UWCC reports increased contacts with Ukrainians in Eastern diaspora (03/28/04)

UWCC reports increased contacts with Ukrainians in Eastern diaspora

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The Ukrainian World Coordinating Council held its annual meeting on March 19-20 in Kyiv during which it noted that in the last year it had developed extensive new contacts with the Eastern diaspora, particularly in Russia. The organization reviewed its achievements of the past year and began preparations for the upcoming fourth World Forum of Ukrainians scheduled for August 2005 in Kyiv.

Organized after Ukraine's independence in 1991 and headquartered in Kyiv, the UWCC is one of two international coordinating bodies of the world community of Ukrainians. It has placed emphasis on organizing Ukrainian communities in the region once regarded as within the Soviet sphere of influence, from Poland to the Far East. The other Ukrainian diaspora organization, the Ukrainian World Congress, a larger and older body, is involved with the global Ukrainian diaspora. Its headquarters are found in Toronto.

Mykhailo Horyn, chairman of the UWCC, noted in his report to the organization's leaders that in the past year tighter relations were established with Ukrainian communities in the Russian Federation, including remote Karelia, as well as in the region that abuts Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast and the autonomous republic of Tatarstan.

Mr. Horyn was quick to point out that these communities remain poorly organized and financed. Nonetheless, as he explained, a desire to retain their ethnic heritage is very evident.

"I want you to know that compared to how our Ukrainian communities [in the North American diaspora] developed after World War II, these communities are merely in the early first stage of development," explained Mr. Horyn.

The UWCC leader noted that in Russia the community focus remained predominantly on folk song and dance ensembles. He said that those a little better organized had proceeded to begin forming education programs as well.

The UWCC leadership traveled extensively in 2003 to become better acquainted with Ukrainian communities in farther outlying and more exotic locales of the eastern regions of Russia and Central Asia. They met with local Ukrainian community leaders to offer advice and material support in the form of books, videos and audiocassettes. They also met with local political leaders to lobby for financial support for the Ukrainian communities.

Mr. Horyn said he was particularly impressed with the situation in Tatarstan, where Ukrainians have a government-sponsored Sunday school program in addition to an artistic group and a choral ensemble. He explained that the Tatarstan government leadership was very responsive to the needs of its Ukrainian citizens.

"They look compassionately and warmly at our Ukrainians living there. They understand that we have something in common," explained Mr. Horyn, referring to the Tatar experience of forced migration pressed upon them by Stalin at the end of World War II. Many of the Ukrainians living in Russia were either forcibly transferred there from Ukraine to fill Soviet labor shortages or had forbears who were incarcerated in prisons and gulags in the regions or who were forced into exile there.

Mr. Horyn, who was a Soviet dissident in the 1970s-1980s and spent time in the Soviet gulag in Siberia, also voiced his unexpected pleasure at discovering that a Sunday school for Ukrainians existed on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Far East as well.

The UWCC leader said that he would push the organization to broaden its involvement with the new communities and to extend them to people-to-people contacts between the Ukrainians living there and citizens in the homeland.

He added that, in visiting the Far East, the UWCC delegation from Kyiv came to understand that Ukrainians in this faraway region of Russia had little ability to contact their consular representatives. As a result of the visit, the UWCC has undertaken an effort to have Ukraine open a consular office in the region.

Mr. Horyn gave individual praise to Larysa Skrypnykova, who resides in Karelia, a region that borders Finland. Ms. Skrypnykova, who was present at the annual meeting, received acknowledgment for being able to overcome obstacles of distance and dislocation to organize an educational conference, as well as to take the lead on various cultural events in Karelia.

Ms. Skrypnykova pointed out that ethnic Ukrainians living in Karelia were responsible to a large degree for the slave labor that built the White Sea Canal, and as a result should get Russian government funding for the schools and community centers they want to establish. Mr. Horyn added that a major problem for Ukrainian communities in Russia was to obtain government funding that was often promised but seldom received.

He emphasized that one of the two main problems for most communities in the Eastern diaspora continued to be a lack of newspapers, library materials and radio and television programming in the Ukrainian language. The other one is the continued Russification of Ukrainian youth and the scarce use of the Ukrainian language.

On another matter, Ms. Skrypnykova suggested that, in order to stimulate organizational and community work within diaspora communities, the UWCC should concentrate its limited financial resources on awarding a single annual prize to the community that organized the most effective or unusual educational, cultural or organizational event.

Mr. Horyn pointed out that another notable achievement for the UWCC last year was more extensive media coverage. He said that 380 articles appeared about the UWCC in Ukrainian publications and 29 stories in the foreign press in 2003. "I want to underscore that last year we had the most media coverage ever," Mr. Horyn added.

The UWCC representatives touched on the matter of the current Ukrainian draft legislation on the rights of Ukrainians abroad, which President Leonid Kuchma vetoed earlier this year. The bill is currently with the respective parliamentary committee chaired by National Deputy Ihor Ostash, who addressed the UWCC leaders on the matter. It is being reworked and should soon return to the parliamentary floor for a vote, at which time it should be approved.

The UWCC also turned its attention to preparations for the fourth World Forum of Ukrainians next year. Vitalii Riadchenko, head of the UWCC Secretariat, called on the organization to focus fully on preparations for the event, which is the largest global gathering of Ukrainian non-governmental organizations.

The UWCC announced that it had formed an organizing committee that included representatives from the Verkhovna Rada, the UWCC, the Ukrainian World Congress and national diaspora organizations of other countries. It also had invited Viktor Medvedchuk, President Kuchma's chief of staff, to become a member.

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