Students' Association organizes Ukrainian Week at McGill University (03/26/06)

Students' Association organizes Ukrainian Week at McGill University

by Alexandra Hawryluk

MONTREAL - Cameras clicking, lights blazing, reporters quizzing - this was not what the members of the McGill Ukrainian Students' Association had expected at their "Ukrainian Week 2006" held on January 20-26 on the McGill University campus in the heart of downtown Montreal.

As Artem Luhovy, the treasurer of the association explained, their expectations were more down to earth. "We were aware that there used to be a Ukrainian students' club, but it seems to have died before we arrived. So, we wanted to start it up again. We wanted to make Ukrainian students from Canada, the United States and Ukraine feel at home here in Montreal. And of course, we also wanted to let the university community know about Ukrainians."

And indeed, during the 1950s and 1960s, right through to mid-1980s, the McGill Ukrainian Students' Association (MUSA) was in top form organizing seminars, public lectures, "zabavy," art exhibits and concerts by well-known Ukrainian artists and musicians. However, with the decline in enrollment in the late 1980s the Ukrainian profile at McGill virtually disappeared. What's worth noting though, is that a surprising number of the former members of MUSA and SUSK - "Soyuz Ukrayinskykh Studentiv Kanady," an umbrella organization for all Ukrainian students' associations across Canada - are now community leaders.

Given this legacy, is there any wonder that the Montreal branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Businessmen's Association gave the students their enthusiastic support?

At the wine and cheese party given in the students' honor by the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Businessmen's Association, Dr. Yarema Kelebay, the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress in Montreal, and the students' club mentor, congratulated the students on the success of their Ukrainian Week program and asked them to look at their involvement in the Ukrainian club as a unique opportunity for "leadership training and preparation for political participation, that is, for life in the public square". He also said that giving their free time to MUSA offers them the chance to speak out and to inform their contemporaries about the history of the Ukrainian people.

In his salutation, the former president of SUSK during the 1960s, Dr. Roman Serbyn, suggested that if the new generation of Ukrainian Canadians is to leave its mark on Canadian history, it should get involved in both the Canadian and the Ukrainian communities. On the other hand, Mr. Roman Karpishka, president of MUSA in 1960, reminisced about the past and encouraged the students to participate in the development of democracy in Ukraine by becoming elections observers.

What did MUSA do to merit all this attention? To begin with, anyone using McGill's Redpath Library, the busiest of the 14 libraries on campus, would have to walk past MUSA's exhibit titled "Not to be Forgotten - A Chronicle of the Communist Inquisition in Ukraine 1917-1991" (materials assembled and printed by Roman Krutsyk of Kyiv's "Memorial").

The poster size panels showed photos, maps, graphs and descriptive English texts about: The Great Famine of 1932-1933, the Soviet labor camps and prisons, the Stalin-Hitler accord, Bykivnia and Vinnytsia, the destruction of historic architecture, and the role of the KGB in the systematic decimation of the Ukrainian intellectual elite.

"Everyone who saw this exhibit was enthusiastic mainly because they didn't know anything about these events. For most, it's the first time they're seeing pictures and documents of that era. I know that Polish, Czech, Romanian and other overseas students see us in a different light now. They are glad that someone has opened up that part of history, that someone is telling the truth," commented Mr. Luhovy.

McGill professors expressed an interest in this exhibit as well. Alexandra Havrylyshyn, a first-year student, said: "I am a history student and my professor asked me if I have seen the exhibit. I told him that I have and that I think it's a very good thing that we put it up." Taking a breath, she added: "It's a powerful experience."

Then, in conjunction with "Not to be Forgotten," the students asked Dr. Serbyn, the author of a number of publications on the Great Famine, on the Soviet Great Patriotic War (i.e. World War II), and professor of history at Université du Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), to deliver a lecture entitled "Was the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 Genocide?" Using overhead projections, Dr. Serbyn introduced his audience at McGill's Newman Center to newly available archival data proving that the Great Famine was indeed, a deliberately designed, politically motivated event targeting Ukrainians.

Prof. Serbyn compared the international response to the draught caused famine of 1922, with the response to the planned famine of 1932-1933. In the first case, in answer to direct appeal, aid was sent to Ukraine by various charitable organizations. The 1932-1933 Great Famine, on the other hand, was covered up, the requisitioned grain was exported in guise of a bumper crop, borders were closed, and foreign correspondents were not permitted to bear witness to the horror - as the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge attests in his book "The Green Stick."

