The front page of our December 1 issue carried a news story that is of major significance for the Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities. The story by Jurij Dobczansky of the Library of Congress and the Shevchenko Scientific Society and Andrew Fedynsky of the Ukrainian Museum-Archives of Cleveland (who is also one of this newspaper’s columnists) was about the sixth conference of the Ukrainian Heritage Consortium of North America held at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. The UHCNA was described as “a voluntary group that coordinates the exchange of information, fosters friendships and cooperation among Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions and professionals in the United States and Canada.” The consortium brings together leaders of museums, libraries and archives; it originally held annual meetings, but now meets biennially, with the next such gathering scheduled for 2021.
Participating institutions this year included: The Ukrainian Museum, New York; Ukrainian Museum-Archives, Cleveland; Ukrainian National Museum, Chicago; Shevchenko Scientific Society; Ukrainian Museum and Library, Stamford, Conn.; Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute; Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center, Toronto; and Prairie Center for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Unable to attend this year, although they participated in previous conferences were the Ukrainian Museum, Detroit; and the Ukrainian History and Education Center, Somerset, N.J. It’s a solid group, to say the least.
The emphasis of the 2019 conference was crystallized in opening remarks by HURI Director Dr. Serhii Plokhy, who cited the importance of preserving Ukrainian culture and history, and uncovering their lost or little-known aspects. The presentations were about library holdings, online resources, documentation of the Holodomor, a displaced persons archive project, researching the experience of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada, creating an online catalogue of library holdings, as well as museum collections and exhibits. During previous years’ meetings, topics included digitizing visual materials, military veterans’ oral history, copyright law, ethnic collections in the American Folklife Center, conservation of museum collections, care and preservation of audio collections, the future of Ukrainian libraries and books in the diaspora, and the challenges of preserving precious items from private collections.
All of the above are essential and critically important topics worthy of our community’s attention, as well as its financial support. Finances, most of us realize, are key – most of these Ukrainian heritage institutions have small staffs of paid employees whose remarkable work is greatly assisted by dedicated volunteers. These basic facts are worth remembering at Christmastime, when we traditionally make donations to our favorite charitable organizations and non-profit institutions, as well as throughout the year when we see their beneficial and irreplaceable endeavors, often ourselves benefiting from the fruit of their labors. We can all play a part in preserving our heritage.
(An aside: It’s interesting to note that, thus far, the two newspapers of the Ukrainian National Association – Svoboda, published since 1893, and The Ukrainian Weekly, published since 1933 – have not been invited to participate in the Ukrainian Heritage Consortium of North America despite the fact that their inestimably valuable digital archives cover, respectively, 126 years and 86 years of the Ukrainian community’s and nation’s history. That’s an amazing 23,286 issues of Svoboda and 4,425 of The Weekly to date. You can read about our archives in our June 9, 2019, editorial, or better yet, visit the archives at svoboda-news.com and http://www.ukrweekly.com and see for yourself the wealth of information that they encompass. Our digital archives are made possible by donations from Self Reliance New York Federal Credit Union, the Shevchenko Scientific Society, U.S.A.; Selfreliance Federal Credit Union, Chicago; SUMA (Yonkers) Federal Credit Union; Heritage Foundation of 1st Security Savings Bank; the Bahriany Foundation; as well as a major donor who wished to remain anonymous.)