Highlights from the UNA's 110-year history (09/12/04)

Highlights from the UNA's 110-year history

A special yearlong feature focusing on the history of the Ukrainian National Association.

The 32nd Convention of the Ukrainian National Association met in Baltimore, on the city's recently redeveloped waterfront, on May 28 through June 1, 1990. Nearly 300 delegates gathered for the opening ceremonies at which Gen. Nicholas Krawciw, director of NATO policy with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, spoke on the collapse of totalitarianism around the world. It was a fitting commemoration of Memorial Day.

Also addressing the session on opening day were William Derwinski, secretary for veterans affairs, representing the administration of President George Bush, as well as U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes and U.S. Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, both of Maryland. Secretary Derwinski's address focused on developments in Eastern Europe and the fundamental changes then occurring in the Soviet Union - changes that he said were not stoppable. He told the UNA delegates: "You represent legitimate national aspirations of people in the USSR" and underscored that "You will see the day of self-determination."

The convention was notable for the fact that Ulana Diachuk, four-and-a-half-term UNA supreme treasurer (1972-1990), became the first woman elected as the fraternal organization's supreme president. She commented that the convention was exceptional also since it "was held during a period of time when Ukraine has a good chance to free itself from the yoke of Russian communism and will take its proper place among the many great nations of the free world."

On the recommendation of the convention's Financial Committee, the delegates approved the establishment of a fund to aid Ukraine, to which the UNA would contribute a sum of $100,000 per year for the next four years. The budget of the aid fund was set at a minimum of $250,000 annually for that period, with the remainder of the funding to come from UNA members' donations and the return of members' dividend checks.

In addition, the convention OK'd $60,050 in donations to various worthy community causes.

Among the noteworthy resolutions passed by convention delegates was one calling for the establishment of a press bureau in Kyiv and/or Lviv that would serve the UNA's two newspapers, The Ukrainian Weekly and Svoboda.

Another resolution called for the appointment of a UNA By-Laws Committee to review and revamp the organization's by-laws.

During the convention, UNA delegates and officers traveled to nearby Washington to visit the officers of their senators and congressmen with the aim of lobbying them regarding issues important to Ukrainian Americans.

Source: "UNA opens 31st Convention in Baltimore; Speeches, discussions focus on contemporary Ukraine," by Roma Hadzewycz, The Ukrainian Weekly, June 3, 1990; "Ulana Diachuk elected UNA supreme president; Convention creates Ukraine aid fund," by Roma Hadzewycz, The Ukrainian Weekly, June 10, 1990. The border used for this special feature is reproduced from a UNA membership certificate dating to 1919.

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