Wow. Another year has flown by. So, what did 2017 mean to us here at The Weekly? Well, for starters, it was 53 issues instead of the usual 52 because of the way the Sundays fell.
“How we celebrated Ukrainian Independence Day” was the headline on a page of notable photos from celebrations at various locales in the U.S. and in Kyiv that was published on September 3.
Our special issues of 2017 included: “2016: The Year in Review” published in four successive issues from January 15 through February 5; the “Ukrainian Debutante Balls” issue dated April 2; and our annual edition of “A Ukrainian Summer,” which this year comprised 24 color pages in our May 7 edition. For the record, the calendar of Ukrainian festivals in that issue listed 51 such events across North America. Impressive!
For Ukrainian Independence Day (August 24), we thought we’d try something different. Via our page on Facebook, The Ukrainian Weekly invited friends to send in photos and captions of how they celebrated the holiday wherever they were. We published a selection of the responses – choosing the most interesting or notable submissions – on September 3. Our personal favorite: – Lesya Hrycenko of Lafayette, La., paying tribute to Ukraine on August 24 atop one of the tallest peaks in the Smoky Mountains. She hiked the 16-mile trail in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee with her sister Darya of Westminster, Colo., who took a photo of Lesya with the Ukrainian national flag unfurled against the backdrop of gorgeous mountains. Also great was an aerial still shot by a drone of the large celebratory assembly of Ukrainians on the beach in Wildwood Crest, N.J. Credit for that went to Bitcon Photo Video.
The first page of “A Ukrainian Summer,” published with our May 7 issue. 2017 marked the 21st annual edition of this popular supplement.
There were a number of special features during the year. These ranged from demographer Dr. Oleh Wolowyna analyzing data about the First Wave of Ukrainian immigrants to the U.S. (June 11 issue) to Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk describing what it’s like on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine (August 13) and Dr. Thomas M. Prymak writing on the occasion of Canada’s 150th anniversary about “How the Ukrainians helped make Canada what it is today” (August 27). Also notable on our pages during 2017 were: a review of the concert by the wonderful National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, which was on its first North American tour, by Alexander Kuzma (February 12); an article by Adrian Bryttan about the feature-length movie about the Holodomor, “Bitter Harvest” (February 19); a story about the third Vyshyvanka Run organized by the Ukrainian Running Club New York (September 14); and a review plus a an advance look at Anne Applebaum’s “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine” (October 22 and November 5). Multiple articles compiled by our staff on the basis of releases from the Ukrainian World Congress attempted to keep up with the organization’s globe-trotting president, Eugene Czolij, as he visited diaspora communities. “Where in the World is Eugene Czolij?” was suggested by one of our staffers as the title for the series.
In case you’re wondering about our staff, we have to tell you that it’s really a skeleton crew: Editor-in-Chief Roma and Editor Matthew Dubas, our part-time editorial assistant, Christine Syzonenko (whose beautiful photos from special events enhance the pages of our newspaper), and our layout artist, Stefan Slutsky (who also does layout design for the UNA). The Weekly’s website is the work of webmaster and tech guru Ihor Pylypchuk, who is on the staff of our sister newspaper, Svoboda, as its layout artist. Mark Raczkiewycz has been The Weekly’s principal correspondent in Ukraine since July 2016, writing on a free-lance basis.
We mourned the passing on June 16 of Sonia Semanyszyn, a loyal employee of Soyuzivka Heritage Center since late 1988, who was a familiar and friendly face to countless visitors, and an active member of the local Ukrainian community. For us, she was someone we could always count on, whether that was for information about the annual Miss Soyuzivka weekend or the latest news from Soyuzivka. We were grateful to count her among our colleagues and friends.
We were proud to introduce a new columnist at the beginning of June. He is Orest Deychakiwsky, well-known to our readers and to the Ukrainian community for his more than 35 years as a policy adviser at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission). He served on numerous official U.S. delegations to conferences of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (and its predecessor, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) and was an international election observer at several dozen elections in 10 countries. Mr. Deychakiwsky retired in April 2017. His informative column is titled “Washington in Focus.”
Roma Hadzewycz
Ihor Stelmach, sports writer for The Ukrainian Weekly since the 1970s, was among the inductees into the Ukrainian Sports Museum’s Hall of Fame on September 16. He also served as the event’s master of ceremonies.
