Ukraine and Britain Honour Stefan Terlezki

By Nick Powell

Nearly 200 people attended a Memorial Service in Cardiff, Wales, on July 13 for Stefan Terlezki, the only Ukrainian ever to become a British Member of Parliament.

Stefan died in February 21, 2006, at the age of 78, and a funeral was held last winter, but the Memorial Service honouring his life was postponed until this month to enable relatives living abroad to attend.

People from many different backgrounds came to Saint David’s Metropolitan Cathedral to remember Stefan, who died in February, aged 78. He was no ordinary politician and is probably best remembered in Wales as Chairman of Cardiff City Football Club.

In an address to the congregation, a Conservative member of the Welsh National Assembly, David Melding, recalled that Stefan often made seemingly impossible  promises. “I will win Cardiff West” and “the Soviet Union will collapse” were two of his more notable predictions, which had the cynics eating their words.

The service, conducted by Father Davyd Senyk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, reflected different aspects of Stefan’s remarkable life. “Vydysh brate miy” was  proudly sung by the Ukrainians in the congregation, recalling Stefan’s childhood and his family’s struggles against Polish and then Russian rule in the village of Antonivka, near Ivano-Frankivs’k.

Like so many of his generation, Stefan was taken for slave labour by the Nazis when he was just 14 years old. He was put to work on a farm in Austria, where at the end of the war he was conscripted into the Red Army. He escaped to British-occupied territory and came to Wales in 1948. A particularly moving arrangement of “Edelweiss” evoked Stefan’s fondness for Austria, the land where he bravely turned slavery into freedom.

An especially moving part of the service was a musical tribute composed and performed on the cathedral organ by the leading modern Ukrainian composer Alla Sirenko, who performed for His Holiness Pope John Paul II during his visit to L’viv.

The main speaker was the former Foreign Secretary, Lord Howe of Aberavon (Sir Geoffrey Howe). He remembered the remarkable events of 1984 when, at a face-to-face meeting with Andrei Gromyko in Moscow, he persuaded the Soviet Foreign Minister to allow Stefan’s father Oleksa to travel from exile in Siberia to spend a month with his son in Wales.

“They had not seen each other for 42 years–and, alas, were never to see each other again,” explained Lord Howe. He recalled that Stefan was “a true Brit, a gwladgarwr (proud Welshman) and always still a proud Ukrainian.”

Stefan’s staunch support for a free Ukraine was acknowledged by Colonel Volodymyr Havrylov, military attachй at the Ukrainian Embassy in London. He announced that President Yushchenko’s government had decided to appoint Stefan as an honourary consul but sadly he died before the appointment was confirmed.

Stefan’s meeting with President Yushchenko last autumn, at the headquarters of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, was remembered by AUGB President, Lubomyr Mazur. It was not so much an occasion when Stefan met the President as when Victor met Pan Terlezki, who presented him with a copy of his memoirs From War to Westminster.

Stefan’s daughters, Caryl and Helena, told of growing up in a loving home with their father and their mother Mary. They recalled attending demonstrations against communism and for an independent Ukraine. “His passion for Britain, especially Wales–his adopted home–made us always appreciate, from a very early age, our country and the freedom it offered us,” they added.

The mood of all who had gathered to offer thanks for such an extraordinary life was perhaps best summed up when the congregation heard a message from Stefan Terlezki’s friends and relatives in Ukraine:
“We are all in deep sorrow for such a remarkable man as Pan Stefan. It is difficult to realize that he has gone. He was so lively, energetic and full of new ideas. His death is a blow for all who knew him. We’ll bear his memory in our hearts.”

Copies of From War to Westminster, the memoirs of Stefan Terlezki, are available from amazon.ca for $33.17.  

  Nick Powell is Head of Politics at ITV Wales. He was the producer of a television documentary about the life of Stefan Terlezki.