Ukrainian Canadian

If you’re heading to New York this summer (like I am this week), I’ve highlighted some noteable Ukrainian areas in and around the state to see in your travels:

Ukrainian Museum

222 East 6th Street
New York, NY 10003-8201, United States
(212) 228-0110

The Ukrainian Museum is the largest museum in the U.S. committed to acquiring, preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting articles of artistic or historic significance to the rich cultural heritage of Ukrainians. It was founded in 1976 by the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America (UNWLA). Each year, the Museum organizes several exhibitions, publishes accompanying bilingual catalogues, and conducts a wide range of public programming, frequently in collaboration with other museums, educational institutions, and cultural centers.

…

The Museum’s archives boast more than 30,000 items — photographs, documents, the personal correspondence of noted individuals, playbills, posters, flyers, and the like, all documenting the life, history, and cultural legacy of the Ukrainian people. The history of Ukrainian immigration to the United States, which dates back well over 100 years, is chronicled in the Museum’s rich collection of archival photographs.

[ Wikipedia]

[ Official site]

One of the latest exhibitions being showcased is Ukraine–Sweden: At the Crossroads of History (17th-18th Centuries). The exhibition explores a pivotal period of European history through the prism of the alliance between Sweden, then a preeminent European power, and Ukraine whose Cossack leaders (Hetmans) were striving to establish an independent state.

Veselka Restaurant

144 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003-8305, United States
(212) 228-9682

Veselka is a 24-hour restaurant in New York City’s East Village. It was established in 1954 by post- World War II Ukrainian refugees Wolodymyr and Olha Darmochawal and is one of the last of the many Slavic restaurants that once proliferated the neighborhood.

…

Read more…

As we mentioned last weekend, the Stalin bust went up Virginia but at least some good people there are up in arms:

A bust of dictator Joseph Stalin has been placed at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford despite public protest over its presence.

…

Residents and leaders in Bedford have spoken out against installing the Stalin piece at the memorial.

Annie Pollard, a Bedford County supervisor who has volunteered at the memorial, said Wednesday it has been a source of controversy in Bedford and she feels its presence is “a slap in the face to all these other people we honor and remember.”

“I just don’t think it belongs on the hill with them,” Pollard. “To me, he (Stalin) is just a murderer. I just can’t see how he fits in with the memorial. They are people we want to remember. He’s someone I’d rather forget.”

…

“It’s a disgrace and a dishonor to the veterans,” Morrison said of the Stalin bust.
Morrison said he respects the importance of remembering history but the memorial’s sole purpose is to honor the valor, fidelity and sacrifice of D-Day veterans.

“It’s not a history museum, it’s not a wax museum,” said Morrison.

…

The plaque that accompanies the Stalin bust reads: “In memory of the tens of millions who died under Stalin’s rule and in tribute to all whose valor, fidelity, and sacrifice denied him and his successors victory in the cold war.”

Read the rest of the story

And from Pilot Online:

Some veterans say the bust of Stalin tarnishes the memorial and threatens its ability to raise money, even as it is struggling to stay afloat financially. The memorial’s overseers are trying to persuade the National Park Service to take control of the site.

…

Stalin is credited by historians with helping to start World War II by signing a peace pact with Hitler and Germany. When Hitler later betrayed him, launching an attack against the Soviet Union, Stalin joined the Allies. Before and after the war, Stalin was known for his purge of political enemies and innocent civilians alike.

Read the rest of the article

Update: Locals are lodging formal complaints against the bust

As was first mentioned last November, a private donor is donating a bust of Stalin for a D-Day memorial tomorrow in Bedford, Virginia. As the office is open today it is not too late to contact the office and let them know your thoughts.

A few worth while responses have been posted in the same publication that broke the story on ‘Irvington students ditch communist theme’. In the article, a student who’s grandparents survived the Holodomor appealed to his classmates not to use a communist-themed t-shirt and they agreed to scrap the idea. Some very positive feedback resulted:

Can you imagine this happening with swastikas? I doubt it. That is because our educational system has done an excellent job in teaching about the horrors of Nazism. It has, however, failed to teach about the atrocities suffered under communist regimes.

…

There are currently two bills in the Legislature that would amend the New York State Education Law to include other genocides: Bill S3356 in the Senate and Bill A6690 in the Assembly. Unfortunately, Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, D-Mamaroneck, chair of the Education Committee in the Senate, is blocking their passage. The incident in Irvington is a glaring example of precisely why the passage of these bills is so important. Our government representatives and our school officials need to be held accountable in making sure that our children learn about the true nature of communism. Contact your representatives at  www.nysenate.gov and  www.assembly.state.ny.us and urge them to support passage of these bills.

Oksana Kulynych, committee chair of Educators for the Study of the Ukrainian Genocide-Holodomor.

Read the rest of the article

As well as:

The principal of Irvington High School is to be commended for not allowing students to use a pro-communist slogan and picture of a hammer and sickle for their Color Wars competition. In all likelihood the students had no intention of offending anyone and cannot be blamed. However, simply telling the students to change the theme is completely insufficient. It is our educational system that must be held accountable for teaching about the reality of communism.

…

I call upon the Board of Regents, superintendents of school districts as well as our government officials to ensure that our students learn about the devastating role communism has played in the lives of so many people. It is only through education that we can work to erase the indifference that allowed the atrocities of communism, such as the Ukrainian Genocide-Holodomor of 1932-1933, to occur.

Read the rest of the article

Very good stuff!

From New York’s Lower Hudson Valley:

The class vote was part of the school’s Color Wars, to take place next month. A T-shirt was to feature a hammer and sickle on the front and “Isn’t it Time You Joined the Party” on the back.

If that phrase made you smile, it was meant to. The students were intending to be funny, even envisioning a party hat perched on the sickle.

If it didn’t, not everyone saw the humor.

…

“I just thought it was very inappropriate and offensive,” said 17-year-old Michael Schur, a senior whose relatives died in Ukraine under Stalin’s rule and whose mother complained to the principal.

Now the design has gone the way of the Soviet Union, and the juniors have substituted a video game figure, Mario, the intrepid Italian plumber outfitted in red and blue.

“We wanted to do something that was a little bit witty, smart humor,” said the class president, Isabel Garcia. “We thought we were being original.”

…

Some of Schur’s family escaped from Ukraine as Stalin forced the collectivization of farms in the 1930s, resulting in millions of deaths. The famine is known to Ukrainians as the Holodomor.

Would Jews find anything about a swastika to be funny? asked Schur’s mother, Sonya.

But communistic images — from the red star to likenesses of Che Guevara and Mao — have a history of chic, radical or otherwise. Trace it to the intelligentsia’s flirtation with communism in the early part of the last century or the counterculture revolutionaries of the 1960s.

Once Schur complained, the principal, Scott Mosenthal, told Garcia that the juniors would have to reconsider.

…

As for Schur, did he persuade his schoolmates to view the hammer and sickle differently?

“In the end I really don’t think I made my point,” he said. “I just aggravated a bunch of people.”

Read the rest of the article

We think it’s very commendable Michael, way to stick up to yourself!