Dear Editor:
No, Mr. Andrij Dobriansky, I don’t believe you can call the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America “the nation’s oldest unifying assembly of Ukrainians and Ukrainian organizations,” as you did in your “Ukraine Matters” column titled “The UCCA at 75” (June 14).
You are identified as an “executive board member and media spokesman for the Ukrainian Congress Committee.” As such, take it from this codger with 65 years’ experience writing for Ukrainian media: you should do some homework to continue as media spokesman for the UCCA.
Recently the UCCA marked its 75th anniversary in Washington. I wasn’t there, but I read carefully Yaro Bihun’s story about it in The Weekly of May 31. There were very few people (as Mr. Bihun’s photos clearly show – I counted about 40) and there were few boldface names among the invited elected officials. Some Congress members sent their staffers, and that, in Washington, is not a good sign.
Seventy-five years of the UCCA, and hardly anyone noticed! Ask yourself: Why?
And for your homework as media spokesman I suggest you delve into the Svoboda archives, now available on your computer in digital format. Start with issue No. 24 of February 6, 1981, with the first article by the paper’s editor-in-chief at the time, Anthony Dragan, on page 2, and keep reading the following issues, until issue No. 32, all on page 2, which concludes the historic article by Borys Andriyevsky about the causes of fractures in Ukrainian community life. Mr. Dragan had kept the article in his drawer for 25 years after convincing Dr. Andriyevsky to hold the publication. He finally published it in 1981 after the 13th Congress of UCCA. It is fascinating even now, nearly 60 years after it was written.
This material is all in Ukrainian. In English you could look into Myron Kuropas’s new book, “Lesia and I,” which I happened to review in the May 17 issue of The Weekly. Read there about the odious 13th Congress of the UCCA, and you would see why you couldn’t write, as you did in your column: “Since 1940, 20 further congresses have come together quadrennially, …finding common ground across a politically and geographically diverse community.” Some did, some didn’t.
Now in 2015, the UCCA’s 75th birthday, the event did not stir Washington. Compare it to the luncheon marking five years of Ukraine’s independence in 1996: a large congressional room filled to capacity, five senators and about a dozen representatives addressed the crowd.
A day after the quiet UCCA anniversary event, in McLean, Va., just 10 miles from the White House, Iranian Americans held a fund-raising dinner in a private house to support warming relations between the U.S. and Iran. They collected $100,000. It was a big story in The Washington Post.
Before your time, the UCCA maintained a Ukrainian National Fund that brought in many dollars every year, and the amounts were always reported in the Ukrainian news media. I haven’t seen these reports lately.
Washington