A year ago today many lost a good friend, my friend, Iryna, lost a caring husband and companion and two young ladies lost a father. Before that tragic day arrived, my friend Ilko Kucheriv, was waging a battle of a lifetime, which unfortunately he lost. The outpouring of support and positive thoughts and prayers from all over the world was incredible and I know that those closest to Ilko appreciated it at the time. I know personally how thankful he was for my “troubles” about his condition and as a friend I appreciate that he took the moment let me know.
Within hours of his passing I was contacted by a publisher in Kyiv who knew that I had worked closely to Ilko to write a few words about his life. It was an extremely difficult task, but it was one I had to tackle and I believe I did so successfully and am thankful that I was given such an opportunity. It helped me heal.
So now I look back and think what has happened in that year. Shortly after he left us there were others who in word also expressed their feeling of loss. Some had also worked with him in similar or different capacities than I had, while others, those closest to him, his widow and colleagues at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation which he headed until his last days also took a big step. Before last summer was out, a decision was taken by those piloting one of Ukraine's democratic ship the rocky shoals of a country's development to create a living memory of our friend and colleague, buy renaming the organization which found, Democratic Initiatives Foundation, the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation.
As I look back I want to share with you some of the things that have been written about Ilko, when people and organizations heard of his passing.
An acquaintance of mine Nadia Diuk of the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington, DC, wrote:
“Ilko had a unique talent in bringing people together—a very special skill in a country where, as the old Ukrainian proverb goes, whenever two Ukrainians get together, invariably three parties will emerge. He brought journalists, specialists, politicians, diplomats and civil society activists, all with different points of view around the same table and took on the burning issues of the day through civilized discussion and debate. He was an “intellectual entrepreneur”; while many people would sit around and complain “What is to be done?” Ilko would be the one come up with a plan and to get up and make it happen. He came to the United States as a Reagan-Fascell Fellow in 2006-7 and spoke often of how the experience dramatically broadened his outlook and made him rethink his approach to his own work and the profile of his organization.”
Source: http://www.ned.org/about/staff/nadia-diuk/ilko-kucheriv-1955-2010
Friend of mine Mark Rachkevych, originally of Chicago, who now makes Kyiv his home, wrote in the Kyiv Post:
“I recall meeting Kucheriv at the Drum [ed. a Kyiv haunt of journalist and democratically minded Ukrainian youth, and expats.] when he returned from his six-month Reagan-Fascell fellowship in Washington, D.C. in 2006. Like many who come back from stints in the West, full of ambition and fresh ideas, Kucheriv proclaimed that he’d start to engage in public diplomacy, whose practice he said would make Democratic Initiatives the preeminent think-tank in Ukraine, on par with the Cato or Brookings Institute.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d been practicing public diplomacy ever since 1992, and successfully at that. That’s the kind of person he was. He was the big, serious teddy bear with a vision.”
Source: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/68586/#ixzz1NkKtUnTY
The World Movement for Democracy, which also republished a letter from Ilko to their office, which he wrote a day before his death and after he returned to Kyiv from the Sixth Assembly held in Jakarta. It was but about six weeks earlier that I had called Ilko to find the phone number of a common friend, Serhiy Sholokh, who now lives in the Washington, DC area. Ilko said to me when I called him, “Bill, I'll send you his phone number, I'm in Jakarta right now at the WMD Sixth Assembly. I have to see a doctor when I get back, my back is bothering me a lot. You know what they charge for international roaming! You'll get his number soon, I'll email it to you.” Ilko loved his gadgets and technology and within minutes I had Serhiy's coordinates.
“Mr. Kucheriv was the founder of DIF, a leading think tank that focuses on deepening democracy in Ukraine. Since its founding in 1992, Mr. Kucheriv and his institution engaged in research and debates concerning public attitudes on political, social, and economic issues. They commissioned exit polls for major Ukrainian elections, including the 2004 presidential elections, which helped to expose the massive electoral fraud that led to the Orange Revolution. Widely recognized as one of Ukraine’s most prominent nongovernmental activists, Mr. Kucheriv was active in Ukrainian civil society for almost 30 years.”
Source: http://www.wmd.org/alerts/world-movement-expresses-its-condolences-passing-ukrainian-participant
May all those who knew and worked with Ilko remember him today and every day, and carry on what he started in his spirit.
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Showing posts with label Democratic Innitiatives Foundation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democratic Innitiatives Foundation. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Monday, May 31, 2010
In memory of Ilko Kucheriv
Saturday May 29, 2010 was a sad day and writing about the passing of a friend is difficult for anyone. During the frenzy of phone calls and chatting with friends from all over the world about our common loss I was asked to write something in Ilko's memory for Ukraine Business, well here it is, including the Editorial note from the publishers.
[Editor’s Note: Immediately upon learning of the death of Ilko Kucheriv, we called one of his oldest friends and asked that friend, Vasyl Pawlowsky if he would be kind enough to pen an appropriate obituary. We know this was a painful exercise for Vasyl and we appreciate his efforts. Please note that Vasyl has included at the end of the obituary a note regarding funeral arrangements on June 1, 2010.]
By Vasyl Pawlowsky
On May 29, 2010, Ukraine and all those who cared about making the world a better and democratic place lost a good friend, when the life of Ilko Kucheriv, the Director of Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives Foundation, came to an end. It was an end that so many saw coming, while at the same time they all tried, in every way humanly possible, to extend the life of a man, father and friend who had so many plans, for a man who was 55 years young.
