LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (05/22/05)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Thanks for upholding idea of free press

Dear Editor:

I wish to thank The Ukrainian Weekly for adhering to the principles of a free, democratic press were all views can be expressed and discussed. I am specifically referring to the article "The good, the bad and the ugly..." by Prof. Peter T. Woloschuk (April 24) that generated such a lively response.

It seems Prof. Woloschuk's cardinal "sin" was having the audacity to write an article without the usual laudable and full of hyperbola style that our community has been accustomed to. Irrespective of whether Prof. Woloschuk is right or wrong (and I am inclined to think he is more right than wrong) he should have the right to express his opinion.

That does not preclude me from supporting Nadia Annese, president of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America Branch 126 (May 8). The Boston branch of the UNWLA has not "... suddenly decided to take an interest in Nastia Ovchar ..." as Prof. Woloschuk contends. As a member of the UNWLA I can attest to the organization's long-standing commitment to helping children in need in and out of Ukraine.

Vera Levytsky Klisch
Huntingdon Valley, Pa.

Please don't blame the messenger

Dear Editor:

Prof. Peter Woloschuk presented a thoughtful, precise overview of "The good, the bad, and the ugly" aspects surrounding President Viktor Yushchenko's visit in Boston on April 5. The chorus of negative responses to his account is somewhat surprising.

Ukrainians could use the passage of this event as a learning opportunity. Deficiencies such as communication dysfunction and preoccupation with irrelevant trivia - a common occurrence in our communities - may be a minor irritant in an ethnic mini-world, but become a major embarrassment when venturing outside into serious business. I stress the proposition that efficient management of a big event is not much different from a successful commercial enterprise that requires experience and discipline, such as shown by the Kennedy Library Foundation, the organizer of the event.

Lesser foibles are easier to control than organizational weakness. For instance, etiquette lessons can be tried to slow down high jumpers over security barriers. Tendencies to repeat mistakes don't go away by themselves. I recall the pandemonium during President Leonid Kuchma's visit with the Ukrainian community in New York a few years ago, caused by a photo-op and attention-craving on the part of local eminencies.

Prof. Woloschuk's notice of spoken Russian among President Yushchenko's cookie-munching security people was well taken. Although not a litmus test of a possibly hesitant revolution, an entrenched Russophone buzz is a sure indicator of mindsets devoid of substantive Ukrainian content.

Boston is a great city, which I know from my working days at MIT's Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. I share Prof. Woloschuk's assessment of the local Ukrainian community's invisible status.

Please don't blame the messenger.

Boris Danik, Ph.D.
North Caldwell, N.J.

About the standards for rank of professor

Dear Editor:

Recently, much space has been devoted to the question of who is entitled to be called professor. Without addressing this issue "ad hominem," I would like to inform readers, for the record, what is the process at nationally recognized universities in the U.S.A. for attaining the academic rank of professor.

To begin, a candidate has to have a doctoral degree, be selected by faculty members and the Appointments and Promotion Committee, with the dean's approval, for an initial three-year full-time tenure-track appointment. At the end of the third year, a candidate is evaluated in three areas: teaching effectiveness, scholarly and research accomplishment, and general usefulness to his/her field of study. If reappointed for another three-year term, he/she may be evaluated at the end of a fifth year for possible tenure and promotion to associate professor. This evaluation also involves outside letters of recommendation from professors at other universities.

Once an associate professor successfully teaches for another three or five years he/she may be considered for an evaluation to full professor. A criterion in this case is national recognition as a scholar, which at most universities means a strong record of publications in journals and a couple of books.

Ivan Z. Holowinsky
Somerset, N.J.

The letter-writer is a former academic associate dean and professor at Rutgers University.

Ukrainians need to learn the truth

Dear Editor:

On April 10 The Ukrainian Weekly published the article by Dr. Myron Kuropas titled "Orange justice: Pora!," and also on May 1, the letter "Ukraine doesn't need an OSI analogue" by Dr. Yuri A. Deychakiwsky.

Below Dr. Kuropas's articles, The Weekly re-printed a postcard released by the UCCLA depicting the victims of atrocities committed by the NKVD in Lviv in 1941. On the reverse of the card is an appeal to President Viktor Yushchenko asking him to "establish an official Commission of Inquiry into Soviet War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Ukraine to document the nature and extent of these crimes and bring those responsible to justice."

Dr. Kuropas, in his article, reaffirms the above plea and writes: "It's time [pora] for Orange justice. It's time to revisit the Soviet past and to ferret out those criminals who condoned, encouraged or perpetrated crimes against the Ukrainian people. It's time to indict these degenerates and to put them on trial so that the Ukrainian people are reminded of the horror that existed when Marxist-Leninists were in charge ..."

Dr. Deychakiwsky takes the opposing stance and writes: "I strongly disagree, however, with the suggestion that the diaspora request that President Yushchenko and the government of Ukraine set up a commission to hunt down and prosecute the perpetrators, whether they are living in Ukraine, the United States, Canada or Israel ..."