However macabre and heart rendering this story is, it's still necessary to tell it. Prof. Serbyn summed it up: "In order to gain a better understanding of contemporary reality, knowledge of its course in the past is necessary. In the course of Ukrainian history there were many happy and tragic moments, which defined the development of the Ukrainian nation. Among the tragic events, the one that impressed itself most deeply on the Ukrainian people was the genocide by famine of the 1930s."

Nearly every student I spoke with at these events said that their main concern in joining the Ukrainian student group was the maintenance of a connection with Ukrainian culture. Aside from socializing, getting together for Uke Pub Night, Pot Luck Dinner, listening to Ukrainian pop music, wearing embroidered shirts and blouses, or doing a couple of "narodni tantsi" (folk dances) at Malanka, they were genuinely interested in learning about Ukrainian arts and sciences.

Roxanne Zalucky, of Philadelphia, was very pleased that 70 students showed up for the first meeting of MUSA in October 2005. The enthusiasm of that meeting carried over into the organization of Christmas caroling. "We had a lot of fun, and I hope that the people for whom we caroled enjoyed themselves too. Those are our goals - to socialize with Ukrainians and to learn what culture is," she said.

So, it was good to see the small theater in the School of Architecture building fill up for the Radoslav Zuk lecture on "The Cultural Context of Ukrainian Architecture." With the help of slides of Western European and Ukrainian churches, their plans and elevations, the internationally acclaimed architect and McGill professor described how throughout history Ukrainian builders adapted Byzantine, Renaissance and Baroque architectural ideas to the Ukrainian cultural context.

The Chapel of The Three Saints in Lviv, for example, combines Renaissance architectural concepts with Ukrainian tradition, while the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior in Chernihiv shows the ability of Ukrainian architects to build in the Byzantine style without resorting to copying Greek or Serbian prototypes.

What makes these churches, built in various international styles, Ukrainian? Prof. Zuk, pointed out that analytical study suggests that it's the arrangement of the interior space, i.e. the rhythmic order, especially the rhythm of the roof line, that characterizes a Ukrainian church.

The inventive use of these rhythms was beautifully illustrated by the photographs of Prof. Zuk's own Ukrainian churches: St. Stephen's in Calgary, Alberta (Governor General's Medal); Holy Cross in Thunder Bay, Ontario; Holy Trinity in Kerhonkson, N.Y.; and his newest - the amazing Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in Lviv, which "constitutes a clearly stated modern version of the typical Byzantine cross-in-square + nartex + apse plan" (The Ukrainian Weekly, December 18, 2005, "Church in Ukraine designed by Radoslav Zuk reaches completion").

What, then, is the responsibility of contemporary Ukrainian architecture? "Just as throughout history, Ukrainian architecture was able to express itself in a unique way within various international styles - as it did during the Byzantine, Renaissance, and Baroque eras - it is very important that today our architecture find a specific and distinctive expression which would be compatible with the contemporary world trends in architecture. This, however, demands a high degree of professional mastery and keen understanding of the particular architectural trend that could place Ukraine within the sphere of European culture again," stated Prof. Radoslav Zuk.

The students responded with enthusiasm to both these lectures and it seemed that they would more than welcome similar lectures and informal discussions on a variety of Ukrainian cultural issues. Nevertheless, they were just as interested in letting the 32,000 student body know about their presence on the McGill campus.

Jaroslaw Holowko, vice-president of MUSA, who was born in Poland, said that he tells all his friends about Ukraine and the new Ukrainian Students' Association. Although he was glad that Ukrainian students from the neighboring Concordia University joined in the fun, he would like to see overseas student groups participate in events organized by MUSA.

John Mongeau, the sports rep, is dreaming of setting up soccer matches between the Ukrainian, Italian, Romanian and Polish Clubs.

The president of MUSA, Johanna Paquin, who greeted guests at the Wine and Cheese reception in beautiful Ukrainian, hopes that the Ukrainian Week celebrations will become a McGill University tradition. Certainly, if one is to judge by this year's celebrations, the future success of McGill Ukrainian Students' Association in Montreal is assured.

Alexandra Hawryluk is a freelance writer and a contributor to Radio Canada International.

| Home Page |