The calendar in 2017 was filled with conferences on the Holodomor and scholarly events on Ukraine, its history and the current situation, and how the diaspora can help. Also significant in 2017 was the release of the groundbreaking book by Anne Applebaum “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine.”
The scholarly conference, “Ukrainian Statehood 1917-1921: Institutions and Individuals,” was held on February 24-25, at Columbia University and featured scholars from the U.S., Canada and Ukraine. The conference marked the 100th anniversary of the Ukrainian Revolution and the creation of the modern Ukrainian state. The creation of state institutions at the time proved to be essential in organizing and giving structure to Ukrainian political, educational, cultural and religious developments. A concert at the Ukrainian Institute of America officially closed the conference, and focused on priest, composer and Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) government minister Kyrylo Stetsenko and the genre of the Ukrainian art song, which recently had been rehabilitated.
Yaro Bihun
Holocaust Memorial Museum Collections Director Michael Grunberger (left) and Ukrainian Museum-Archives Director Andrew Fedynsky congratulate each other on signing a cooperation agreement in Washington on February 6 to digitize the Cleveland-based archives’ post-World War II collection of documents and stories about non-Jewish victims of Nazism.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Ukrainian Museum-Archives of Cleveland signed a cooperation agreement on February 6 at the Holocaust Museum in Washington to digitize the UMA’s collection of archived materials from post-World War II displaced persons camps. UMA Acting Director Andrew Fedynsky and USHMM Collections Director Michael Grunberger signed the agreement. The signing ceremony was the culmination of work that began in May 2016, when a delegation from the Holocaust Museum visited the UMA to assess the scope and quality of its DP camp collection. The delegation made its recommendation in September 2017 for a cooperative digitization project. Mr. Grunberger said that the UMA’s collection – “one of the world’s most important collections of Ukrainian history and culture” focusing on the post-World War II period – will help “ensure that our collections document the stories of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution as well.” The digitization will make these available “to anyone, anywhere and anytime.” The digitization itself was conducted in February and March by Archival Data Systems based in Kyiv. The company was selected based on its experience with Ukraine’s Central Archives, Yad Vashem in Israel, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv and many more institutions.
Arizona State University’s Melikian Center, with generous seed funding from Advisory Board Member Patience T. Huntwork and her husband, James R. Huntwork, announced it was set to add Ukrainian language courses to its Critical Languages Institute beginning in the summer of 2017 and sought to raise funds to endow a Ukrainian Studies Program in perpetuity. The couple made the announcement in February. They have been recognized for their work in human rights efforts in Ukraine, and both served as election observers in Ukraine since the Gorbachev era and worked to support commercial law reforms in Ukraine. The Melikian Center is under the interim directorship of Dr. Mark von Hagen, who developed the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University. Dr. von Hagen noted that the Ukrainian language “is a gateway to a rich culture and dynamic society. After two years of Russia’s war with Ukraine, the teaching of this language will also likely become a national security priority for the United States.”
Lala Kuchma
At the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago on February 12, Prof. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern (center) presents his book “Jews and Ukrainians, A Millennium of Co-Existence.”
The book “Jews and Ukrainians, a Millennium of Co-Existence,” by Profs. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and Robert Magocsi was presented on February 12 at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago. Distributed by the University of Toronto Press, the book shows that the two peoples have a shared narrative of commonalities that contradict the stereotypes perpetuated by ignorance and also by intent. Dr. Petrovsky-Shtern underscored these commonalities, especially as evidenced during the Revolution of Dignity and the war in the Donbas. The presentation was co-sponsored by the UIMA, the Kyiv-Mohyla Foundation of America and the Chicago Business and Professional Group. Dr. Petrovsky-Shtern is professor of Jewish studies and Jewish history at Northwestern University, where he teaches history and culture of Ukraine, Slavic-Jewish history and other relevant subjects.
The academic conference “Securing Ukraine’s Sovereignty: The Road Ahead” was held on February 15 at the U.S. Library of Congress. The daylong roundtable conference, which featured two dozen leading voices on national security, international diplomacy and government affairs, was organized by the Center for U.S.-Ukraine Relations, the American Foreign Policy Council and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. Presenters discussed the damage done to European security and international law by Russian aggression against Ukraine, and debated what advancements had been made in the areas of diplomacy, economic reform and military readiness. Notable guests included Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Sander Levin (D-Mich), co-chairs of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, as well as Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin. Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.) and Dr. Phillip Karber received Friends of Ukraine awards presented by the UCCA. Gen. Clark and Dr. Karber also were presented special wristwatches from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that were created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the U.S.
