EDMONTON, Alberta – Nina Ilnytzkyj, a devoted community activist and longtime employee of the Prolog Research and Publishing Corp., died on March 14 in Oradell, N.J. She was 91.
Forced to leave her homeland as a teenager during World War II, she linked her fate with people who were in the same predicament as she and dedicated her life to working for the good of Ukraine.
Nina Ilnytzkyj, née Kozak, was born on August 16, 1924, in the Volyn region of Ukraine in the town of Zdovbuniv, then under Polish rule. Her father, Panteleimon Kozak, was born in 1889 in Bessarabia and raised in Odesa. Before the end of the World War I he ended up in Volyn; he died in December 1949 in Ellwangen, Germany. Nina’s mother, Marta Yefymivna Yarmak, was also a Volynian; she was born in 1901 and died in Augsburg, Germany, in 1951. Nina Ilnytzkyj had a brother, Veniamyn (Benjamin), who was a year and a half younger. She was also very close to her aunt, Nina Yarmak, a nurse by profession, as well as her uncle, Yuriy Yarmak. The three continued to have a very warm relationship in the U.S., when all of them came over from Germany.
In 1934 the Kozaks moved to Lviv. There Nina and Veniamyn entered a Polish gymnasium (high school). Naturally, both had a good command of their native Ukrainian. Nina also knew Russian, and later learned German and English. She was an avid reader in all her acquired languages. Her aunt Nina Yarmak married Hryhoriy Andriyiv (born in Kamianets-Podilskyi), a former member of the Ukrainian People’s Army under Symon Petliura. He was interned by the Poles in Kalish. When the second world war began and the Bolsheviks arrived in Lviv, interrogations began. Nina and Hryhoriy Andriyiv decided to escape to Krakow. Much later, in 1942, the Germans executed Hryhoriy Andriyiv in Kyiv. Nina’s brother, Veniamyn, volunteered for the Second Ukrainian Division and died in 1945.
At the end of 1944, after many ordeals (moving from Lviv through cities like Konstanz and Radolfzell, Germany), Ms. Kozak arrived with her sick parents in Germany, where she took care of them until their death. From 1945 to 1947 she worked for the League of Political Prisoners in Munich. In November 1947 in Fürth, she married Roman Ilnytzkyj, and then worked with him at his publishing house Time (Chas). Their children were born in Germany: Oleh in Fürth (1949) and Ulana in Augsburg (1952).
For Mrs. Ilnytzkyj, the upbringing and education of her children became a primary goal in life. In the 1950s, when the Ilnytzkyjs settled permanently in Munich, Nina worked at the Ukrainian Charitable Medical Service, as a consultant on social care. In 1957 she moved with her family to the United States. At first she worked in a sewing factory in Philadelphia, next in various small businesses, then as a dental assistant in New York City, and, finally, from 1965 to 1990 at the Prolog Research and Publishing Corp.
At Prolog, she performed a wide range of duties, from administering the journal Suchasnist, to secretarial work, translations, proofreading and editing.
It was at Prolog that she published the memoirs of Ivan Dmytryk, a veteran of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), titled “In the Forests of the Lemko Region.” Of those memoirs, she said: “In 1973 Dmytryk told me that in 1949, two years after bringing an UPA commando party westward, he wrote his memoirs, which continued to gather dust because people had told him they were not fit for print. ….I was touched by his idealism, sincerity and modesty.” Mrs. Ilnytzkyj rewrote the text as a ghost writer, and the memoirs came out in 1976 and had great success among readers. She also edited and adapted the memoirs of another soldier, A. Plechen, “Nine Years in a Bunker” (1987), a book that later appeared in Polish translation (1991). Mrs. Ilnytzkyj’s work was positively assessed in a review that appeared in Harvard Ukrainian Studies (December 1991).
Mrs. Ilnytzkyj’s responsibilities at Prolog included keeping track of Soviet Ukrainian and other publications; typing articles that were destined for journals and books; transcribing and rewriting samvydav (samizdat) materials; translations; and assisting in preparing mailings of newsletters and other informational materials to Ukraine.
In Anatol Kaminsky’s book about “Prolog” (2009), Mrs. Ilnytzkyj described her job in these words: “When I started working in ‘Prolog,’ some friends inquired what I was doing there. I jokingly replied that I was Mädchen für alles (a Jill of all trades), but jokes aside, the phrase contained a lot of truth. Initially, my main task was the administration of Suchasnist. I compiled a network of subscribers in Canada and later the U.S., conducted correspondence with subscribers, collected receivables, mailed invoices, solicited new subscriptions, kept a card index, engaged in the sale of books, produced catalogues of our publications….”
About the samvydav materials, she wrote: “Often these were little ‘epistles,’ written in a hand as small as poppy seeds, frequently on cigarette paper, hence I had to strain over them with a magnifying glass….” And about the “newsletters” she noted: “We made them look like private personal letters and chose addresses from the Soviet press and other publications. We were aware that most of them would not arrive at their destination, but, for example, when I started mailing them from my own address (mailbox), we began receiving repeated feedback.”
Throughout her life, Mrs. Ilnytzkyj was actively involved in community work, especially in youth organizations. In the U.S., she worked closely with Lydia Krushelnytska, who directed the Creative Word Studio. Mrs. Ilnytzkyj prepared texts and programs, and also sewed costumes for the studio. She dedicated many years of her life to Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization. She edited a collection of essays to mark the 20th anniversary of Plast in New York, which was published in 1969.
At home from 1990 to 2000, Mrs. Ilnytzkyj cared for her ailing husband, Roman, who died from Alzheimer’s on February 2, 2000.
Nina Ilnytzkyj was blessed with a nimble mind and ceaseless curiosity. Within the family she was warm, hospitable, cheerful, known for her “golden hands” that prepared delicious food and superb Austro-Hungarian tortes. She played good chess (and taught the game to her son), passionately loved her cats, and showered even more affection on her granddaughters, to whom she devoted many happy years. She wrote humorous poems and satires for friends, like Emma Andiyevska and Ivan Koshelivets. In public life, she was businesslike, smart, at times impatient when it came to waiting for results from others. The course of her life reflected the general progress and liberation of women in the 20th century, and it can be truly said that she contributed to this evolution in her own way.
Surviving are Mrs. Ilnytzkyj’s daughter and son, Ulana and Oleh Ilnytzkyj; daughter-in-law, Natalia Pylypiuk; son-in-law, Ray Stubblebine; and grandchildren, Nina and Vika Stubblebine; and nieces Maria Shust and Oksana Krushelnycky, along with her husband, Liubomyr, and her sons, Paul and Mark Krushelnycky.