Ukrainian studies grow at University of Illinois (11/13/05)

Ukrainian studies grow at University of Illinois

by Christina M. Hanowsky

URBANA, Ill. - The 2004-2005 school year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign marked another successful step toward establishment of a chair of Ukrainian studies at this great institution of higher education in the Midwest. Besides conducting the 24th Annual Conference on Ukrainian Subjects, there were three Ukrainian courses during both semesters conducted by Prof. Dmytro Shtohryn and graduate teaching assistant Volodymyr Chumachenko.

In addition, Mr. Chumachenko successfully passed the preliminary examination toward his Ph.D. in comparative literature, with Ukrainian literature as the basis of his dissertation.

Over 40 students (about 10 of them of Ukrainian origin) attended courses of Ukrainian Culture, Ukrainian Literature and the Open Seminar of the History of Ukraine that year. The Ukrainian Culture course has become an especially popular one among courses offered by the department of Slavic languages and literatures. The course was established in 1993, and since that time it has been attended by hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students of different national, and continental, origin.

In addition to lectures, usually illustrated with thematic documents and pictures, the special attraction of this course is visiting the Ukrainian Village in Chicago. Under the guidance of Prof. Shtohryn, the students visit Ukrainian churches, and financial and cultural institutions, including the Ukrainian Cultural Center, the Ukrainian National Museum, and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art.

The well-established tradition of the annual Ukrainian conferences, which have been attended by thousands of scholars from 24 countries and four continents, will be continued next year with the 25th annual conference to be held in June 2006.

In addition, the Ukrainian collection at the university library continues to grow and is one of the largest in the United States. That collection serves many researchers, especially those who do research on East European countries in general and on Ukraine in particular in the framework of the Summer Research Laboratory on those subjects.

It also provides many primary sources to graduate students working on their M.A. thesis and Ph.D. dissertations. It should be mentioned that up to the present time eight persons have defended their Ph.D. dissertations on Ukrainian subjects at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Dominique Arel (political science), Robert Foster (linguistics), Ihor Kamenecky (political science), Lubomyr Kowal (economics), Sarah Phillips (anthropology), Olena Saciuk (literature), Valeriy Suntsov (archeology) and Alexander Sydorenko (history).

All these factors indicate that the University of Illinois is ready for the establishment of a chair of Ukrainian studies, which would be the only one in the Midwestern United States.

Christina M. Hanowsky is former president of the Ukrainian Student Association at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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