CLEVELAND – Michael (Mykhailo) Pap passed away on April 1 at the age of 95. He was a university professor and scholar at John Carroll University, a civic activist and political leader both in the Ukrainian diaspora and the city of Cleveland.
Mykhailo Pap was born July 24, 1920, in the village of Sirma in the Vynohradivsky region of today’s Zakarpatia Oblast in western Ukraine. He received his early education in the village school and later at the commercial academy in nearby Mukachevo.
In the wake of World War II, he left his native Ukraine for Bratislava in today’s Slovakia, where he attended university before moving on to Vienna, just ahead of the Red Army. There he worked at Siemen’s Corp. while attending university. He subsequently moved to Heidelberg, Germany, where he also attended the university, earning a doctorate in International Law and History.
In 1949, he immigrated to the U.S. and, after briefly working at an auto plant in Detroit where he learned English, received an academic position at the University of Notre Dame, where he taught and published several articles. In 1958, along with his wife Anne (nee Kimak) he moved to Cleveland to take a position at John Carroll University, where he founded the Institute for Soviet and Eastern European Studies in 1961, a position he held until his retirement in 1988. The institute became a center for scholarship and public outreach.
Over the years, in the midst of the Cold War, he taught thousands of John Carroll students, as well as teachers from Ohio secondary schools about the complex history of that region and the realities of America’s struggle with Soviet totalitarianism.
In 1972-1974, Dr. Pap took a leave of absence from John Carroll University to serve in the administration of Cleveland Mayor Ralph Perk as director of human resources and economic development.
Throughout his life, Dr. Pap was active in Ukrainian cultural, community and civic affairs. In his youth, he was a member of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization. Later, he founded and for many years was head of the Ukrainian American Association of University Professors.
As a civic-political leader, he was the head of the Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine (ODWU), served on the board of the Ukrainian Historical Association, Brotherhood of the Carpathian Sich and served as Assistant President of the Ukrainian National Republic-in-Exile.
In the Cleveland area, he was not only president of the United Ukrainian Organizations (1969-1970), he also played St. Nicholas at his beloved Ukrainian Catholic parish, St. Mary’s in Solon, Ohio, and along with his wife Anne helped to prepare Friday Lenten meals.
Dr. Pap’s name appeared on myriad civic campaigns, from the construction of the Shevchenko monument in Washington to funds to aid Ukraine.
In 1964, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of American (UCCA) recognized Dr. Pap with its Shevchenko Freedom Award. In 1992, John Carroll University awarded him with an honorary degree.
When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, experts at the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the White House, Congress and other agencies in Washington were baffled. Who could have known, the insiders asked? Well, Dr. Pap, for one. Based on his study of history, he not only taught how it was going to happen, but with his selfless activism helped to bring it about. He was a great teacher, a leader and an inspiration. (When I was a graduate student at John Carroll in the late 1970s, I often sat across from him as he smoked his ubiquitous cigar, discussing history and current events. He helped to change my life and the lives of numerous others.)
Dr. Pap leaves behind four children, 14 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, along with fond memories from the Ukrainian community in Cleveland and so many grateful students who benefited immeasurably from his generosity and friendship that it’s impossible to list them all.