WASHINGTON – We do not often expect a person of fourscore years to teach us something fresh and new. That this is mistaken was brilliantly demonstrated on June 12 at a tribute to Prof. Larissa M.L. Zaleska Onyshkevych in Washington. Sponsored by the Shevchenko Scientific Society’s D.C. chapter and the Embassy of Ukraine, the event was held at the Embassy in Georgetown.
The Embassy’s cultural attaché, Olha Ivanova, opened the evening. Dr. Bohdana Urbanovych, president of the Washington chapter of the Shevchenko Society, congratulated Prof. Onyshkevych on her 80th birthday. She read excerpts from the many greetings received from the U.S. and abroad, including a letter from current Shevchenko Society President Prof. George G. Grabowicz.
Renowned Soviet-era dissident and literary critic Ivan Dzyuba sent a congratulatory letter, as did various scholarly organizations in Ukraine and North America. Among them were the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) World Council and NTSh-Ukraine, the Ivan Franko University of Lviv, the Institute of the Ukrainian Language of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S.A. Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, in which Prof. Onyshkevych has long been active, sent a special message. Felicitations from the Shevchenko Society in New York were read by Dr. Vasyl Lopukh, director of administration, who came down especially for the event.
Next, a short film was shown depicting high points in Prof. Onyshkevych’s academic and civic life. Poet and Shevchenko Society administrator Vasyl Makhno, who had travelled from New York, outlined her scholarly achievements. A former president of the society herself (2000-2006), Prof. Onyshkevych has distinguished herself as a literary scholar and critic specializing in modern Ukrainian literature. In her long years at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, she inspired countless students.
Prof. Larissa M.L. Zaleska Onyshkevych addresses the audience.
A number of her many publications were on display at the event. Reflecting one of the honoree’s interests, Svitlana Makhno gave an inspired reading of a heart-rending love poem by Lesia Ukrainka.
Not to be outdone by the other presenters, Prof. Onyshkevych herself delivered an eye-opening lecture about a poet few in the audience were even aware of: the contemporary Ukrainian poet and playwright from Poland Tadei Karabovych (Tadeusz Karabowicz), born in 1959. Her meticulous textual analysis of “The Last Supper” demonstrated the depths of meaning that one can discover in this poet’s dense verse.
Dr. Urbanovych closed the evening, inviting the guests to the Embassy’s “Kamiana Zala” (lapidarium) for a convivial buffet supper.