UNA anniversaries from the past: a look back at 1944, 1969 and 1994 (02/22/04)

UNA anniversaries from the past: a look back at 1944, 1969 and 1994

Following are the texts of editorials from The Ukrainian Weekly written on the occasions of the 50th, 75th and 100th anniversaries of the Ukrainian National Association.

Fifty Years of Service

Fifty years ago, on February 22, 1894, a group of early Ukrainian immigrants met in Shamokin, Pa., and there founded a fraternal mutual benefit society which became known as the Ukrainian National Association. Their primary purpose was to provide insurance protection for those dependent upon them in the event of their death. With the passage of years and the development of Ukrainian American life, however, the organization took on an added and more diverse character. Besides providing its members with various forms of modern life insurance, it became the foundation of their fraternal and cultural activities.

Today, as the largest Ukrainian organization of its kind on this continent, the UNA, as it is popularly known, has over 42,000 members in 467 different lodges throughout the country and in Canada. Its assets are about $7.5 million, which represents about $2 million over and above statutory standards. To date it has paid out approximately $6.5 million in death benefits. In addition, it publishes in Ukrainian the daily Svoboda (founded 1893) and in English The Ukrainian Weekly (1933). All this is the product of mutual and cooperative efforts of its members, and it is on this broadly democratic basis that the UNA rests, with each member having an equal voice through his lodge and the quadrennial conventions in the organization's policies and management.

In examining the development of the Ukrainian National Association for the past 50 years one finds that, aside from its primary objective of providing insurance protection to its members and promoting fraternal relations among them, the UNA has also been active in (a) serving America in peace and war, and (b) helping Ukraine regain her national freedom.

In those years for example, when Ukrainian immigrants were landing on these shores the UNA conducted an intensive and successful campaign among them stressing the benefits as well as obligations of American citizenship. One result of this Americanizing program conducted by the UNA was that during the last war, when the Ukrainian immigrants, mostly of poor but sturdy and thrifty peasant stock, were struggling to make their first difficult adjustment to their new and strange environment, when as a nationality group they were the least numerous and least known, they managed nevertheless to achieve the distinction of ranking a notable contribution to America's war effort then (Literary Digest, November 1919). For this the UNA, as the outstanding Ukrainian American organization then as now, deserves considerable credit.

By way of another example - in the present war the UNA and its members have purchased War Bonds amounting to over $10 million thus far. As for the number of UNA members in the armed forces of our country, the returns are as yet incomplete; still, out of the total of 467 lodges, 310 have reported, and these 310 UNA lodges list 3,614 of their members in service, of which 1,055 are non-commissioned officers and 187 are commissioned officers; many of them have been decorated for heroism. Naturally, when the remaining 157 lodges make their returns, the above figures will be higher.

In striving to serve America, the UNA has also constantly encouraged the Ukrainian American people, especially their American-born youth, to cultivate here on the free American soil some of the finest and most adaptable elements of their Ukrainian cultural heritage, in order that they may be introduced into American cultural life and thereby help to enrich it.

In the latter connection, a pertinent commentary is that of Prof. Clarence A. Manning, acting director of the Department of East European Languages of Columbia University. Writing in an article for the forthcoming UNA Golden Jubilee Book, he notes:

"Such organizations as the Ukrainian National Association have come to play an even more varied and important role in the cultural life of the United States, especially among the groups of non-Anglo-Saxon origin. Originally intended as fraternal mutual benefit societies, they have extended their influence into far wider spheres of activity and it can be confidently predicted that they will continue to broaden the scope of their activity and become a still stronger factor in American cultural life ... The Ukrainian National Association has long been one of those groups which have visualized their opportunities. Under its wise and progressive leadership it has for years been seeking to establish firm contacts with all outstanding organizations in American cultural life and to utilize every possibility for securing desired results without wasting its resources in duplicating already existing facilities."

One illustration of the UNA's activity in this direction have been the numberless booklets and books it has caused to be published on various Ukrainian American cultural topics, including literary and historical works, notably Hrushevsky's "History of Ukraine" and Vernadsky's "Bohdan, Hetman of Ukraine," both published by the Yale University Press. Soon to appear under UNA sponsorship are several other important works, including one on Ukrainian literature by Prof. Manning. The UNA has also sponsored lectures on similar topics at such educational institutions as Columbia University and the University of Chicago.

Concurrently with these activities in the service of the American way of life, the UNA has played the leading role in the efforts the Ukrainian Americans have made from their very advent here to help their kinsmen in their native but foreign-occupied and now war-torn Ukraine to gain their national freedom. Today, in exerting all their energies to help our country win this war against the Nazis and the Japs, the UNA and its members find inspiration, too, in the cherished hope that when victory is won and tyranny dethroned, the Ukrainians over there will be given an equal right with other enslaved people to establish their own independent Ukrainian state. That is their inalienable right. And to the upholding of that right the UNA has been dedicated from the very first days of its existence.

