Browsing: The Year in Review

“…Trump seems to have the idea that Ukraine was part of some scheme against his presidential campaign and is correspondingly demanding that the country actively participate in his efforts to attack one of his opponents. As domestic politics this is disgraceful; as foreign policy it is profoundly dangerous. …The scandal effectively presents the Kremlin with a huge gift. It could well turn out that Trump’s ill-advised pressure on the Ukrainian president will finally give Moscow what it has so far failed to achieve. If the mess continues, the only things the world will be hearing about Ukraine are corruption, dubious schemes and bizarre manipulations – a public relations disaster that might end up damaging the country far more than Russian battalions have so far managed to do. Ties between the United States and Ukraine will steadily weaken, giving Moscow additional opportunities to exert pressure. …”

For Canada, 2019 began with a change in leadership at the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, when Alexandra Chyczij began her first year as national president, succeeding Paul Grod, who served in that capacity from 2007 to 2018, and went on to lead the Ukrainian World Congress.
As the new UCC head, Ms. Chyczij wasted little time in calling on Canada and the international community to increase pressure on Russia to secure the release of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured during a Russian naval attack on Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea on November 25, 2018. The sailors held captive by Russia are prisoners of war and protected by the Geneva Convention, and their incarceration is a “grave violation of international law,” said Ms. Chyczij in a January 17 statement that also called for the release of “over 70 Ukrainian political prisoners taken hostage and imprisoned by the Kremlin.”

The year started on a joyful note, when in early January the Tomos of autocephaly was granted to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) all expressed greetings and congratulations to all Ukrainians of faith upon this historic achievement. “The Tomos, received from the Mother Church of Constantinople, returns Ukrainian Orthodoxy to its historic roots, restores historical justice and strengthens the dignity of all faithful in Ukraine,” stated UWC President Paul Grod. “We join the appeal of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to all leaders of autocephalous Orthodox Churches to recognize the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”

For Ukraine, 2019 was a year of elections – first the presidential election on March 31 and then the parliamentary elections less than four months later, on July 21. The presidential election brought a political neophyte to power in a landslide victory, while the Rada elections redrew Ukraine’s political map as newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s political party, Servant of the People, won 254 seats out of the 424 being contested.
At the beginning of the year, analysts said that the presidential race was wide open and unpredictable. National Deputy and two-time Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was the front runner, followed by incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and Mr. Zelenskyy, a showman and perhaps the country’s most popular comedian. None of the three approached the popularity among voters needed to win a simple majority. This, coupled with the fact that one-fifth of voters were still undecided made it difficult to foresee who the two final candidates would be for the likely runoff vote in April.

The top story for Ukraine’s Churches during 2019 was the granting of official independence to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine with the presentation of a Tomos of Autocephaly by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on January 6 (Christmas Eve according to the Julian calendar and Theophany Eve according to the Gregorian calendar) at St. George Cathedral at the Phanar in Istanbul. Metropolitan Epifaniy, the newly elected head of the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine (following the decisions of the Unification Council), received the Tomos after concelebrating divine liturgy with Patriarch Bartholomew. The document was written at Xenophontos Monastery on Mount Athos, Greece, by Hieromonk Luke, a skilled calligrapher and hagiographer.
“Today, a new page opens in the history of Ukraine,” Patriarch Bartholomew said on January 5 after signing the scroll. “We entreat and exhort you to strive for unity and peace… also with those brother hierarchs who still remain under the omophorion of… our brother Patriarch of Moscow, in order that, through your inspired presence and prudent administrative service, you may help them understand that Ukraine deserves a unity Church body.”

Convention preparations were already in the works at the Ukrainian National Association as 2018 began. This newspaper’s second issue of the year, dated January 14, carried the official announcement that the 39th Regular Convention of the Ukrainian National Association would be held at Soyuzivka Heritage Center in Kerhonkson, N.Y., from Friday, May 18, through Sunday, May 20. The announcement spelled out the procedures for electing delegates to the convention from the UNA’s branches across North America.

Simply the best – better than all the rest! That turn of the phrase (from a song sung by Tina Turner) could describe Ukrainian athletes during 2018.

This section features the noteworthy events and people of 2018 that defy easy classification (or could fit under more than one of our Year in Review categories).

During 2018 our community mourned the passing of many of its prominent members: artists, church leaders, soldiers and community activists. Among them were the following, listed in order of their passing.

Eighty-five years – that’s the anniversary The Ukrainian Weekly marked in 2018. As we wrote in our editorial on that occasion, it was “a significant milestone in the history of a newspaper that has honorably, reliably and steadfastly served the Ukrainian community here in North America and Ukrainians worldwide.”

Major anniversaries were marked this year by Ukrainians in the United States. The year began with celebrations of the centennial of the historic date, January 22, 1918, when Ukraine’s Central Rada, headed by historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, declared independence and broke ties with Russia. The Central Rada evolved into the fundamental governing institution of the Ukrainian National Republic and established the precedent for Ukraine’s parliamentary democracy and national independence that formed the basis for national identity throughout the 20th century, as well as the declaration of independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 

Academia held many conferences about the Holodomor, and its place within genocide studies was often the topic of discussion this year. Ukrainian language offerings are becoming widespread at universities, as are Ukrainian studies programs. In addition, 2018 often saw Ukraine as the focus of many research projects, books and presentations.