PARSIPPANY, N.J. – The New Jersey District Committee of the Ukrainian National Association held its fall organizing meeting on November 16 via videoconference. It was the first virtual meeting ever for the district.
Participating were representatives of UNA Branches 37, 42, 76, 133, 171, 234, 269 and 287.
The meeting was chaired by Oksana Stanko, district chairperson. In attendance as a representative of the UNA Executive Committee was Yuriy Symczyk, UNA chief operating officer/national secretary.
PARSIPPANY, N.J. – For the first time in the 126-year history of this fraternal organization, the Ukrainian National Association’s highest governing body between quadrennial conventions did not meet in person, convening instead by videoconference and teleconference due to continuing restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.
The UNA General Assembly, which encompasses executive officers, auditors and advisors, met virtually on Monday and Tuesday, October 5-6, with members signing in from their respective locations across the United States as well as Canada.
General Assembly members plus the editor-in-chief of the UNA’s official publications, Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, submitted written reports in advance of the meeting.
With deep shock, family, friends and colleagues of Marta Kolomayets, former Kyiv correspondent and Kyiv Bureau chief of The Ukrainian Weekly, received news of her passing on Sunday, August 16, in her home near Kyiv. On behalf of the Ukrainian National Association’s General Assembly and the thousands of UNA members who waited each week to read Marta’s reports and columns, allow me to express our condolences to the many who loved Marta dearly.
I write here not only as a member of the UNA General Assembly, but also as a colleague of Marta. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, Marta and I crossed paths in Washington, Rome and New York City, and worked side-by-side with journalists in Ukraine. We were together during the 1988 Millennium of Ukrainian Christianity events in Rome – I as a member of the Ukrainian Catholic Church’s media team organized by Bishop Basil Losten and Sonya (Hlutkowsky) Soutus, Marta as a correspondent for The Ukrainian Weekly. It was then that I first witnessed both Marta’s strength of character and her skills as an intrepid reporter.
The Ukrainian National Association has a long-standing tradition of assisting students in their pursuit of higher education. Despite the challenges of the coronavirus, the UNA continued that tradition in 2020. The UNA Scholarship Committee met on June 26 to review all applications for scholarships and awards.
There was a total of 54 applicants from 26 different UNA branches. The number and quality of applicants this year was truly exceptional, with a number of students applying for more than one scholarship for which they were eligible.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a profound effect on the global community, including the Ukrainian National Association, a fraternal benefit society that serves the Ukrainian community and its members throughout North America. And yet, we are proud to say, UNA operations have continued throughout the pandemic.
At the UNA’s Home Office, which is based in Parsippany, N.J., we reacted immediately and put into effect a business contingency plan previously developed for such an eventuality. Out of an abundance of caution, our Home Office was closed and, beginning on Monday, March 16, our employees began to work remotely in order to continue serving our members without disruption. Thus, the UNA was focused on both protecting the health of its Home Office staff and meeting the needs of its thousands of members.
PARSIPPANY, N.J. – The 2020 Almanac of the Ukrainian National Association, which is published by Svoboda Press, was mailed earlier this year to Svoboda subscribers, but it is available for purchase by others who may be interested in this unique publication, which this year marks its 105th annual release.
The Ukrainian-language publication is devoted to historic anniversaries of the year 2020. The 288-page UNA Almanac opens with an article by the late Ivan Kedryn Rudnytsky, the well-known journalist active in Ukraine and the United States who was a longtime member of the Svoboda editorial staff. This excerpt from his memoirs speaks about the momentous year 1920 and what it meant for Ukraine.
Seen on this page are the top members of the UNA Supreme Assembly in 1915 as they appeared in the 1915 Almanac of the Ukrainian National Association.
A year earlier, the 1914 “Kalendar Ruskoho Narodnoho Soyuza v Amerytsi,” the almanac of what was then called the Ruthenian National Association, marked the 20th anniversary of the fraternal organization, which was founded on February 22, 1894, in Shamokin, Pa. It is interesting to note that the 1914 almanac was written in the Latin alphabet. Much of the jubilee almanac was devoted to the history of the organization; and there is a list of 372 branches, beginning with Branch 1 of Shamokin, Pa., the St. Andrew Brotherhood. The almanac also included Ivan Franko’s poetic work “Naymyt” (The Hired Hand) and the lyrics to the “Hymn of American Ukrainians” by Vasyl Shchurat.