Grant Wang
Participants of the symposium “Crisis and Identity: Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Ukraine and its Diaspora” on March 21 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.
The Holodomor Education Conference “Education – Awareness – Action” was held on May 5-7 at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The conference was hosted by the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium. The HREC was established through a gift of the Temerty Family Foundation (Toronto) to the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta. This was the second Holodomor Education Conference in Canada. Presentations described methodologies, resources and technologies for teaching about the Holodomor, and featured keynote speaker Dr. Joyce Apsel, president of the Institute for the Study of Genocide at New York University. Areas of focus for the conference included the application of teaching methodologies from primary through university levels. Other presenters described the Holodomor in light of human rights and genocide study in general.
“Michigan in Perspective,” a Michigan history conference, was held on March 3-4 in Sterling Heights at the Wyndam Garden Hotel and featured a session topic “Adding to the Melting Pot: Ukrainians in Detroit.” The event attracted 600 people and featured a presentation by Vera Andrushkiw, vice-president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation and president of the Detroit Regional Council of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America. Ms. Andrushkiw described the arrival of the first Ukrainian immigrant to Detroit, Mykola Stefansky, in 1885. With this wave of immigration, a small wooden church was built on Cioette Avenue on the west side of Detroit. From there, the Ukrainian community expanded into Hamtramck and other parts of Michigan. Her presentation also highlighted the community’s role in promoting human rights for dissidents in Ukraine and described how the community has been mobilized in the aftermath of renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine. A Detroit Ukrainian, Dr. Ulana Suprun, Ms. Andrushkiw noted, serves as acting minister of health of Ukraine. Two exhibit tables, manned by members of the Ukrainian American Archives and Museum, UNWLA members and the editorial board of Detroitski Novyny/Ukrainian Metro News, supported the presentation and showcased Ukrainian culture and books by local Ukrainian American authors.
Manor College, located in Jenkintown, Pa., launched its official new brand to students, faculty, staff, friends and various members of the college community on January 27. The rebranding included a new logo, an athletic logo (featuring a fierce-looking blue jay), a tagline (“You Belong Here”) and a website.
Manor College hosted a presentation “Ukraine: Education as the Battlefront of Democracy” on April 6 that attracted more than 100 people from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Washington. Educational reform is needed in Ukraine, the discussants explained, to protect and preserve free and democratic ideals. The event included presentations by: Dr. Serhiy Kvit, former minister of education and science of Ukraine; Dr. Andriy V. Zagorodnyuk, vice-rector of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University; Alex Kuzma, executive director of the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation; and Dr. Leonid Rudnytzky, retired professor at La Salle University and former rector of Ukrainian Free University in Munich.
Manor College President Jonathan Perri and Vice-President of Academic Affairs Stephen Greico signed a partnership agreement with Igor Tsependa and Andriy Zagorodnyuk of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, on May 31 via Skype. The agreement is intended to: engage in joint research projects and scientific conferences; exchange scientific data, curricula and scientific literature; prepare scientific publications containing the results of joint research; participate in joint international programs and projects; exchange scientific, pedagogical staff and students; engage in scientific internship; and jointly seek support for the purposes of the objectives of this agreement. Manor College hosted a dialogue with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Brendan Boyle, titled “Ukraine: America’s Relationship and Moral Obligation.” Later that day, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held to unveil the newly renovated Ukrainian Heritage Studies Museum, which includes the Maria Mazur pysanka collection.
Holodomor research scholar Dr. Myroslava Antonovych presented a lecture on “Specificities and Commonalities of the Holodomor in the Context of Genocides in the First Half of the 20th Century” on April 19 at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Dr. Antonovych, who is director of the Center for International Human Rights and associate professor of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, compared the Holodomor to other genocides of the first half of the 20th century, including the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the Holocaust. The Holodomor, she said, had not been thoroughly studied as a genocide against the Ukrainian nation because of the long history of silence perpetuated by the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation. In her comparison, she explained that the Armenians and the Jews were the explicit targets of their respective genocides, but Ukrainians were an implicit target that must be inferred from the resolutions and directives of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of Peoples’ Commissars, as well as their conduct and consequences. The commonalities, she underscored, was that all three genocides were perpetrated by a ruling party (Ittihadists, Communists and Nazis) rather than a state organization.
The Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University offered seven courses for the 2017 spring semester, including a new course that focused on the presence of Ukraine and Ukrainians in New York City, led by Prof. Alexander Motyl. Other courses included: “The Aura of Soviet Ukrainian Modernism,” with Dr. Mark Andryczyk; “Today’s Ukraine: Power, Politics and Diplomacy,” with Ambassador Valeriy Kuchynskyi; and “Postcolonial/Post-Soviet Cinema,” in addition to three levels of Ukrainian language instruction with Dr. Yuri Shevchuk. The semester also included film screenings, co-hosted by the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University, as well as Ukraine-related presentations by visiting scholars.
Columbia’s Ukrainian Studies offerings for the fall included five courses. “Women’s Activism in Ukraine: From Euro-Maidan to War in Donbas” was taught by visiting Fulbright Scholar Dr. Tamara Matsenyuk of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. Dr. Markian Dobczansky, a post-doctoral fellow in Ukrainian studies, supported by the Petro Jacyk Fund, presented courses that focused on Russian-Ukrainian relations, nationalism, the politics of culture and urban history. Ambassador Kuchinsky returned with the course “Ukrainian Foreign Policy: Russia, Europe and the U.S.” Dr. Shevchuk, who is also director of the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University, taught the course “Soviet, Post-Soviet, Colonial and Postcolonial Cinema,” with examples of Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Belarusian and Armenian films. Dr. Shevchuk also taught three levels of Ukrainian language instruction. Uzhhorod-based writer Andriy Lyubka was the guest author of the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series, including a literary event, “Smuggling Ukraine Westward.”
A poetry reading by Ukrainian American writer, linguist, computer scientist and literary scholar Yuriy Tarnawsky was hosted by the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University on March 23 in New York. A month-long exhibit, which began on March 1, showcased Dr. Tarnawsky’s 60-plus year career, focusing on various aspects of his activities, displaying manuscripts, books, correspondence, photographs and artifacts in the areas of poetry, fiction, theater, travel, as well as scientific and scholarly work. Dr. Tarnawsky concluded the event by reading the long poem “Stephen Hawking Goes Flying” from his latest unfinished book of poetry in English titled “Modus Quasi Ponens.”
Prof. Bohdan Krawchenko, former director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, delivered three lectures (the J.B. Rudnytskyj Distinguished Lecture in Winnipeg on March 8, the annual Shevchenko Lecture in Edmonton on March 10, and the Wolodymyr Dylynsky Memorial Lecture in Toronto on March 13) on “The Global (Dis)Order and Ukraine.” Dr. Krawchenko argued that the global economic order had experienced a notable shift away from normal cycles of highs and lows, to something else that has implications for decades to come. Extremists on both the left and the right are being funded by the Putin regime, as is the case in Syria, Poland, Hungary and Turkey.
From there, Dr. Krawchenko shifted his focus to Ukraine and how that country can tackle similar problems that detract from its economic potential. Good institutions ensure that society runs smoothly, and one example has been Ukraine’s IT sector, marked not only by innovations, but also new applications of technology to ensure transparency and anti-corruption efforts. Among other areas of Ukraine’s economy that require a boost from direct foreign investment is Ukraine’s agriculture sector, which has seen small-scale improvements, but needs large-scale application. Education is another area where reforms are needed to bring Ukraine closer to European standards. Ukraine’s highly developed civil society, the result of previous chances that had been wasted by the leadership in government, is Ukraine’s guarantee that further positive changes are on the horizon, Prof. Krawchenko said.
The Canadian Association of Slavists held its annual conference at Ryerson University in Toronto on May 27-29 and featured a session titled “New Developments and Innovations in Slavic Studies.” The format of the event included an interactive poster presentation, whereby presenters spoke briefly on each topic, while participants learned more through the posters; the presenters were on hand to answer any questions. Presenters included Veta Chitov, Olena Sivachenko, Natalia Kononenko and Daria Polianska, who spoke on language education developments, such as hybridized education methods, adapting technology for classroom requirements as well as digital teaching tools. Alla Nedashkivska described her e-textbook on Ukrainian in the modern business world and how these courses help those seeking employment in Ukraine and related issues, such as resume writing, job interviewing in Ukraine and dealing with banks and insurance.
The Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko (Shevchenko Foundation) and Mitacs, a national not-for-profit research and training organization, signed an agreement of partnership on June 9 at Bahen Center for Information Technology at the University of Toronto. The partnership allows Ukrainian undergraduate students to participate in 12-week research internships during June through September at Canadian universities. Shevchenko Foundation President Andrew Hladyshevsky and Alejandro Adem, CEO and scientific director of Mitacs, signed the agreement. At the time, there were 60 affiliated universities across Canada for the Mitacs Globalink Research Internships; those returning for graduate work will be eligible for the Mitacs Globalink Graduate Fellowships. In the program’s inaugural year, 10 students from Ukraine were sponsored by a generous donor. The Mitacs partnership is one component of the newly established Shevchenko Foundation Future Leaders Fund, which is designed to identify and foster new generations of young scholars who will become the leaders of tomorrow. The fund also aims to raise awareness in Canada of the Ukrainian heritage through traditional and non-traditional educational programming at all educational levels.
Irene Rejent Saviano
Janusz Bugajski (left) of the Center for European Policy Analysis with panelists (from left) Herman Pirchner of the American Foreign Policy Council, Luke Coffey of the Heritage Foundation and Stefan Romaniw of the Ukrainian World Congress at the Center for U.S.-Ukraine Relations summit in Washington on June 15.
The fifth annual summit of the US.-Ukraine working group – co-organized by the Center for U.S.-Ukraine Relations (CUSUR), the American Foreign Policy Council and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America – held its meeting on June 15 in Washington at the American Foreign Policy Council. The event was attended by diplomats, scholars and policymakers. During the first panel discussion, Ukraine’s judiciary was examined, and panelists agreed that there were positive signs, but that specific steps for reforms must be taken. The second panel explored Ukraine’s financial picture, with regard to an increase in foreign investments, but cited the lack of transparency and Ukraine’s flawed history in many sectors, including privatization. A third panel examined Ukraine’s armed forces, focusing on how Ukraine needed to maintain its exceptional level of combat success against a foe with superior numbers. Glen Howard, president of the Jamestown Foundation, urged a naval boost for Ukraine and proposed a scholarship for a naval officer at the U.S. Naval Academy. Dr. Ulana Suprun, acting minister of health of Ukraine, presented on the health issues facing Ukraine’s health-care system. Dr. Suprun was awarded the Shevchenko Freedom Award by the UCCA in recognition of her work in Ukraine. Other panels focused on Ukraine’s energy security, the potential for alternative energy sources and production in Ukraine, as well as social cohesion in Ukraine, Ukrainian self-identification and national identity in Ukraine.
Oksana Zakydalsky
Cardinal Thomas Collins, chancellor of the University of St. Michael’s College, addresses some of the faculty clergy of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies on July 25 in Toronto. On the right is Bishop Borys Gudziak.
The Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies celebrated its move from Ottawa to Toronto on July 25. The festivities featured the blessing of the new home, Windle House, as well as a garden party and public lecture. Windle House is located on the campus of the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. The officiating hierarchs included Cardinal Thomas Collins, archbishop of Toronto, and Bishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of St. Volodymyr the Great in Paris. Founded in 1986 by the Rev. Andriy Chirovsky, the institute was a four-week summer program within the Chicago Catholic Theological Union. The institute moved from Chicago to St. Paul University in Ottawa, with the official unveiling taking place on Labor Day weekend 1989 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. The institute has been thriving thanks to generous donations and grants, as well as the Peter and Doris Kule Chairs of Eastern Christian Theology and Spirituality, founded in 1994 and held by the Rev. Chirovsky, and the Kule Family Chair in Eastern Christian Liturgy, founded in 1997 and held by the Rev. Peter Galadza.
The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute offered four presentations during the fall semester in a series titled, “Ukraine in the Flames of the 1917 Revolution.” First in the series was a film screening of “Arsenal: Ukrainian Revolution Portrayed by a Counterrevolutionary” by Alexander Dovzhenko. Dr. Yuri Shevchuk of Columbia University in his presentation on October 18 highlighted the dual goals of the film – the hope of Dovzhenko that the film would elevate him in the eyes of the Soviet leadership and “to celebrate and glorify the Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine, to present it as the will of the Ukrainian proletariat and a historical inevitability.” Dr. Shevchuk added, “the message of the film often undermines the legitimacy of the revolutionary conquest of Ukraine by posing the question of whether the Bolshevik victory was worth its horrific and enormous suffering it caused the people.”
Kristina M. Conroy
Anne Applebaum lectures at Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies on October 23 in Cambridge, Mass.