On May 15, I received an e-mail from my good friend and colleague Ilko Kucheriv that he dictated to his wife.
“Hello, Bill. Thank you for your caring and troubles. Honestly, this little surprise has substantially changed my life and priorities. I remain a cocksure optimist and am preparing to fight for my life with all my strength."
Two days earlier a friend had called me from Kyiv to inform me that the surprise Ilko referred to was lung cancer a diagnosis he had received at the beginning of the month of May. The troubles Ilko referred to were my effort to rally his friends and acquaintances worldwide to help him in his battle of a lifetime.
The attitude and conviction I felt in his words were one hundred percent Ilko, the Ilko that many in Ukraine’s NGO community had gotten to know over the years.
While Ilko had graduated from Shevchenko University with a degree in biology following in the footsteps of his other family members, the events that transpired in the mid to late 1980s completely changed the direction of his life.
He became involved in the dissident movement in the mid to late 1980s and as part of that he made frequent train runs to the Baltic countries in order to print publications in Ukrainian that were not sanctioned by the authorities. He was on the organizing committee for the first meeting of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (for reconstruction) RUKH in 1989, and worked in that organization’s secretariat from 1898-1990 in 1992 under the encouragement of Vyacheslav Chornovil he started the Democratic Initiatives center, which later became a Foundation in 1996. Of all the people who would have crossed paths with Ilko in those early years, or those who worked with him or got to know him through the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, be they sociologists, NGO activists, journalists or simply friends, they all knew or quickly came to know one thing. Ilko was a man of conviction and vision and was one of the very few in Ukraine who did not sell out to the politicos in the country. He was tireless, professional and devoted to everything he tackled in order to make the world and his country a better place. In order to do this he used sociology and public opinion. He wanted the people leading the country to know what the people who were following thought, and from 1993 until the very end, he was editor of “Political Portrait of Ukraine” a bulletin that came out as number 37-38 at the end of last year.
Ilko was a pioneer in so many ways. I met him in Kyiv in the spring of 1999 and it was not long before he was asking me as a Canadian and native speaker of the English language to help him go over an funding agreement he had received from a major international donor to finance the Exit Poll his organization was going to conduct during the Presidential elections at the end of October of that year. This was only the second time Ukraine had ever had Exit Polls, the first were organized and conducted by Ilko and his organization during the Parliamentary Elections in 1998. In the international community, the word Exit Poll became synonymous with Ilko Kucheriv.
Ilko was a strong advocate on importing foreign know-how for the cause of improving Ukraine. Over the nearly eleven years that followed I became a good friend of not only Ilko’s but also of his co-workers in acquiring the required resources to carry out his projects and working towards the goals and objectives he had set together with his colleagues. On many occasions, we traveled together as part of his vision of gathering the experiences of Ukraine’s neighboring countries, Slovakia and Poland and partnering with leading organizations in those countries in order to learn from the very best.
Ilko was a man who was serious and had no problems in using unusual methods in order to draw society’s attention to issues that were important to him and to Ukraine. Being a strong advocate of Ukraine becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization he made a statement that caught the country’s eye, well at least it caught the eye of the Ukrainian media. During NATO’s Secretary General Lord Robertson’s one-day visit to Kyiv on October 20, 2003 Ilko presented Robertson with his personal application to become a member of NATO. He clearly had a sense of humor and this was true to the very end of his life.
In March of 2004, Ilko and I were on our way to Bratislava on business. Given NATO by this time had a new Secretary General he said to me as our plane came into to land, “Bill, you have to make out a new application for me to present to the new Secretary General, he will be at a Minster’s conference this week.” I agreed that it was a good idea and would turns heads, and he agreed that we would have to see if would at all be possible. During one of those days in mid March from up on the hill of Bratislava’s Castle Ilko and I planned an exit poll that would be as he dubbed it “a litmus test for democracy in Ukraine”. It was an exit poll in the highly contested mayoral elections in the Transcarpathian town of Mukachevo. A month later Ilko’s “litmus test” proved to be highly acidic and a great deal of what Ilko had foreseen and witnessed, played itself out during the second round of presidential elections in November of 2004. The instrument which Ilko had introduced to Ukraine, the exit poll, laid credence to electoral fraud which led to be what the world knows as the Orange Revolution.
Ilko was well traveled, well spoken and well liked by those who got to know him. While much of his travel abroad, like his projects, was funded by international donor organizations he always tried to find a manner in which he could share his experience with his family: his wife Iryna and daughters Olesia and Bohdanka.
One such journey was when he had obtained a Regan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship and traveled to Washington, DC, as he prepared for his departure he said to me, “I have to make sure that I have my family come and spend some time with me and get to see things.” This attitude of travel did not stop with that trip. As I was preparing for my departure from Ukraine last summer, Ilko was planning a trip for his family through Europe by car. He was an avid driver, after getting his driver’s license late in life and also had to meet with colleagues in Bratislava for a project so he figured, why not make a family trip out of it.
Over the last number of years, I had consulted for Ilko and his organization, and he would often call me up on a Friday and say, “Bill, how about I pick you tomorrow morning. The family is up at the dacha and we can join them. A swim, the fresh air, it will help you think better, and we can put in a few hours of work on the project!”
The average Ukrainian probably never heard of Ilko Kucheriv but anyone who had ever met him, talked with him, asked him for his opinion or advice knew that he was passionate about what he did, and he was passionate for one single reason. He wanted to make Ukraine and the world a better place, not just for himself, but also for everyone.
