Skip to content
Call Us Today! 212-533-4646 | MON-FRI 12PM - 4PM (EST)
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
Search for:
About Us
UNWLA 100
Publications
FAQ
Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2021
Initiatives
Advocate
Educate
Cultivate
Care
News
Newsletters
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Join UNWLA
Become a Member
Volunteer With Us
Donate to UNWLA
Members Portal
Calendar
Shop to Support Ukraine
Search for:
Print
Print Page
Download
Download Page
Download Right Page
Open
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
16-17
18-19
20-21
22-23
24-25
26-27
28-29
30-31
32-33
34-35
36-37
38-39
40
22 “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЖОВТЕНЬ 2009 earned him no credits, and being subtly pre ssured to find himself a Ukrainian girl. . . . those stories of heroic battles . . . struggles amid deprivation . . . somehow demanded similar achieve ments from him per sonally. Nobody actually said this to him. It was just the legacy of growing up ethnic . And every day that he shirked this undefined obliga tion only added to the guilt he now felt (pp. 20 – 21). Here, as in the prologue, there are things that briefly detract from the story: Mr. Petriw’s ambivalent use of the causal “dad” and the formal “fath er” and the one - volume Kobzar being de scribed as “the collection of Shevchenko’s poetry.” But one maneuvers past these and other speed bumps and drives on, drawn into the story by a letter from the past that compels young Yarko to visit Ukraine in pursuit of a mysterious family treasure . Part II of the book is set in Lviv , and Yarko’s first impressions of the ancestral homeland are entertaining as well as insightful. Ukraine, he quips at one point, is “like Alice in Wonderland . . . everything is not quite as it seems . ” He enjoys the local beer and admires a statue of a scalp - locked Ivan Pidkova , dubbing the Kozak hero “Johhny Horseshoe . ” But the sightseeing is peripheral, and our hero is determined to locate and retrieve the long - lost family treasure. Clim bing onto the mountain bike he has brought from Vancouver and is now using to get around Lviv, he quotes Sviatoslav the Conqueror: “Idu na Vy!” But w hile this is philologically correct, the reader pauses to wonder why the author didn’t use the more familia r variant — “Idu na Vas .” The pages begin to turn more quickly as we begin to see signs of the promised Romancing the Stone and Indiana Jones . A stranger in a strange land, our hero embarks on a series of some times improbable but nonetheless riveting adventu res , and you want to read on t o learn what happens next. The characters Yarko encounters include a sexy blonde bombshell, a mysterious priest with a cell phone, and a policeman who is a member of a secret organization that has arisen to combat the forces t hat have prevented “independent” Ukraine from breaking free of Moscow’s sphere of influence. Here the tale is liberally punctuated with the name s of Ukraine’s modern - day martyrs , puppets, power - brokers, and rising stars. And it is t his section of the book that confirms for the reader that “Yaroslaw’s t reasure” is a double entendre — the family treasure is intertwined with a far greater treasure that is, in turn, intertwined with th e fate of contemporary Ukraine. Part III , which begins in Kyiv on the eve of th e presidential elections and reaches a dramatic climax during the events surrounding the Orange Revolution, b rings new political intrigue and coincides with Operation Slava, a plan to unearth the great treasure that has been hidden from sight since the Mon gol invasion of 1240. Here, a new range of characters come into play: would be kingmakers, a shadowy figure known as The Saint, patriotic miners from Donbas , international election observers, archeologists, Russian commandos, bishops, and someone who may o r may not be an agent of Israel’s Mossad. A romance blossoms; a tunnel is excavated under the Hotel Dnipro; Yushch e nko announc es his intentions to enter the presidential race . From his window in the hotel, Yarko watches the ensuing political rally, “tens of thousands of people all waving orange or wearing orange or holding something orange . . . If it was ever possible to have a clean - cut, idealistic, drug - free Woodstock, then this was it” (pp. 141 – 142). T he plot accelerates as the forces of good are beset by a series of calamitous events and are threatened by denizens of the dark side that want neither Ukraine nor Operation Slava to succeed. Abductions, explosions, and shoot - outs take the reader on a wild and exciting ride. Yushchenko is poisoned, the elec tion fiasco unfolds, the Orange Revolution makes the world watch and wonder. But to tell more is to give away too much of the plo t and spoil the journey for other readers. A brief epilogue wraps up loose ends and conjectures, simultaneously hinting that th e story has yet to be finished and that the country in which most of the action has taken place has yet to find its own conclusions and resolutions. At the end of the book is a biographical note about the author, followed by a Q & A interview that is illu minating in and of itself. Here we learn the author’s motivation for writing Yaroslaw’s Treasure — the realization that there was “a vacuum just begging to be filled” — as well as details that explain the whys and wherefores of certain nuances that so nicely e mbellish the story. Happy reading. — TSC. Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
Page load link
Go to Top
1 
2-3 
4-5 
6-7 
8-9 
10-11 
12-13 
14-15 
16-17 
18-19 
20-21 
22-23 
24-25 
26-27 
28-29 
30-31 
32-33 
34-35 
36-37 
38-39 
40 