The second presentation, “Holodomor Reconsidered: The Bolshevik Revolution and the Ukrainian Famine” by Anne Applebaum was held on October 23. Ms. Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, presented findings from her latest book, “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine,” which showed that Stalin feared Ukrainian nationalism and the will of the Ukrainian people for independence from Moscow. Through Stalin’s planned starvation of the Ukrainian people, Ms. Applebaum said, the millions of Ukrainians who died as a result were replaced by Russians to fill in population gaps.
Ms. Applebaum traced the roots of the Holodomor to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Ukraine’s independence movement in 1918, and the failed uprising led by White Imperial Russian forces under the command of Anton Denikin in the autumn of 1919. These elements, combined with the Soviet fear of a Ukrainian independence uprising, created the conditions, during all of the chaos, for famine in Ukraine in 1919. In explaining the Holodomor’s genocidal nature, Ms. Applebaum referred to Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word genocide. Lemkin said the Holodomor was a classic example of genocide, “…the destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation.” The legacy of the Holodomor, she continued, can be seen in the Russification of Ukraine and the mistrust of state institutions, among other things. However, Stalin and the Soviets failed in their efforts to subjugate Ukraine, as can be seen in the resurgence of the Ukrainian language, Ukraine’s European orientation and its ongoing defense of its independence, she underscored.
The third presentation, “The Ukrainian State and the Russian Counterrevolution,” by Mikhail Akulov on October 30 examined the Hetmanate of Pavlo Skoropadsky, his flawed view of Ukraine as part of a unified Russia, and his alliance with the anti-Bolshevik, pro-imperial Whites, which triggered the anti-Hetmanate uprising that resulted in Skoropadsky’s downfall.
In the fourth presentation, “Rethinking the 1917 Revolution,” by Andrea Graziosi on November 6 expanded on the traditional Moscow or St. Petersburg view of the October Revolution of 1917. Dr. Graziosi argued that there were many revolutions, from Siberia, Ukraine and the Baltics, to Finland and Central Asia, that all deserve to be examined to gain a comprehensive appreciation for the events that shaped the formation of the Soviet Union and its collapse, as well as the region’s relations with the West, India and China.
At the meeting of the Oral History Association on October 4-7 in Minneapolis (from left) are: William Noll, Sophia Isajiw and Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, who presented at a roundtable on the role of oral history in studying the Holodomor.
Four Holodomor researchers – Brent Bezo, Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, Sophia Isajiw and William Knoll – presented their findings at the Oral History Association conference on October 4-7 in Minneapolis. The conference, “Engaging Audiences: Oral History and the Public,” featured a roundtable discussion of the “Intergenerational Consequences of the Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-1933 Famine): What Oral History Accounts from Ukraine and the Diaspora Tell Us.” Mr. Bezo, a Ph.D. candidate at Carleton University in Ottawa, explained the perceptions of the Holodomor’s impact on psychological as well as physical health within three generations. His research focused on studying 15 families in Ukraine. Ms. Isajiw, project manager and researcher at the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center in Toronto, presented on children of the Holodomor, examining the second generation of survivors in the diaspora. Dr. Noll, an ethnomusicologist and cultural historian, presented findings from 429 eyewitness accounts of village life and community organization prior to and after the Holodomor and collectivization in Ukraine. Prof. Khanenko-Friesen, professor of anthropology at St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan, explained her work in digitizing Dr. Noll’s findings and creating an online database at the Prairie Center for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage Oral History Program. Prof. Khanenko-Friesen served as moderator for the roundtable. The scholars’ participation at the conference was supported by the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta.
Andrij Dobriansky
Moderator Adrian Karmazyn of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (far left) with speakers (from left) Adrian Karatnycky, Herman Pirchner, Glen Howard, Lewis Madanick and Myroslava Gongadze at the conference “Ukraine’s Quest for Mature Nation Statehood” on October 12 in Washington.
The Center for U.S.-Ukraine Relations (CUSUR) hosted its 18th roundtable discussion on October 12 on the theme “Ukraine’s Quest for Mature Nation Statehood” in Washington. The first panel examined “Taking Measure of Actual and Potential Social Divisions in Ukraine,” and included language issues, Ukraine’s armed forces, the political implications for the next election cycle in 2019, as well as the gulf between civil society and the government. The afternoon panel examined the proposal of a “value-based national agenda” and how it could mend fissures in Ukrainian society. The event included as guest speakers Josef Zissels, head of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities in Ukraine, as well as Andrii Levus, former vice-chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine and a member of Ukraine’s Parliament.
