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ford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. She is the author of Sale of a Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution (2000), which details Russia’s journey from com munism to capitalism. She has been recognized by her peers for her work as a journalist and honored for her leadership skills by the World Economic Forum. A Canadian citizen, Ms. Freeland currently lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters. Introduced by Marianna Zajac (who had invited her to speak at the convention), Chrystia Freeland spoke on “What It Means To Be Ukrainian in a Post-Independence Diaspora.” Her presentation began with autobiographical anecdotes, which served as a backdrop for a career path that took her from her childhood home in Alberta, Canada, to distant comers of the world as her career as a journalist evolved. Freeland is the daughter of a mother who was Ukrainian and a father who was not, but was nonetheless committed to (though sometimes awed by) her mother’s decision to raise Chrystia and her sister as Ukrainians in a Ukrainian home. She laughingly recalled an early childhood conversation with her father, during which she proclaimed that Rudyard Kipling was Ukrainian—a belief she espoused because she first read Kipling’s stories in Ukrainian translation. Like her mother, Chrystia married a man who was not of Ukrainian descent and has chosen to follow her mother’s lead—her own children are being raised as she was, albeit in a world where bilingualism has come into its own and is now viewed as an asset rather than as something once viewed as a sometimes cumbersome ethnic oddity. Freeland then briefly described her experi ences at Harvard University. Living in Alberta, which has a population that is 20 percent Ukrainian, she explained, had given her a rather sheltered notion of what it meant to be Ukrainian, and she was somewhat surprised at how Ukraine and Ukrainians were perceived in the United States and particularly at Harvard. She recalled a professor lecturing about medieval Ukraine as the “predeces sor of a Russian state.” Responding to her query about whether this historical epoch should also be studied as a Ukrainian state, he commented “Your last name will be a most useful thing if you choose to pursue this course of study at Harvard.” It was this response and similar experiences, she noted, that underscored for her the difficult status of diaspora Ukrainians in the United States, whether one was dealing with academicians or politicians— she reminded those present about President George H. Bush’s “Chicken Kiev” speech in which he opined that no change for Ukraine was possible or warranted. “But my grandparents and parents,” she continued, “were right, and the pundits and my Harvard professors were wrong.” Today, Freeland explained, she is raising her daughters, Natalka and Halynka, the way her mother raised her and her sister. Both girls attend Ukrainian school and claim to like it better than American school “because the music is better.” And yet, she continued, “I ask myself why we are doing this. What kind of Ukrainian upbringing can I give them so far removed from Ukraine?” Especially today, she noted, an independent Ukraine is some times foreign to us. The language, the historical experience, the difference in social and economic order . . . “we were raised one way and we see that the Ukraine we ‘know’ isn’t there.” She noted as well that the interwar memories of those who emi grated from Ukraine are memories that no longer apply. What they remember, she stated, doesn’t exist. The reality, she continued is quite different. Ukrainians today navigate between Ukrainian and Russian just as we do between Ukrainian and English. In fact, she pointed out, it was only after she learned to speak Russian fluently that she began to feel more comfortable in Ukraine. She then mentioned a recent interview she had conducted with Yulia Tymoshenko, “especially about this language issue,” pointing out that Tymoshenko herself “began to speak Ukrainian only three months after being elected.” With all of this in mind Freeland observed, diaspora Ukrainians should give themselves a lot of credit because they have worked to preserve something that has been sorely abused and neglected in Ukraine itself—the Ukrainian language. This is, according to Freeland, a gift that we can give Ukrainians in Ukraine. She has done so herself by writing out the words of Ukraine’s national anthem for students in Ukraine who did not know them. Others do so by giving students copies of Orest Subtelny’s history of Ukraine or by hosting them in the West, and so on. All of this, she ex plained, is a way to help a young nation evolve and establish its identity. Moreover, she continued,
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