Seen in the photo on the right, taken in 1990, is the three-person staff of the Ukrainian National Association’s Washington Office (from left): Assistant Director John Kun, Administrative Assistant Maria Lischak and Director Eugene Iwanciw.
The UNA Washington Office opened on July 1, 1988, with the aim of making Ukrainian Americans heard in Washington, and it served the community through September 1995. (Others who were on its staff during that period were Adrian Karmazyn and Xenia Ponomarenko.)
The UNA Supreme Assembly gathered for its 1975 annual meeting on May 19-23 at Soyuzivka. Its members (and some guests) are seen above during the traditional opening ceremonies. It was the first annual session of the 26-member body after the 28th UNA Convention held in 1974 in Philadelphia. The Supreme Assembly adopted a series of resolutions and a budget in the amount of $5,539,500 that foresaw $4,905,500 in expenses and an increase in assets of $634,000; awarded a total of $15,900 in scholarships to 95 student members; and approved $12,500 in contributions to various Ukrainian national causes. The Supreme Assembly also filled the vacant seat of Supreme Advisor Taras Shpikula, who had passed away in November 2014, by electing both John Odezynsky and Eugene lwanciw to full terms as advisors.
Seen above is the Massachusetts delegation to the Ukrainian National Association’s 23rd Convention held on May 31 to June 5, 1954, in Washington. With them is Rep. John W. McCormack (fourth from right) of Massachusetts, the second-ranked Democrat in the House of Representatives. The congressman addressed the delegates on the third day of the convention, speaking of communism as a “world killer.” He told the audience of 437 delegates and 19 supreme officers that the Free World, including the United States, would someday free the enslaved peoples behind the Iron Curtain. Other congressmen who addressed the convention were Michael A. Feighan (D-Ohio), Charles J. Kersten (R-Wis.), John R. Pillion (R-N.Y.) and Kenneth B. Keating (R-N.Y.). The senators who spoke were: Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.) Irving M. Ives (R-N.Y.), Homer Ferguson (R-Mich.), Paul H. Douglas (D-Ill.), William F. Knowland (R-Calif.), Speaker of the House Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-Mass.), Thomas A. Burke, (D-Ohio), H. Alexander Smith (R-N.J.) and John F. Kennedy (D-Mass).
Seen in the photo above, taken in October 1997, are the employees of the Ukrainian National Association and its two newspapers, Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, in their first group photo taken in Parsippany, N.J., after the UNA and its subsidiaries had moved from Jersey City, N.J., about 30 miles to the east of the new venue. The old UNA headquarters, a 15-story office building located at 30 Montgomery Street was sold on August 14. The closing on the two-story Parsippany building took place on August 28, and the move to the site of the new Home Office took place over the Columbus Day weekend October 10-13. The new headquarters of the UNA was blessed on Sunday, November 9. A new sign identifying the building as the Ukrainian National Association Corporate Headquarters was erected on December 9.
Seen in this photo from the archives of Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly are organizers and participants of the fourth annual Labor Day weekend tennis tournament held at Soyuzivka, then known as the Ukrainian National Association Estate, on September 5-7, 1959. According to a news story in The Weekly, 84 players representing nine Ukrainian sports clubs from the United States and Canada participated. The host of the tournament was the Carpathian Ski Club of New York under the able direction of Bohdan Rak, who had served in that capacity since the inception of the sports event in 1956. As identified on the back of the archival photo (from left) are: Soyuzivka Manager Walter Kwas, tournament committee member Taras Hrycaj, committee chair Mr. Rak, and UNA Supreme Treasurer Roman Slobodian. Also in the photo (fifth and sixth, respectively, from right) are Svoboda editor Bohdan Krawciw and George Kupchinsky. The winner of the men’s tournament was George Korol, while the women’s winner was Irene Stecyk. There was competition also among senior men, and in juniors divisions of boys and girls.