Speaking of columnists, we have to do a little bragging. Ihor Stelmach, our sports columnist for more years than we can count (let’s just say it’s since the 1970s), was inducted by the Ukrainian Sports Museum into the Ukrainian Hall of Fame. The second annual ceremony was held at the Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey (UACCNJ) in Whippany on September 16. Fifty individuals and three teams were inducted into the hall’s class of 2017 in the categories of Olympic athletes, professionals, amateurs and “builders.” Mr. Stelmach was recognized as a builder for his role among the working press.
We tried to encourage readers to send in news and photos from events in their communities, writing: “Let fellow Ukrainians know what your community is all about. Boast about your ‘hromada!’ We issued an open invitation and we advised: “If you’ve used our paper to get publicity for your events, but have not sent in information afterwards to inform readers how it all turned out, your job was only half done.” As a new season of Ukrainian community activity was in full swing by October, we again invited readers to partner with us in telling their stories. “Sure, some communities and organizations have their own e-mailed newsletters or Facebook pages, and that is commendable,” we noted. “Yet, many of them don’t see fit to send in information to The Ukrainian Weekly, whose goal is to unite our community. We urge you to extend your reach, broaden your circle of contacts and become part of the historical record by sending information to this newspaper, whose online archives are, simply put, invaluable.”
We are extraordinarily grateful to our community activists who regularly submit stories and photos from their cities and towns across North America, as well as other parts of the diaspora. Without them we would not be a community newspaper. We thank them all for their input.
Sadly, we were forced by circumstances to reject a few stories that were sent in months after the events in question. After all, who wants to read about summer camp in mid-fall, or about Christmas when Easter is approaching…? So, please, Dear Readers, send us your stories and photos, but send them in ASAP. Let’s all work together better in 2018!
We can’t end this yearender without a mention of The Ukrainian Weekly Press Fund. We received a total of $26,946 in donations for 2017 (in 2016 we received $26,319). When we add to that sum the $8,857 sent to the Ukrainian National Foundation but earmarked for The Weekly, we have a grand total of $35,803. We greatly appreciate these generous donations, which go a long way toward ensuring that our newspaper continues to be published.
We are also pleased to report that the number of “Likes” for our Facebook page has once again grown substantially, from 7,029 at the end of 2016 to 9,873 as of December 31, 2017. (As of the writing of this section of the yearender, we are over 10,000!)
Now, what we do on Facebook differs greatly from what we offer on the pages of our newspaper. On Facebook, The Weekly shares links to interesting stories from a variety of sources, lets our friends know when a new issue becomes available online and allows visitors to take a look at our latest front page. We encourage all our readers to subscribe to our newspaper and to like us on Facebook.
As we do each year, we marked The Weekly’s anniversary with an editorial. In our October 1 issue we wrote: “In more than 4,300 issues published to date, The Ukrainian Weekly has rallied our community behind national causes, such as independence for Ukraine, the defense of human rights activists, the erection of the Taras Shevchenko monument in Washington, the creation of Ukrainian studies chairs at Harvard, the establishment of the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine, international recognition of the Holodomor as genocide and the construction of the Holodomor Memorial in Washington. What’s more, since January 1991 – even before Ukraine re-established its independence – The Weekly’s Ukrainian American journalists based in Kyiv have reported the news especially for our readers. It’s a track record we’re immensely proud of, and a record we hope to build on.”
We also took the opportunity to thank our loyal subscribers – generations of them – for supporting our work and appreciating the import of a community newspaper.
As we enter the new year, we look forward to celebrating a major milestone: The Ukrainian Weekly’s 85th anniversary on October 6.
Author, author!
This edition of “The Year in Review” was prepared by Roma Hadzewycz and Matthew Dubas of The Weekly’s editorial staff; our part-time staffer Christine Syzonenko; our Kyiv correspondent Mark Raczkiewycz; and our colleagues Chris Guly, Ihor Stelmach and Adrian Bryttan. Credit for the layout goes to our design artist, Stepan Slutsky.
The articles in this yearender were prepared based on stories about developments in 2017 that were published in The Weekly. The materials used were articles written by our staffers and regular correspondents, news sources like RFE/RL and Eurasia Daily Monitor, and submissions by local community activists. Thank you all!