Two weeks after I had received Ilko’s first little communiqué of thanks, the same headstrong and positive Ilko Kucheriv made announcement via his organization’s website. In it, he stated that he remains optimistic and shared with readers how he had come to know of his condition, his recent trip to Indonesia for a conference that I called beautiful and necessary. That conference was the Sixth Assembly of the World Movement of Democracy and he stated he wanted to share the address of President of Indonesia, the Honorable Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with his Ukrainian colleagues and he would publish the Ukrainian version soon. He closed with: “I feel colossal support from people. They call me and write to me from Ukraine, Europe and the United States…I am thankful to everyone. It is very important to me. None of us knows how much time we have. Unconditionally, there was an overestimation of all values and a personal value of time. I want to use this time in the most effective and thought out way possible. I began to practice yoga like I did in the 1980s before Chornobyl, I go to church, I think about my work and my organization and I believe, believe that people can and should change the world for the better. I remain with you, and I am sincerely thankful. Ilko Kucheriv”.
Upon hearing the news of Ilko’s passing I immediately felt a loss. Incredibly the feeling was one that I can only equate to the loss of my father that same year Ilko completed his university studies over thirty years ago. Those who knew Ilko cried out with one voice that Saturday evening, whether through statements on the support page set up on Facebook, in e-mails or in long, tearful and necessary telephone conversations of mourning.
I, together with everyone else who knew Ilko Kucheiv, will miss him immensely. May the earth of your dear country Ukraine cradle you gently and may your soul and spirit always be nearby to guide those who want the world to be a better place.
Vasyl (Bill) Pawlowsky
Consultant
From DIF’s Website…
Official Announcement
June 1, 2010
A Day of Farwell with well known civic activist Ilko Kucheriv
Program of Events of Morning
10:30 – 11:10 – відспівування, Cultural-Art Center of NaUKMA, 9 Illinska;
11:10 – 12:30 – Community commemorative service, same place панахида,
13:30 – 14:30 – Berkovetsky Cemetery, plot 87 18 Stetsenko Street
15:30 – 17:30 – A lunch of Remembrance, Shovkovhchna 1
[Editor’s Note: Immediately upon learning of the death of Ilko Kucheriv, we called one of his oldest friends and asked that friend, Vasyl Pawlowsky if he would be kind enough to pen an appropriate obituary. We know this was a painful exercise for Vasyl and we appreciate his efforts. Please note that Vasyl has included at the end of the obituary a note regarding funeral arrangements on June 1, 2010.]
By Vasyl Pawlowsky
On May 29, 2010, Ukraine and all those who cared about making the world a better and democratic place lost a good friend, when the life of Ilko Kucheriv, the Director of Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives Foundation, came to an end. It was an end that so many saw coming, while at the same time they all tried, in every way humanly possible, to extend the life of a man, father and friend who had so many plans, for a man who was 55 years young.
On May 15, I received an e-mail from my good friend and colleague Ilko Kucheriv that he dictated to his wife.
“Hello, Bill. Thank you for your caring and troubles. Honestly, this little surprise has substantially changed my life and priorities. I remain a cocksure optimist and am preparing to fight for my life with all my strength."
Two days earlier a friend had called me from Kyiv to inform me that the surprise Ilko referred to was lung cancer a diagnosis he had received at the beginning of the month of May. The troubles Ilko referred to were my effort to rally his friends and acquaintances worldwide to help him in his battle of a lifetime.
The attitude and conviction I felt in his words were one hundred percent Ilko, the Ilko that many in Ukraine’s NGO community had gotten to know over the years.
While Ilko had graduated from Shevchenko University with a degree in biology following in the footsteps of his other family members, the events that transpired in the mid to late 1980s completely changed the direction of his life.
He became involved in the dissident movement in the mid to late 1980s and as part of that he made frequent train runs to the Baltic countries in order to print publications in Ukrainian that were not sanctioned by the authorities. He was on the organizing committee for the first meeting of the People’s Movement of Ukraine (for reconstruction) RUKH in 1989, and worked in that organization’s secretariat from 1898-1990 in 1992 under the encouragement of Vyacheslav Chornovil he started the Democratic Initiatives center, which later became a Foundation in 1996. Of all the people who would have crossed paths with Ilko in those early years, or those who worked with him or got to know him through the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, be they sociologists, NGO activists, journalists or simply friends, they all knew or quickly came to know one thing. Ilko was a man of conviction and vision and was one of the very few in Ukraine who did not sell out to the politicos in the country. He was tireless, professional and devoted to everything he tackled in order to make the world and his country a better place. In order to do this he used sociology and public opinion. He wanted the people leading the country to know what the people who were following thought, and from 1993 until the very end, he was editor of “Political Portrait of Ukraine” a bulletin that came out as number 37-38 at the end of last year.
Ilko was a pioneer in so many ways. I met him in Kyiv in the spring of 1999 and it was not long before he was asking me as a Canadian and native speaker of the English language to help him go over an funding agreement he had received from a major international donor to finance the Exit Poll his organization was going to conduct during the Presidential elections at the end of October of that year. This was only the second time Ukraine had ever had Exit Polls, the first were organized and conducted by Ilko and his organization during the Parliamentary Elections in 1998. In the international community, the word Exit Poll became synonymous with Ilko Kucheriv.
