how I come up with the ideas and from where
do I get all the interesting facts and details?
The Write Stuff
By Volodymyr Kish
As many of you know, I have been writing this column on a weekly
basis for over ten years now. From time
to time, I get asked how I do it; how I come up with the ideas and from where
do I get all the interesting facts and details?
The first question is the more difficult one to
answer as there is no plan or method to it – in the course of any given week, I
will read about something in the news, or a conversation with someone will
spark an idea, or I’ll just be settling into a nice dream at night when a thought
or a memory will spark the imagination and provide fodder for that week’s
column. When all else fails, I turn to
my favourite muse, my wife, and tell her of my predicament, and invariably she
comes back with “Why don’t you write something about…”, and I am off and
running.
The second question is easier to answer and rests
in the fact that I have built up quite a library of books and reference
materials over the almost six decades of my existence. I have always been a voracious reader and
collector of books. At one time, I had a
collection numbering in the thousands of volumes, though in the last couple of
moves, my wife and I have downsized our family home as the kids have left, and
I have correspondingly had to sacrifice some of my collection of books.
Needless to say, a good proportion of my personal
library relates to my interest in all things Ukrainian. Originally, they were mostly in the English
language, though subsequent to my living in
Probably the most frequently used source is the
definitive five volume set of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine published in
English between 1984 and 1993 and edited by Volodymyr Kubijovyc and Danylo
Struk. I also have the original
predecessor to this in the Ukrainian language “Entsyklopedia Ukrayinoznavstva”
published in 1949 and also edited by Volodymyr Kubijovyc.
In terms of Ukrainian history, I frequently refer
to Orest Subtelny’s “
Since Ukraine became independent, there have been
quite a few excellent books dealing with contemporary Ukrainian history and
affairs written both by authors of Ukrainian origins, such as Taras Kuzio
(University of Toronto) or Bohdan Hawrylyshyn (International Management
Institute – Geneva), as well as non-Ukrainian scholars such as Andrew Wilson
(University College London), Dominique Arel (University of Ottawa) and Anders
Aslund (Georgetown University).
When I need insight or detail on the history of
Ukrainians in
In the sphere of human interest, there are two
books that I picked up in
I should not neglect to mention that probably the
first place I look when I do research for my articles is the Internet. I am constantly amazed by how much material
exists on the Internet on all things Ukrainian, particularly in the
English language. I can still remember
the day when I did a Google search on “Pidkamin”, expecting to find nothing,
and ended up being blessed with all kinds of wonderful info on Hryts’ home town
on the Wikipedia site (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidkamin). If you need convincing,
do a Google search on almost anything Ukrainian – person, place or thing, and I
can guarantee you that most of the time you will be amazed by what you find.
Perhaps some of you may be motivated by all this
to try your hand at writing a column for this newspaper. I would certainly welcome the prospect of
being able to take a break once in a while and let someone else take advantage
of this space!
Participants of
Sheptytsky Institute 2010 Study Days in