrainian historical, ethnographic and cultural themes - had begun in 1988. It was then that an article was published in Literaturna Ukraina and the Book Museum was opened in Berezhany, featuring a sole excerpt from Lepkyi's works - his autobiography and a modest corner exhibit dedicated to the Rev. Markian Shashkevych (1811-1843) who also hailed from Berezhany.

Dr. Smyk's meeting with Ms. Volynets in 1990 also brought about the establishment of the Bohdan Lepkyi museum in Berezhany, part of a museum complex on the grounds of city hall, which includes the Book Museum and the Museum of the Persecuted Church. All three museums have been financially supported by Dr. Smyk and his family. Over the years, he has donated many of the original pieces from the released Lepkyi archives plus his own private collections of philately and memorabilia related to Patriarch Josyf Slipyj. He returned to Berezhany in 1991 and continued with plans for the Bohdan Lepkyi Museum, which was opened in 1995 with the participation of Dr. Smyk. The museum features original materials, including manuscripts, photos, paintings and books from the Lepkyi archives.

With the enthusiasm and commitment of her museum co-workers - Nadia Dydra, now the director of the Bohdan Lepkyi Museum in Berezhany, Yaroslava Mazurak and Ruslana Zalypska - Ms. Volynets, was able to curate six rooms of Lepkyiana.

In 2002 the Lepkyi Museum was named the best regional museum in Ukraine. According to Ms. Dydra, a few thousand visitors, including schoolchildren from all over Ukraine, visit the museum yearly and consider it Berezhany's little gem.

"Of course, we suffer from a lack of government funding, but our benefactor keeps us going," noted Ms. Volynets, who continues to marvel at the energy and commitment of the philanthropist. "We want our children to know about Ukraine's 20th century heroes," she said, adding that Dr. Smyk is also regarded as a regional champion of Ukrainian independence.

Since the years of Ukraine's independence Dr. Smyk has devoted his energies to promoting the good name of his famous uncle, although now his trips to Ukraine are rare. Besides four museums that feature the Lepkyi family, memorial boards devoted to the Lepkyi family in the village of Zhukiv, monuments in the village of Krohulets and in Berezhany have all been financially supported by Dr. Smyk.

More than 30 Lepkyi works, also sponsored by Dr. Smyk have been published both in Ukraine and in the West, in order to acquaint readers with the prodigious works of Lepkyi, including the well-received compilation titled "The Return of Bohdan Lepkyi," which is a 1,100-page collection of articles, memoirs and literary works. Conferences, roundtables, seminars and exhibits have also celebrated the 120th, 125th and 130th anniversaries of the birth of Bohdan Lepkyi.

A meticulous collector and a great museum enthusiast, Dr. Smyk's interest in documentation and museum work began early in life. While a student at the Stanislaviv Gymnasium, (now Ivano-Frankivsk), he helped set up the ethnographic museum there (1933-1937). That passion is something that has guided him throughout his entire life.

To date, Dr. Smyk is credited with setting up more than half a dozen museums, including a Josyf Slipyj Patriarchal Museum at the Ukrainian National Home in Warren, Mich., devoted to the life and works of the persecuted leader of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, a Patriarchal Museum at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome, another Patriarch Josyf Slipyj collection at Lviv's Ukrainian Catholic University, as well as a Patriarch Josyf Museum in Truskavets and the Persecuted Church Museum in Berezhany. His devotion to the Lepkyi family is evident in the museums he has set up in Ternopil, Berezhany and the village of Zhukiv.

For his good works, Dr. Smyk has recently been rewarded with the publication of a new book, on the occasion of his 85th birthday. Released just weeks ago in Ternopil, the 350-page jubilee edition features his speeches on the Lepkyi family, as well as his philatelic works on the topic of Patriarch Josyf.

Already an honorary citizen of both Zhukiv and Berezhany, as well as an honorary member of the Prosvita Society in Ukraine and a recipient of both the Brothers Lepkyi Prize and the Volodymyr Vynnychenko Prize of the Ukrainian Cultural Fund, Dr. Smyk remains humble.

"I am a very lucky man," he said. "The Virgin Mary has been my protectress and she has watched over me all these years. This is my honor and my duty," he asserted.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 11, 2004, No. 2, Vol. LXXII

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