Ilko was a strong advocate on importing foreign know-how for the cause of improving Ukraine. Over the nearly eleven years that followed I became a good friend of not only Ilko’s but also of his co-workers in acquiring the required resources to carry out his projects and working towards the goals and objectives he had set together with his colleagues. On many occasions, we traveled together as part of his vision of gathering the experiences of Ukraine’s neighboring countries, Slovakia and Poland and partnering with leading organizations in those countries in order to learn from the very best.
Ilko was a man who was serious and had no problems in using unusual methods in order to draw society’s attention to issues that were important to him and to Ukraine. Being a strong advocate of Ukraine becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization he made a statement that caught the country’s eye, well at least it caught the eye of the Ukrainian media. During NATO’s Secretary General Lord Robertson’s one-day visit to Kyiv on October 20, 2003 Ilko presented Robertson with his personal application to become a member of NATO. He clearly had a sense of humor and this was true to the very end of his life.
In March of 2004, Ilko and I were on our way to Bratislava on business. Given NATO by this time had a new Secretary General he said to me as our plane came into to land, “Bill, you have to make out a new application for me to present to the new Secretary General, he will be at a Minster’s conference this week.” I agreed that it was a good idea and would turns heads, and he agreed that we would have to see if would at all be possible. During one of those days in mid March from up on the hill of Bratislava’s Castle Ilko and I planned an exit poll that would be as he dubbed it “a litmus test for democracy in Ukraine”. It was an exit poll in the highly contested mayoral elections in the Transcarpathian town of Mukachevo. A month later Ilko’s “litmus test” proved to be highly acidic and a great deal of what Ilko had foreseen and witnessed, played itself out during the second round of presidential elections in November of 2004. The instrument which Ilko had introduced to Ukraine, the exit poll, laid credence to electoral fraud which led to be what the world knows as the Orange Revolution.
Ilko was well traveled, well spoken and well liked by those who got to know him. While much of his travel abroad, like his projects, was funded by international donor organizations he always tried to find a manner in which he could share his experience with his family: his wife Iryna and daughters Olesia and Bohdanka.
One such journey was when he had obtained a Regan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship and traveled to Washington, DC, as he prepared for his departure he said to me, “I have to make sure that I have my family come and spend some time with me and get to see things.” This attitude of travel did not stop with that trip. As I was preparing for my departure from Ukraine last summer, Ilko was planning a trip for his family through Europe by car. He was an avid driver, after getting his driver’s license late in life and also had to meet with colleagues in Bratislava for a project so he figured, why not make a family trip out of it.
Over the last number of years, I had consulted for Ilko and his organization, and he would often call me up on a Friday and say, “Bill, how about I pick you tomorrow morning. The family is up at the dacha and we can join them. A swim, the fresh air, it will help you think better, and we can put in a few hours of work on the project!”
The average Ukrainian probably never heard of Ilko Kucheriv but anyone who had ever met him, talked with him, asked him for his opinion or advice knew that he was passionate about what he did, and he was passionate for one single reason. He wanted to make Ukraine and the world a better place, not just for himself, but also for everyone.
Two weeks after I had received Ilko’s first little communiqué of thanks, the same headstrong and positive Ilko Kucheriv made announcement via his organization’s website. In it, he stated that he remains optimistic and shared with readers how he had come to know of his condition, his recent trip to Indonesia for a conference that I called beautiful and necessary. That conference was the Sixth Assembly of the World Movement of Democracy and he stated he wanted to share the address of President of Indonesia, the Honorable Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with his Ukrainian colleagues and he would publish the Ukrainian version soon. He closed with: “I feel colossal support from people. They call me and write to me from Ukraine, Europe and the United States…I am thankful to everyone. It is very important to me. None of us knows how much time we have. Unconditionally, there was an overestimation of all values and a personal value of time. I want to use this time in the most effective and thought out way possible. I began to practice yoga like I did in the 1980s before Chornobyl, I go to church, I think about my work and my organization and I believe, believe that people can and should change the world for the better. I remain with you, and I am sincerely thankful. Ilko Kucheriv”.
Upon hearing the news of Ilko’s passing I immediately felt a loss. Incredibly the feeling was one that I can only equate to the loss of my father that same year Ilko completed his university studies over thirty years ago. Those who knew Ilko cried out with one voice that Saturday evening, whether through statements on the support page set up on Facebook, in e-mails or in long, tearful and necessary telephone conversations of mourning.
I, together with everyone else who knew Ilko Kucheiv, will miss him immensely. May the earth of your dear country Ukraine cradle you gently and may your soul and spirit always be nearby to guide those who want the world to be a better place.
Vasyl (Bill) Pawlowsky
Consultant
From DIF’s Website…
Official Announcement
June 1, 2010
A Day of Farwell with well known civic activist Ilko Kucheriv
Program of Events of Morning
10:30 – 11:10 – відспівування, Cultural-Art Center of NaUKMA, 9 Illinska;
11:10 – 12:30 – Community commemorative service, same place панахида,
13:30 – 14:30 – Berkovetsky Cemetery, plot 87 18 Stetsenko Street
15:30 – 17:30 – A lunch of Remembrance, Shovkovhchna 1
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The Battle for a lifetime
There is an Irish saying I want to share with you all that really applies in many different situations.
Why I chose this saying, I'm not too sure, but it deals with two topics that should be extremely important to all of us. Though at this time lets concentrate on getting well, and friends.
