"Ukrainian-American Citadel": from the pages of UNA history (Chapter 3, Part I) (03/28/04)

THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FORUM

"Ukrainian-American Citadel": from the pages of UNA history

Following is part of a series of excerpts from "Ukrainian-American Citadel: The First 100 Years of the Ukrainian National Association" by Dr. Myron B. Kuropas, published in 1996 by East European Monographs of Boulder, Colo. The excerpts are reprinted with the permission of the author. (The book is available from the author for $25, plus $2.50 shipping, by writing to: Dr. Myron B. Kuropas, 107 Ilehamwood Drive, DeKalb, IL 60115.)

Chapter 3, Part I

The American Circle

The circle was initiated by seven Lviv seminarians, all close personal friends, who vowed to take up their pastoral duties in the United States and to organize the Rusyn community along Ukrainian ethno-national lines. To avoid friction with the Latin-rite hierarchy, they also vowed celibacy. Politically active in Galicia, circle members were part of a new generation of Rusyn priests who were sympathetic to the ideals of the Radical party, a socialist group that included, among others, the poet Ivan Franko.

The first member of the circle to immigrate was Father Nestor Dmytriw who arrived in 1895. He was followed that same year by Father Mykola Stefanovych. Father Ivan Ardan arrived in 1896 and eventually settled in Jersey City, N.J. A year later, three more members of the circle made their appearance: Father Antin Bonczevsky, who took up his duties at Ss. Peter and Paul parish in Ansonia, Conn.; Father Stefan Makar, who took Father Dmytriw's place in Mount Carmel, Pa., while the later visited Rusyn communities in Canada; and Father Mykola Pidhoretsky, who took Father Ardan's place in Jersey City when the latter went to Olyphant, Pa. The last member of circle to come to America was Father Pavlo Tymkevych, who arrived in 1898 and settled, after a time, in Yonkers, N.Y., where he became pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church. Father Konstankevych joined the circle in the United States as its eighth member.

The work of the American Circle in the United States cannot be exaggerated. Composed of unusually competent, highly motivated, and militant individuals, the circle led the Rusyn-Ukrainian fight against Latinization, Russification and Magyarization. Circle members were in the forefront of the struggle to establish an autonomous Ukrainian exarchy in the United States. The American Circle eventually took control of the RNS [Ruskyi Narodnyi Soyuz, as the Ukrainian National Association was then known], and used it to establish reading rooms, enlightenment societies, cultural enterprises, youth organizations and ethnic heritage schools. Significantly, members of the American Circle edited Svoboda between 1895 and 1907, a period of 12 years, establishing the RNS gazette as the primary vehicle of Americanization, Ukrainianization, and political action in the Rusyn-Ukrainian camp.

The Mount Carmel Convention, 1896

By the 1896 convention in Mount Carmel, the RNS had 13 brotherhoods within its organizational structure, including the following new ones: St. Volodymyr, founded in 1887 in McAdoo, Pa.; St. John the Baptist, founded in 1888 in Mayfield, Pa.; Ss. Peter and Paul, founded in 1889 in Jersey City; Ss. Peter and Paul, founded in 1894 in Mount Carmel; St. Nicholas, founded in 1894 in Centralia, Pa.; St. Nicholas, founded in 1895 in St. Clair, Pa.; St. Demetrius, founded in 1895 in Mount Carmel; St. Michael the Archangel (no founding date available) in Elmira, N.Y.; and Ss. Cyril and Methodius founded in 1894 in Mayfield.

In his outline history of the UNA, Anthony Dragan called the founding four plus nine brotherhoods, the original 13, "not unlike the original 13 states" that comprised the United States.

| Home Page |