Month: January 15, 2021 8:01 am

With the COVID-19 pandemic putting the planet on freeze for most of 2020, the year presented an opportunity for reflection and Canada’s Ukrainian community spent considerable time looking back at history.

As part of its “Heroes of Their Day” initiative and during 75th anniversary year of Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation (UCCLF) released the Almanac of Ukrainian Canadian Servicemen online (https://www.ucclf.ca/heroes-of-their-day), a Ukrainian-language digest (with an English foreword), produced in 1946 by the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood of Canada, which provides information about many of the thousands of Ukrainian Canadian men and women who volunteered for service overseas with the Canadian Armed Forces during World War II, including photographs and casualty lists. News of the online documentation was reported in February.

HORSHAM, Pa. – The Ukrainian Sports Hall of Fame announced the inductees for the class of 2020 on November 24, 2020. The 2020 class of inductees includes seven professional athletes; the creation of a new category, recognizing all current and former Ukrainian professional hockey personnel whose name is listed on the Stanley Cup (currently there are 54); nine Olympic and world athletes; eight amateur athletes; 11 individuals recognized as “Builders” of Ukrainian sport; and one in the “Teams” category; and four in the newly created “Legacy” category. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 induction ceremony will be held with the 2021 class of inductees in mid-2021.

KYIV – Ukraine entered the new year with a mounting constitutional crisis that will further test President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s resolve to reform a system he promised “to break” during his election campaign.

Five days into 2021, the Constitutional Court issued a statement that said a presidential decree to suspend the court’s chief, Oleksandr Tupytskyi, “may lead to blocking the work” of the court and make it “impossible” to exercise “constitutional control in order to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution of Ukraine, assertion of human rights and freedom.”

KYIV – In a nearly 15-minute greeting on New Year’s Eve, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, surrounded by an assembly of children, spoke to the nation on the year’s past accomplishments and challenges, and his plans for the future.

Using the word “we” 22 times and “Ukraine” 14 times, Mr. Zelenskyy emphasized the country’s diversity while switching between the Ukrainian, Russian, Crimean Tatar and Hungarian languages.

“Ukrainians are who they are,” he said. “Not perfect and not holy…but our passport doesn’t indicate whether a Ukrainian is right or wrong. There is no term [in it that says] ‘patriot,’ ‘little Russian’…or ‘Banderite.’”

Russia’s post-Soviet counter-transition arrived at its logical conclusion in 2020: starting from a fledgling democracy in the 1990s, the country shifted to an “enlightened authoritarianism” in the 2000s, evolving into a barely disguised autocracy during the 2010s, now having finally settled into a quasi-dictatorship. That trajectory was in no way predetermined 20 years ago, but a crucially important inflection point was passed in 2014, with the zealous “patriotic” mobilization that was sparked and fueled by the forcible annexation of Crimea. After that, the constitutional revisions initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the start of 2020 were a natural consequence of late-stage Putinism (Novaya Gazeta, December 30, 2020).

Tycoons selling property amid foreclosures

Optima Ventures, the U.S. real-estate holding company owned by two Ukrainian tycoons under FBI investigation for money laundering, has filed a motion in a court in the U.S. state of Delaware to sell two more buildings in the city of Cleveland amid foreclosure proceedings. Optima Ventures, once the largest commercial real-estate operator in the Midwestern city, is seeking to sell 55 Public Square, a 22-story skyscraper, as well as its stake in the Westin Cleveland Downtown hotel, according to court documents filed on December 24, 2020.  The holding company, which is controlled by Ukrainian billionaires Ihor Kolomoyskiy and Hennadiy Boholyubov, owes about $50 million on the two properties and has failed to make payments in recent months, according to separate lawsuits filed in Cleveland. The United States has accused Mr. Kolomoyskiy and Mr. Boholyubov of buying U.S. assets, including real estate and metals plants, with hundreds of millions of dollars laundered from their Kyiv-based lender PrivatBank.

As details began to emerge in late 2020 of Russia’s massive cyber-attack on the United States, there was plenty of anger and alarm but little in the way of genuine shock. Instead, an air of inevitability accompanied news of the attack. This somewhat resigned response illustrates just how accustomed the Western world has become to the reality of a hostile Russia.

It was not always this way. Just over eight years ago in October 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama felt comfortable enough about Russia to mock his presidential rival Mitt Romney for calling the country America’s number one geopolitical foe. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Mr. Obama quipped at the time.

Less than two hours after a joint session of the U.S. Congress met at 1 p.m. on January 6, a violent mob opposed to Congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election attacked, overtook and ransacked the U.S. Capitol building.  The import of this moment cannot be overstated or dismissed.  Throughout the history of the United States of America, this building has fallen only once before.  On August 24, 1814, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross set fire to the Capitol before finally taking it over.  For more than 206 years since that day, this building has stood as an iconic beacon of American democracy.  It has been called a citadel of liberty.

Following the Soviet invasion of Azerbaijan 31 years ago, on January 16, 1990, when 11,000 troops were sent to quell the fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia, refugees from Azerbaijan began arriving in Ukraine by late January, Radio Moscow reported.

Refugees were provided with the barest essentials and were housed in military sanatoria, rest houses and hotels. A one-time money grant was given to each family as well as a document certifying that its members were refugees. In addition to refugees being settled in Kyiv, a large number of refugees were received in the city of Odesa.

The last day of 2020 bore sad news – after a long struggle with cancer, Fr. Maciej Zięba, O.P., died in Wrocław, Poland. Ukraine, the Ukrainian Catholic University, and I, personally, lost a good friend. Poland, and the Church in Poland, lost one of the significant figures in their pilgrimage from fear to dignity.

Maciej Zięba was a priest, a Dominican monk, a physicist, a theologian, a philosopher, a public intellectual, and a member of Solidarność (Solidarity). But he was first of all a human being. The kind of human being that His Beatitude the late Lubomyr Husar often spoke of to us. I remember Maciej, who belonged to the younger cohort of the wide circle of collaborators of Pope St. John Paul II, as smiling, humane, unbelievably hard-working, and open.

Our post-World War II wave of immigration set itself the goal of preserving the Ukrainian language, culture and churches until Ukraine should be free. It succeeded. For our churches, it is now time to concentrate on their primary mission.

Statistics for the Ukrainian Catholic Church, however, are not encouraging. In 1980 there were some 700,000 people in the United States who considered themselves of Ukrainian or partly Ukrainian origin. In 1981, the Ukrainian Catholic Church counted about 245,000 members. Today, Ukrainian Americans number over 930,000. According to the eparchial websites, however, the number of Ukrainian Catholics has fallen to about 52,000. In 1981, the Church had 27 elementary and three secondary schools; today, it has a half-dozen. In 1981, the Archeparchy of Philadelphia had 98 active eparchial and mission priests; today, it has 37.

By just about any measure, 2020 has been a difficult year.  The COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump’s unfounded allegations of elections fraud and stubborn refusal to concede the election, and Russia’s recent massive cyberattack, are just a few of the bad news stories of the year.

But there is hope for 2021.  The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines suggests that, as the year progresses, life will return to some semblance of normality.  And Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20 will also usher in a degree of sanity in our politics.  Our country, indeed, the world, needs it.