A few days back I received a phone call from an old room mate of mine in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yes, I know my location on many social networks indicates that I'm still there, but in all honesty in today's world it really doesn't matter where I am physically located. It was almost your typical phone call, with a few exceptions. First, it isn't regular to receive a phone call from a third of the way around the face of our planet unless it is important! Second, when the conversation starts with, “Hi Vasyl, sorry to be bothering you but I have some bad news!” At that moment everything in your world stops for a moment. My room mate was right she was being the bearer of bad news, but I wasn't necessarily the worse possible news I could have gotten on a Wednesday afternoon.
She continued to inform me that a good friend of mine Ilko Kucheriv has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Well, “shit” I thought to myself, and then she said that he has a very positive outlook and attitude. Well there is at least a part that is positive about this bad news, Ilko's attitude. While my room mate couldn't tell me much she told me who she had heard from. I'm glad she called to tell me and I hope that my contribution over the next little while will help my friend in the battle for his life.
Ilko has been an activist in Ukraine since the days before Ukraine's independence and is Director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation. As long as I have known him he has always tried to be a little more progressive than other leaders in his community, and always tackles projects which are important in the further development of his country. Ilko and I go back quite a few years, about twelve, but working the way we did together it often seems that it was a lot longer than those twelve years. The events in Ukraine that I experienced visiting through the 1990s and then being on ground from the spring of 1999 until the autumn of last year was really the equivalent to a life time for many, and many of those experiences I lived through with Ilko. Damn, he and I even stated that the elections in Mukachevo in April of 2004 were the litmus test for democracy in Ukraine, and this was while we were at a conference in Bratislava in March of that year..
I a was a consultant for his organization for nearly that entire time I was in Ukraine. He and I traveled both inside and outside of Ukraine together and often we had working weekends at it his cottage and I got to know his family. So there is good reason I want to help him in any way I can.
While from one aspect this entry is a lot off topic for my blog, but on the other hand it's not. Such struggles also make up the notes on the page of each of our lives... So by that token the entry is bang on. But first let me explain why I am writing this in my blog and why I feel that I have to do my part in letting all of Ilko's friend's know about, as he put it to me in an e-mail he dictated to his wife for me, “a change in my life's priorities for the time being.” And I am now sharing with you all what I shared with Ilko and his wife because maybe then some of you who read this will better understand what is going on, and why I am dealing with this issue in my life, the potential terminal illness of a good friend, the way I am.
Back in 1990, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, I visited Ukraine on invitation of the Student Brotherhood organization of the the city of L'viv. A year earlier I had met Andriy Vynnychuk from that organization on his first visit to Canada. In short Andriy Vynnychuk and I became good friends, and after my visit to Ukraine, Andriy once again visited Canada with another great friend Orest Vasyltsiv. During their visit we met with many University Student Unions in Canada, after attending the SUSK Congress in Saskatoon in 2001.
When Ukraine became independent, Vyacheslav Bryukhovetskiy's dream of re-opening the Kyiv Mohyla Academy became a reality, Andriy enrolled there instead of continuing in physics, which he had graduated from at the Ivan Franko Universty in L'viv. I can recall very well about when I heard about that decision of Andriy's. This was from another good friend who was on a stop over on his way to Edmonton for his Masters, told me how Andriy had gotten into a Masters program in physics, but he had also been accepted into Mohyla. That friend is now Ukraine's Ambassador to Finland. Andriy went on to enrol in the re-established educational institution with a rich history. There he met his wife, they were married and then when he was studying Prague illness struck. Sometime during Andriy's last semester in Prague, Vyacheslav Bryukhovetsky was in Montreal and he told me that Andriy was extremely sick. A few months passed and a friend of mine from Montreal said they saw Andriy in L'viv when he was there and didn't recognize him, in mid July when I arrived in Kyiv friends said to me, “Vasyliu, sit down. I was at Andriy's funeral last week!” During that whole period when he was sick, friends he had around the world felt helpless, I was one of them and my appeal through different forums and listservs was one of anguish that we could do nothing to help him, the diagnosis came extremely late in the progress of his illness. Though Andriy is not forgotten my the school he so dearly wanted to graduate from, and now there is a grant for students in Andriy's memory “for the activity in the organization of student self government”. That was 1996, Ukraine and the world is wired extremely differently now.
So having had this experience this, I could not at all just sit around and do nothing, and I am glad to see that there are other friends of his who are doing their part. When I awoke on Thursday morning I had an invitation to join the HELP ILKO page on Facebook, with an short while later I was notified that help_ilko was following me on Twitter. So social networking being what it is, I invited all my friends to that group, well at least all my friends who could read the Ukrainian. And then the letter writing campaign started, on Friday. So far the response has been good, but this is going to be a long and expensive battle, and I am going to help out as much as I can.
The meds doctors are using on my friend are traditional chemo:
Even though you may read elsewhere that such a product should not be prescribed to men, from what I can understand the last of these products is being used to deal with the metastasis of the bone of his spine. But hey I'm no doctor... but just using a little logic.
None of these meds are cheap by any standards, and probably more expensive in Ukraine than elsewhere, because everyone from the Minister of Health to the doctors who have prescribed the meds want their cut.
I the days that follow I will probably be blogging here about the change in priorities in the life of a good friend. I hope that anyone who reads this can help out as much as their finances allow.
I on the other hand... will be doing my part in many different ways. I am sure some of you who read this will hear from me soon.
”There are only two things to worry about, either you are healthy or you are sick. If you are healthy, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you are sick there are only two things to worry about, either you will get well or you will die. If you get well, then there is nothing to worry about. But if you die there are only two things to worry about, either you will go to heaven or to hell. If you go to heaven, then there is nothing to worry about. And if you to go hell, you'll be so darn busy shaking hands with your friends you won't have time to worry!