As an alternative, Dr. Deychakiwsky suggests "to build a museum analogous to the Holocaust museum, to produce more books, documentaries and educational materials." He also cites the cost of such an undertaking, and the poor results of the U.S. Justice Department's office of Special Investigations.

The problem of Orange justice, however, is much more complicated. We all know or remember the Nuremberg trials in 1945-1946 of Nazi criminals conducted by the International Military Tribunal when the law of personal responsibility was introduced. There are also demands from former Soviet-occupied nations for similar trials of persons involved in Soviet-era crimes against humanity by the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

In regard to Ukraine, whose eastern regions of mostly Russophone people still are under the influence of the Russian mind-set and are nostalgic for the Soviet way of life, or President Vladimir Putin's "managed democracy," the problem is more acute and serious.

David Satter, a Russian affairs specialist affiliated with the Hoover Institution, the Hudson Institute and John Hopkins, writes in the Wall Street Journal on May 6, in an article titled "What Gulag?": "This nostalgia [for former Soviet Union] is not harmless. Not only does it ignore the fact that the Soviet Union was just as terroristic as Nazi Germany, it also reflects what Hannah Arendt called 'Pervasive, Public Stupidity.' This is the failure to understand that the truth about the past is not irrelevant - that it is, in fact, the best hope for a decent future. ...

"David Satter writes further: "There is still no legal evaluation of the Soviet regime. It has never been declared criminal and no official has ever been tried for crimes committed under communism." (Perhaps Ukraine, which suffered the most and lost millions not only in the Holodomor, but during the entire Communist regime should be a vanguard in that respect.

The appeal by the UCCLA, as stated on the postcard, is valid, but it should primarily come from Ukraine's citizens, especially from former victims of the Soviet regime and their families, who with their legal representatives should request access to the records and archives of the former KGB.

One fact of undeniable importance is that Ukrainian people should be cognizant and have intimate acquaintance with the facts of the crimes committed to their fellow Ukrainians. Only through investigation into Soviet crimes, will we know the truth. And, as the motto on the postcard invokes John 8:32: "Know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Dr. Myroslaw Burbelo
Westerly, R.I.

More on Virsky tour and program errors

Dear Editor:

It has already been widely acknowledged in the Ukrainian press that the program notes for the recently concluded Virsky performances in the U.S. and Canada contained numerous errors, outlined in my article, which had appeared in The Ukrainian Weekly's November 28, 2004, issue, errors which had misrepresented Ukrainian cultural heritage, and more importantly, had left the audiences with the impression that some of the Ukrainian dances featured in the Virsky performances were Russian in origin, when in fact, they were not.

Kathy Babak's inspired letter (January 23) regarding the Virsky Dancers' performances correctly suggested that the source of the misinformation was more likely to be the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts in Ukraine, rather than any of the local booking offices. While that undoubtedly is true, I would like to suggest to Ms. Babak that the local booking offices must indeed bear some responsibility for the wrong information, which had appeared in the program brochures printed and distributed to the public by them. Cal Performances, the local booking office, in Berkeley, Calif., where I live, offered no disclaimers in their brochures.

Furthermore, I would like to suggest that we are all responsible for the misrepresentation of Ukrainian culture, in the program brochures, or anywhere else, if we remain silent and take no action. The Virsky Dancers website had been closed at the time of my inquiry, but their main booking agents, the Columbia Artists Management in New York, can be contacted at http://www.cami.com/contactus/frmmanager2.asp, att: Mr. Grossman.

But more importantly, anyone who has attended any of the Virsky performances, and feels concerned about the errors in the program brochures, should contact the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington via http://www.ukremb.com/embassy/embassy.html to voice their complaints.

The Ukrainian Embassy had feted the Virsky Dancers in a recent gala reception, and will undoubtedly take all the necessary measures to ensure that there will be no repetition of the gross errors about Ukraine and Ukrainians when the next Virsky world tour takes place.

Nestor Wolansky
Berkeley, Calif.

EDITOR'S NOTE: These issues were discussed also in The Weekly's editorial of January 9, 2005, which pointed out that the Virsky tour's organizer, Columbia Artists Management LLC, was responsible for the program notes. Despite repeated phone calls, Columbia Artists Management never returned The Weekly's phone calls to respond to our questions. That same editorial noted, however, that at least one performance venue, The Community Theater of Morristown, N.J., had contacted local Ukrainian Americans (in this case, The Ukrainian Weekly) to consult on the text, which was replete with errors. Thanks to The Community Theater's marketing director, Daniel Grossman (no relation to the Andrew Grossman who was listed as the tour producer), the program included a corrected insert.

We welcome your opinions

The Ukrainian Weekly welcomes letters to the editor and commentaries from its readers and community activists on topics of concern to the Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities.

Materials should be typed (double-spaced) and signed (anonymous submissions are not published). Letters are accepted also via e-mail at [email protected]. The daytime phone number and address of the writer must be given for verification purposes.

Opinions expressed by columnists, commentators and letter-writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either The Weekly editorial staff or its publisher, the Ukrainian National Association.

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