CIUS Scholars Attend Conferences in Ukraine

In the spring and summer of 2008, scholars associated with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) participated in several conferences in Ukraine. Besides the Ukrainian-Armenian conference (Lviv, May 29–31), they took part in a conference on the Ukrainian Diaspora, the congress of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies, and a conference on the 1658 Treaty of Hadiach.

 A conference on “The Diaspora as a Factor in Strengthening the Ukrainian State within the International Community,” the second to focus on this topic (the first took place in 2006), was held on June 17–19. It was organized by the International Institute of Education, Culture, and Ties with the Diaspora at the National Polytechnic University of Lviv with the assistance of a number of government and business institutions. In attendance were 450 participants from 28 countries and all parts of Ukraine. Explaining the importance of the conference, the institute’s director, Iryna Kliuchkovska, noted that “The [Ukrainian] state does not yet have a good understanding of the need for contacts with the Diaspora, as do Russia, Poland, Israel, Armenia, Greece and other countries, which consider their representatives abroad a huge potential asset for their own development.”

The conference was divided into seven panels to cover a broad range of topics in history, literature, linguistics, music, church studies, education, and social and global studies. The director of CIUS, Dr. Zenon E. Kohut, spoke about the role of the Institute’s Kowalsky Program in supporting the revival of Ukrainian studies in Eastern Ukraine. Dr. Serge Cipko contributed to the discussion of the Holodomor of 1932–33 with an account of how it was reported in Edmonton newspapers of the time. Finally, Andrij Makuch focused on the defection of Danylo Lobay, a leading Ukrainian communist in interwar Canada, which split the movement.

The seventh International Congress of Ukrainian Studies, which took place from June 24 to 29 in the premises of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, was the largest international scholarly gathering in this field. CIUS Press director Roman Senkus, who is also head of the Canadian Association of Ukrainian Studies, presented an overview of the field in Canada for the period since 2005. Dr. Kohut spoke about Ukrainian political rhetoric of the period of the Ruin (1660s–80s) and its use in defence of the country. In his examination of the Ukrainian “Left” in interwar Canada, Mr. Makuch focused on its ties with Ukraine. Dr. Cipko continued his exploration of the Holodomor, participating in a roundtable discussion on “The Holodomor as Genocide of the Ukrainian People as Reflected in Literature, Art, Reports, and Memoirs.” In his presentation, Dr. Mykola Soroka considered the perception of new musical forms such as jazz and tango in the Ukrainian emigration in the 1920s–50s, which created tension between traditional and modernist artistic developments.

The next conference, “The Hadiach Treaty of 1658: Controversies of the Past and Present,” was co-sponsored by CIUS. Held on September 4–5 at the Pedagogical University of Poltava, the conference marked the 350^th anniversary of a treaty that still resonates today, when Ukraine again finds itself at a civilizational crossroads between the European Union and an aggressive Russia. “At that time, Ukraine was looking for its niche within the international community, as it is doing today,” noted Valerii Asadchev, chair of the Poltava State Administration, at the opening session. In her textual analysis of the treaty, Professor Tatiana Tairova-Yakovleva of St. Petersburg University called the document a “striking example” of creative thinking on the part of the Cossack State leadership, which was seeking an alternative to the Moscow protectorate. The failure of the treaty led to the Truce of Andrusovo less than a decade later and to the subsequent partition of the young state between Moscow and Poland, which was the leitmotif of Dr. Kohut’s presentation.

While in Ukraine to participate in these conferences, CIUS scholars attended a number of other interesting events. These included showings of recent films (A Kingdom Reborn: Treasures from Ukrainian Galicia by the Ukrainian Canadian director Dani Stodilka; A Dangerously Free Man (Serhii Paradzhanov) by Roman Shyrman); art and photo exhibitions devoted to the Holodomor, the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, and the Ukrainian emigration in Italy; book launches (an anthology of Ukrainian literature in English; The Hadiach Treaty of 1658; From Hadiach to Chudniv by the Polish author Piotr Kroll); and various theatrical and musical performances.