Why I chose this saying, I'm not too sure, but it deals with two topics that should be extremely important to all of us. Though at this time lets concentrate on getting well, and friends.
A few days back I received a phone call from an old room mate of mine in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yes, I know my location on many social networks indicates that I'm still there, but in all honesty in today's world it really doesn't matter where I am physically located. It was almost your typical phone call, with a few exceptions. First, it isn't regular to receive a phone call from a third of the way around the face of our planet unless it is important! Second, when the conversation starts with, “Hi Vasyl, sorry to be bothering you but I have some bad news!” At that moment everything in your world stops for a moment. My room mate was right she was being the bearer of bad news, but I wasn't necessarily the worse possible news I could have gotten on a Wednesday afternoon.
She continued to inform me that a good friend of mine Ilko Kucheriv has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Well, “shit” I thought to myself, and then she said that he has a very positive outlook and attitude. Well there is at least a part that is positive about this bad news, Ilko's attitude. While my room mate couldn't tell me much she told me who she had heard from. I'm glad she called to tell me and I hope that my contribution over the next little while will help my friend in the battle for his life.
Ilko has been an activist in Ukraine since the days before Ukraine's independence and is Director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation. As long as I have known him he has always tried to be a little more progressive than other leaders in his community, and always tackles projects which are important in the further development of his country. Ilko and I go back quite a few years, about twelve, but working the way we did together it often seems that it was a lot longer than those twelve years. The events in Ukraine that I experienced visiting through the 1990s and then being on ground from the spring of 1999 until the autumn of last year was really the equivalent to a life time for many, and many of those experiences I lived through with Ilko. Damn, he and I even stated that the elections in Mukachevo in April of 2004 were the litmus test for democracy in Ukraine, and this was while we were at a conference in Bratislava in March of that year..
I a was a consultant for his organization for nearly that entire time I was in Ukraine. He and I traveled both inside and outside of Ukraine together and often we had working weekends at it his cottage and I got to know his family. So there is good reason I want to help him in any way I can.
While from one aspect this entry is a lot off topic for my blog, but on the other hand it's not. Such struggles also make up the notes on the page of each of our lives... So by that token the entry is bang on. But first let me explain why I am writing this in my blog and why I feel that I have to do my part in letting all of Ilko's friend's know about, as he put it to me in an e-mail he dictated to his wife for me, “a change in my life's priorities for the time being.” And I am now sharing with you all what I shared with Ilko and his wife because maybe then some of you who read this will better understand what is going on, and why I am dealing with this issue in my life, the potential terminal illness of a good friend, the way I am.
Back in 1990, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, I visited Ukraine on invitation of the Student Brotherhood organization of the the city of L'viv. A year earlier I had met Andriy Vynnychuk from that organization on his first visit to Canada. In short Andriy Vynnychuk and I became good friends, and after my visit to Ukraine, Andriy once again visited Canada with another great friend Orest Vasyltsiv. During their visit we met with many University Student Unions in Canada, after attending the SUSK Congress in Saskatoon in 2001.
When Ukraine became independent, Vyacheslav Bryukhovetskiy's dream of re-opening the Kyiv Mohyla Academy became a reality, Andriy enrolled there instead of continuing in physics, which he had graduated from at the Ivan Franko Universty in L'viv. I can recall very well about when I heard about that decision of Andriy's. This was from another good friend who was on a stop over on his way to Edmonton for his Masters, told me how Andriy had gotten into a Masters program in physics, but he had also been accepted into Mohyla. That friend is now Ukraine's Ambassador to Finland. Andriy went on to enrol in the re-established educational institution with a rich history. There he met his wife, they were married and then when he was studying Prague illness struck. Sometime during Andriy's last semester in Prague, Vyacheslav Bryukhovetsky was in Montreal and he told me that Andriy was extremely sick. A few months passed and a friend of mine from Montreal said they saw Andriy in L'viv when he was there and didn't recognize him, in mid July when I arrived in Kyiv friends said to me, “Vasyliu, sit down. I was at Andriy's funeral last week!” During that whole period when he was sick, friends he had around the world felt helpless, I was one of them and my appeal through different forums and listservs was one of anguish that we could do nothing to help him, the diagnosis came extremely late in the progress of his illness. Though Andriy is not forgotten my the school he so dearly wanted to graduate from, and now there is a grant for students in Andriy's memory “for the activity in the organization of student self government”. That was 1996, Ukraine and the world is wired extremely differently now.
So having had this experience this, I could not at all just sit around and do nothing, and I am glad to see that there are other friends of his who are doing their part. When I awoke on Thursday morning I had an invitation to join the HELP ILKO page on Facebook, with an short while later I was notified that help_ilko was following me on Twitter. So social networking being what it is, I invited all my friends to that group, well at least all my friends who could read the Ukrainian. And then the letter writing campaign started, on Friday. So far the response has been good, but this is going to be a long and expensive battle, and I am going to help out as much as I can.
The meds doctors are using on my friend are traditional chemo:
Even though you may read elsewhere that such a product should not be prescribed to men, from what I can understand the last of these products is being used to deal with the metastasis of the bone of his spine. But hey I'm no doctor... but just using a little logic.
None of these meds are cheap by any standards, and probably more expensive in Ukraine than elsewhere, because everyone from the Minister of Health to the doctors who have prescribed the meds want their cut.
