Browsing: Columnists

Of all of Ukraine’s ambassadors to Canada, and Canada’s ambassadors to Ukraine, no one has served longer than Andriy Shevchenko,…...

Thirty years ago, on December 1, 1991, an event of monumental consequence occurred. With 84 percent of eligible voters in…...

Every November we commemorate the Holodomor, pausing to reflect on one of history’s most horrific crimes. From my earliest days,…...

It took great courage, fortitude and moral strength. Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union did not take kindly to those who dared…...

I don’t envy Joe Biden, now eight months in office. No president in my lifetime (I was born in 1947)…...

Fifty years ago, on October 8, 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau stood up in the House of Commons and…...

The road to khabar. I love it. Reminds me of those old movies starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy…...

Last month, Ukrainian special forces conducted a daring operation in Kabul to rescue 19 Afghan refugees, among them translators, including one whom worked for Canada’s leading newspaper, The Globe and Mail, and another who served in the Canadian military, as well as their families. They arrived in Kyiv on August 29.

This rescue was coordinated by the Ukrainian military, the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and The Globe and Mail. Mark MacKinnon, the Globe and Mail’s senior international correspondent, not only broke the story but was integral in co-ordinating the rescue, reported CTV News.

U.S.-Ukraine relations are back on solid ground. Despite U.S. President Joe Biden’s ill-advised decision earlier in the year to lift the waiver on Nord Stream 2 sanctions, the overall trajectory is in a positive direction, especially following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent Washington visit.

Some words that came to my mind in describing the visit are “encouraging,” “reassuring” and “heartening,” especially after some of the turmoil, neglect and even exploitation that our bilateral relations experienced under our previous president.

I spent the summer of 1943 on a farm owned by my parents in Parkville, Mich. Mother loved movies, so on many a Friday afternoon mom, my sister Vera and I would trek over to highway M60 and wait to wave down the Detroit to Chicago Greyhound bus. It took us to Three Rivers, Mich., which had a movie theater. As soon as the movie ended, we’d walk to a restaurant where the Chicago to Detroit Greyhound passengers were enjoying a rest stop. The driver agreed to take us to the road which led to Parkville, Mich. Mom always found a way to watch a movie.

Once upon a time there was a Yiddish language newspaper in New York called Forverts (in English, The Forward). Founded in 1897 by the Jewish Socialist Press Federation, the newspaper was devoted to Jewish trade unionism and democratic socialism.

Like the Ukrainian gazette Svoboda in its early years, Forverts also offered English lessons to its readers, as well as civic advice regarding life in America. Under the leadership of Abraham Cahan, editor from 1903 to 1951, Forverts attained a readership of some 200,000 by World War I.

It’s been an interesting summer for those interested in Ukraine.  Youth camps in America, Canada and elsewhere resumed after a year’s hiatus, albeit with shortened schedules and appropriate precautions against the COVID-19. Other venues opened as well. The Soyuzivka Heritage Center welcomed guests. In Cleveland, the Ukrainian Museum-Archives had a dozen interns, funded by a generous bequest from Nicholas Supranenko nearly 20 years ago, and this year for the first time had three undergraduates funded by the Nanovic European Studies Institute at the University of Notre Dame.