Frontal and lateral elevations of Ivan Mazepa’s palace in Honcharivka, a suburb of Baturyn before 1708. Hypothetical reconstruction by Volodymyr Mezentsev, computer graphic by Serhii Dmytriienko.
The annual update on the 2016-2017 excavations at Baturyn, located in the Chernihiv region, featured Honcharivka. It served as the principal residence of Hetman Ivan Mazepa in the late 1690s until it was burned and plundered by Russian imperial troops in 1708. Glazed tile fragments and drawings that dated to 1744 were used to digitally reconstruct what Mazepa’s palace may have looked like.
Leading the research were archaeologists Yuri Sytyi of Chernihiv National University and Dr. Volodymyr Mezentsev (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, working out of the University of Toronto), who is the Canadian executive director of the Baturyn project. Also collaborating on the research was historian Prof. Martin Dimmik, as well as 70 students and archaeologists from the universities of Chernihiv, Hlukhiv and Sumy.
As reported in The Weekly on October 29, major discoveries made in 2016 included excavations of the former fortress and the southern suburb of Baturyn, where the team found remnants of wooden dwellings of the burghers and Kozaks, 11 silver and copper Polish and Russian coins, three fragments of copper rings, four copper buttons, four bronze and brass clasps, and six decorative appliqués from Kozak leathers belts, saber knots and horse harnesses, the fragments of a bronze saber hilt guard, four lead musket bullets, four flint pieces from flint-lock rifles, an iron horse stirrup, a lead seal and a ceramic game chip of the 17th-18th centuries.
In 2017, the number of students decreased to 50 because of the absence of students from Sumy. Excavation that year focused on the foundation of some hitherto unknown destroyed brick structure at Mazepa’s manor in Honcharivka, with the investigation to be completed in the summer of 2018. On the western side of the village, the residence of Judge General Vasyl Kochubei (post-1700) was excavated. This manor was used by Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky (1750-1764). Other findings there included a porcelain figurine and various ceramic stove tiles, which used Dutch motifs that showed the Westernization of Baturyn’s elite and the European commercial and cultural connections.
Serhii Plokhy’s latest book, “Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Modern Russian Nation From 1470 to the Present,” continues to receive critical acclaim on its insights into the collapse of the Soviet Union. Especially in these times of an aggressive Russia, the book is timely in its examination of the intersection of the roles that Russian imperialism and Russian nationalism have played in shaping the Russian Federation under President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. As Russia struggles with its own national identity and its own history, Dr. Plokhy argues, Ukraine charts its own course that can be traced to 100 years ago in 1918 and beyond.
At the conference “Reflections on a Ravaged Century” on November 8-9 at the Library of Congress in Washington, during the panel on Soviet totalitarianism (from left) are: Natan Sharansky, Joshua Rubinstein, Martin Paolus, Dr. F. Flagg Taylor IV and Dr. Paula Dobriansky.
Topics of Ukrainian concern were presented at the conference “Reflections on a Ravaged Century” at the Library of Congress on November 8-9. The event was organized by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Among the Ukrainian community members in attendance were Paula Dobriansky and Jaroslaw Martyniuk. Among the disturbing conclusions from the conference was that 100 years of communism has produced 100 million dead and a generation of young people know nothing about it. Dr. Dobriansky of the Harvard Kennedy School noted that the mission must be to educate future generations, reminding her audience that in the past the U.S. led the fight against communism with funding for programs and organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy and international broadcasters including Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Dr. Paul Gregory, a Hoover Fellow, stated that with the collapse of the Soviet Union did not come the collapse of communism, especially at universities and political life in the form of the progressive movement. The communist legacy in Russia, observed Elena Zhemkova of the Russian Memorial Society, can be seen in the fear, xenophobia and distrust that is propagated by the Russian state today, creating a dual mentality, leading to widespread cynicism and destruction of the moral consciousness of the people.
Finally, at the end of 2017, the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC), a project of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, at the University of Alberta, announced the establishment of the Conquest Prize for Contribution in Holodomor Studies. The prize ($2,500 Canadian) is scheduled to be awarded biennially to an author of an outstanding article that contributes to a fuller understanding of the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. A jury of specialists – Olga Andriewsky (Trent University), Andrea Graziosi (Universita di Napoli Federico II), Norman Naimark (Stanford University) and Lynne Viola (University of Toronto) – will determine the winner. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2018, and articles must have been published between June 30, 2016, and the submission deadline date. (Information on entries can be found at www.holodomor.ca.)