I the days that follow I will probably be blogging here about the change in priorities in the life of a good friend. I hope that anyone who reads this can help out as much as their finances allow.
I on the other hand... will be doing my part in many different ways. I am sure some of you who read this will hear from me soon.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A New Revolution
Yesterday I was sitting in on a meeting between the Director of Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Vakhtang Kipiani, a leading Ukrainian journalist and probably an individual with the largest personal collection of Ukrainian Samvydav in the world. We were discussing a project that relates to the changes that started to take place during perebudova but also the fact that Russia likes to write its own history and that it is time that Ukrainians be more active in this area.
Just to give this a little bit of a musical twist, back at that time there was a group from L'viv called Opal'niy Prince, one of their songs was called Nova Revolutsiya, which recalls the events the fall of the Berlin Wall, the deposition of Nicolae Ceauşescu. In that song there are lines such as:
When I get a chance to transcribe the whole song I will make it available.
During that meeting I discovered some very interesting facts that I would like to share with you all.
Twenty years ago there was a conference held in the mountains between Poland and Czechoslovakia it came to be known as the Wroclaw conference and was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy - It is known that V. Havel said that this conference was an encouraging factor for him personally and a stimulus for the Velvet Revolution. In October of this year NED will be sponsoring a conference to be held in L'viv which looks back at those historic times, there is something about that in the above link to NED.
Tommorow, DIF will be holding the first event that relates back to the period when Ukraine was awakening as it had seen what was transpiring in its neighbouring countries. Actually I personally looking forward to this event and to see Bohdan Horyn. I will digress for a moment so that you all will understand why this is something personal to me. On July 1, 1990 I made my first trip to Ukraine (still part of the USSR). Prior to my departure from Montreal Roman Serbyn had given me a letter which he wanted me to personally hand to Bohdan Horyn. In the mid-afternoon of July 1 together with students from Studentske Bratstvo of L'viv and the other five Canadian students who were traveling with me, we were wandering through Mariinsky Park and Demian one of the Ukrainian students said to me, "There's Bohdan Horyn sitting on that bench, you said you had a letter to give him, now is your chance!" So we approached Bohdan Horyn and our new friend Demian introduced us and the first thing I did was to kindly hand Bohdan Horyn the letter from Roman Serbyn. Mission accomplished. Bohdan Horyn asked each of us in turn where we were from, when he finally got to me an I told him that I was from Montreal... he paused for a moment and asked, "Do you know Roman Serbyn from Montreal?" I chuckled and reminded him that the letter I had just handed him was from Roman Serbyn. Like a young child he raised his hands and waved them around and said, "Jakiy tisniy svit!" [What a small world!] Over the next three days in Kyiv... There wasn't a place that we didn't go that we would not run into Bohdan Horyn.
I hopefully video interview him as well as others at the event tomorrow... and get that up on UkeTube ASAP.
Now given I have mentioned that we have to write our own history the request below relates to this, and I would like your assistance if possible. At the current time there is an initiative group working on setting up an internet exhibit which focuses on the role of civic activism in Ukraine and by Ukrainians abroad during the period from the time of President Ronald Reagan's Brandenburg speech on June 12,
1987 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A] until Ukraine's referendum on independence on December 1, 1991.
The group is made up of Tovarystvo Leva in L'viv with support from NED, Democratic Initiatives Foundation in Kyiv whom I have consulted for over the last ten years, and well known journalist and collector of samvydav, Vakhtang Kipiani and myself to a lesser degree.
Now you ask? What it is I'm looking for you all, and from our community in general. Either you or your friends and others who were actively involved in the Ukrainian-Canadian community may have in your personal collections press clippings, photographs, video from demonstrations, marches, talks by dissidents or other such events that took place during this period, in Canada.
For a start from this side of the big pond, I would just like to let you know that I saw some incredible material related to samvydav here in Kyiv. Hundreds of foil plates which were used to print pro-Ukrainian and anti-Soviet materials which activists from throughout Ukraine would transport to Vilnius, Lithuania where this material was most often printed. These are being scanned and enhanced for the exhibition.
For example, I clearly know that members of SUSK were involved in events on January 22, 1989 at the time that the Live Chain from L'viv to Kharkiv was formed by members of Rukh on that day. In Montreal a candle light vigil was held near the Roddick Gates at McGill with a procession to the Soviet Consulate a few blocks away. Natalia Olynec(originally from New York, studied at McGill now lives in Singapore) was on the front cover of The Montreal Gazette holding a candle at that event and there was a write up. In Ottawa a similar event was held on Parliament Hill and I recall that a good friend Wolodymyr Barabash(originally from Edmonton, father was a photographer, met him in Ottawa) and others made the front page of The Ottawa Citizen. What we are looking for are high quality scans of such materials, these are just the items that come to mind at the current moment. I am sure there plenty of other events which we can collectively think of which we as Canadians can contribute to this exhibition. I also remember a talk that Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky did at McGill sometime in the late 1980s and he probably spoke at a number of different locations in Canada, this was shortly after the formation of Rukh.
We must remember that Ukraine's youth, those under 18 years of age have grown up in an Independent nation, and while they receive Ukrainian history as part of their curriculum, I am certain that they are not aware of the true role that individuals and groups of individuals in Ukraine and abroad played.
I am sure that a number of you have personal collections, and I am certain that those of you who were involved at various levels in your communities must have such materials. The organizers and myself would greatly appreciate your contributions. If you can scan such materials at high-resolution, and with each piece include:
If you have video and you can digitize it let us know and we will figure out a method in which this can be also made part of the exhibition, possibly later as a multimedia product.