Numerous other services of the UNA come to one's mind in contemplating the vista of its 50 years of development. Among them, for example, could be cited the great and well-known help the organization has given the Ukrainian American younger generation in their various group activities and development. This help, needless to say, has been a very sound investment. It has, to say the least, made our younger generation definitely UNA-conscious. When the war is over and our boys and girls in service return home to normal life and activities, the younger generation's interest in the UNA will undoubtedly be manifested in a constructive and beneficial way, thereby assuring further years of progress and service for the UNA.

Diamond Anniversary

On Saturday the Ukrainian National Association will observe its 75th birthday - an anniversary that constitutes a meaningful milestone in the life of our oldest and largest organization and, for that matter, in the history of our settlement on the American continent.

In proclaiming 1969 "UNA Diamond Anniversary Year," the Supreme Executive Committee chose the appropriate theme "In Tribute to Pioneers - With Eyes Towards Youth." For, as we look back over the past 75 years, homage must be paid first of all to the founders of the association that subsequently evolved into a strong, representative and influential organization.

It was the Ukrainian pioneers' vision, determination, planning and perseverance that set the foundations for the UNA of today. And it was the energy and faith of those that came after that kept the organization surging forward and expanding its scope of interests and activity - always with but these objectives in mind: to serve its members, to preserve the Ukrainian national consciousness and cultural heritage in a friendly yet strange land, and to render support to the struggling nation on the other side of the ocean. In looking back over the past three quarters of a century, the UNA can proudly point to its remarkable record of upholding the standards that were set in Shamokin, Pa., in 1894 by its founding fathers.

But the wholly justifiable sense of pride must not be allowed to becloud the tasks that lie ahead. It is here that our youth meets its challenge. New conditions require new ideas, new programs and, above all, new energies. These cannot be borrowed; they must be generated. In facing a future that can be brighter than its great past, the UNA is looking to our youth to provide the ideas and the energies and thus assure its continued growth for the benefit of our community and our people.

'With a vision for the future'

One hundred years ago, 10 brotherhoods, having assets totalling $220 and a total membership of 439, resolved to form the Ukrainian National Association (then known as the Ruskyi Narodnyi Soyuz). They acted on the suggestion of a historic editorial that appeared in Svoboda on November 1, 1893: "Ukrainians [Rusyns] scattered across this land need a national organization, namely such a brotherhood, such a national union that would embrace each and every Ukrainian [Rusyn] no matter where he lives. ...in unity there is strength, and it is not easily defeated. ..."

On February 22, 1894, the word became deed. The Rusyn National Association was established. "It has come to be," proclaimed Svoboda. The newspaper editorialized: "Dear brothers, now that a great number of us have gotten together and founded the association, let us all join it. ... You, who had been given up for lost by your brothers in Ukraine, let the world know that you are alive, and that here, in America, the life of the Ukrainian [Rusyn] community is throbbing with vigor and activity. ...The Ukrainian [Rusyn] National Association has been founded, and the Ukrainian [Rusyn] people in America have risen from the dead..."

And so it was, the Ukrainian community in North America grew and prospered, as did the Ukrainian National Association. Today, at 100 years of age, it has assets of $72.5 million and a membership of 64,000. It has grown far, far beyond what it was at the time of its founding. But one thing has remained constant: its devotion to its founding principles. Throughout its history, the UNA has always extended a helping hand to its members, the Ukrainian community in the United States and Canada, Ukrainians wherever they have settled, and to Ukraine.

The UNA has supported countless community causes, from the erection of a monument to Taras Shevchenko in Washington and the creation of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians to the establishment of Ukrainian studies chairs and the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. It has published numerous books, from Mykhailo Hrushevsky's "History of Ukraine" to Robert Conquest's "The Harvest of Sorrow." It was a major donor to the work of the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine as well as to the Harvard Project on the Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine.

Not to be forgotten are the UNA's illustrious endeavors in the field of publishing (two newspapers, Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, as well as the Veselka children's magazine), its scholarships for college students in the U.S. and Canada, its roles as patron of the arts and promoter of sports, its care for the elderly, and its assistance to needy victims of natural and man-made disasters, be they in the U.S., Ukraine, or any part of the Ukrainian diaspora.

With the declaration of Ukraine's independence, the UNA focused on helping the people of that formerly Soviet-dominated land. It created a Fund for the Rebirth of Ukraine that has supported many a project, from textbooks for the children of Ukraine to handbooks for businesspersons, and it has initiated its own educational projects, the Teaching English in Ukraine Program and the Summer Institute for teachers of the English language. It also funds the Kyiv Press Bureau that is staffed, on a rotating basis, by editorial staffers of The Ukrainian Weekly - the first full-time Kyyiv-based press bureau to serve a Western news outlet.

In short, the UNA has always been there for all Ukrainians. Will it continue to be there in the next 100 years? Will the Ukrainian National Association's second century be as illustrious as its first? The future depends upon both the new generations of Ukrainians who have grown up in North America and the new wave of immigrants recently arrived on these shores from Ukraine. Will they see the value of the Ukrainian National Association, become its members and take upon themselves the organization's leadership? That, dear readers, only time will tell.

However, we can state with all certainty that the UNA, as it marks the centennial of its humble yet profound beginnings, is moving ahead in keeping with its anniversary motto: "With reverence for the past, with a vision for the future."

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