In the very near future I will know exactly where to send such materials for this online exhibit.
Just to give this a little bit of a musical twist, back at that time there was a group from L'viv called Opal'niy Prince, one of their songs was called Nova Revolutsiya, which recalls the events the fall of the Berlin Wall, the deposition of Nicolae Ceauşescu. In that song there are lines such as:
Зрушена в Берлині Флойдова Стіна...
Чауческу мертвий Румунія вперед!...
When I get a chance to transcribe the whole song I will make it available.
During that meeting I discovered some very interesting facts that I would like to share with you all.
Twenty years ago there was a conference held in the mountains between Poland and Czechoslovakia it came to be known as the Wroclaw conference and was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy - It is known that V. Havel said that this conference was an encouraging factor for him personally and a stimulus for the Velvet Revolution. In October of this year NED will be sponsoring a conference to be held in L'viv which looks back at those historic times, there is something about that in the above link to NED.
Tommorow, DIF will be holding the first event that relates back to the period when Ukraine was awakening as it had seen what was transpiring in its neighbouring countries. Actually I personally looking forward to this event and to see Bohdan Horyn. I will digress for a moment so that you all will understand why this is something personal to me. On July 1, 1990 I made my first trip to Ukraine (still part of the USSR). Prior to my departure from Montreal Roman Serbyn had given me a letter which he wanted me to personally hand to Bohdan Horyn. In the mid-afternoon of July 1 together with students from Studentske Bratstvo of L'viv and the other five Canadian students who were traveling with me, we were wandering through Mariinsky Park and Demian one of the Ukrainian students said to me, "There's Bohdan Horyn sitting on that bench, you said you had a letter to give him, now is your chance!" So we approached Bohdan Horyn and our new friend Demian introduced us and the first thing I did was to kindly hand Bohdan Horyn the letter from Roman Serbyn. Mission accomplished. Bohdan Horyn asked each of us in turn where we were from, when he finally got to me an I told him that I was from Montreal... he paused for a moment and asked, "Do you know Roman Serbyn from Montreal?" I chuckled and reminded him that the letter I had just handed him was from Roman Serbyn. Like a young child he raised his hands and waved them around and said, "Jakiy tisniy svit!" [What a small world!] Over the next three days in Kyiv... There wasn't a place that we didn't go that we would not run into Bohdan Horyn.
I hopefully video interview him as well as others at the event tomorrow... and get that up on UkeTube ASAP.
Now given I have mentioned that we have to write our own history the request below relates to this, and I would like your assistance if possible. At the current time there is an initiative group working on setting up an internet exhibit which focuses on the role of civic activism in Ukraine and by Ukrainians abroad during the period from the time of President Ronald Reagan's Brandenburg speech on June 12,
1987 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A] until Ukraine's referendum on independence on December 1, 1991.
The group is made up of Tovarystvo Leva in L'viv with support from NED, Democratic Initiatives Foundation in Kyiv whom I have consulted for over the last ten years, and well known journalist and collector of samvydav, Vakhtang Kipiani and myself to a lesser degree.
Now you ask? What it is I'm looking for you all, and from our community in general. Either you or your friends and others who were actively involved in the Ukrainian-Canadian community may have in your personal collections press clippings, photographs, video from demonstrations, marches, talks by dissidents or other such events that took place during this period, in Canada.
For a start from this side of the big pond, I would just like to let you know that I saw some incredible material related to samvydav here in Kyiv. Hundreds of foil plates which were used to print pro-Ukrainian and anti-Soviet materials which activists from throughout Ukraine would transport to Vilnius, Lithuania where this material was most often printed. These are being scanned and enhanced for the exhibition.
For example, I clearly know that members of SUSK were involved in events on January 22, 1989 at the time that the Live Chain from L'viv to Kharkiv was formed by members of Rukh on that day. In Montreal a candle light vigil was held near the Roddick Gates at McGill with a procession to the Soviet Consulate a few blocks away. Natalia Olynec(originally from New York, studied at McGill now lives in Singapore) was on the front cover of The Montreal Gazette holding a candle at that event and there was a write up. In Ottawa a similar event was held on Parliament Hill and I recall that a good friend Wolodymyr Barabash(originally from Edmonton, father was a photographer, met him in Ottawa) and others made the front page of The Ottawa Citizen. What we are looking for are high quality scans of such materials, these are just the items that come to mind at the current moment. I am sure there plenty of other events which we can collectively think of which we as Canadians can contribute to this exhibition. I also remember a talk that Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky did at McGill sometime in the late 1980s and he probably spoke at a number of different locations in Canada, this was shortly after the formation of Rukh.
We must remember that Ukraine's youth, those under 18 years of age have grown up in an Independent nation, and while they receive Ukrainian history as part of their curriculum, I am certain that they are not aware of the true role that individuals and groups of individuals in Ukraine and abroad played.
I am sure that a number of you have personal collections, and I am certain that those of you who were involved at various levels in your communities must have such materials. The organizers and myself would greatly appreciate your contributions. If you can scan such materials at high-resolution, and with each piece include:
- The event
- The Date
- The location
- In the case of photographs from personal collections your first and last name.
If you have video and you can digitize it let us know and we will figure out a method in which this can be also made part of the exhibition, possibly later as a multimedia product.
In the very near future I will know exactly where to send such materials for this online exhibit.
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