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8 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ВЕРЕСЕНЬ 2016 Finding Franko Not long after the summer issue of Our Life went to press, I got a phone call from editor in chief Lidia Slysh who suggested the September issue should include materials marking anniversaries of two Ukrainian luminaries: historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1866–1934) and poet, writer, politi- cal leader Ivan Franko (1856–1916). As this year marks the 150th anniversary of Hrushevsky’s birth and the 100th anniversary of Franko’s death, I agreed that her suggestion was a good one and set about on some preliminary research about the two men and some cogitation on how to address the topic at hand. The process was evolutionary, beginning with my own vague recollections of things learned in Saturday Ukrainian school. This was followed by a diligent reading of entries on each of the men in the multivolume Encyclopedia of Ukraine edited by Volodymyr Kubijovyc and published in 1988 by the University of Toronto Press—a daunting task that left me feeling somewhat overwhelmed and groping for a way to digest and condense the mas- sive amount of information into something ration- al and readable. My next source was Orest Subtel- ny’s Ukraine: A History (also published in 1988 by the University of Toronto Press), whose style and substance were somewhat easier to digest but re- quired much tedious flipping back and forth be- tween the index and referenced pages to find rele- vant content about Hrushevsky and Franko, espe- cially information about how and when their paths crossed and their lives intersected. Next came Clarence Manning’s Twentieth- Century Ukraine , a 234-page volume published by Bookman Associates, N.Y., in 1951. A stamped notation on one of the opening pages indicates that the book was once owned by St. Basil Acad- emy Library. I’m not sure how it came into my possession and fervently hope that I don’t owe a massive fine to the good Sisters of St. Basil for failing to return a book I may have borrowed sev- eral decades ago when I taught English at the aforementioned academy. And then I came across a another book, a collection of Franko’s poems translated into English by Percival Manning and edited by the aforementioned Clarence Manning. Published in 1948 by F. Hubner & Co., Inc., the book still has its original dust jacket, showing the cost was $4.50. And it was this book that sealed my fate on the subject: I called Lidia Slysh and suggested we split the assignment. She agreed to write about Hrushevsky in Ukrainian; I would deal with Franko in English. Having made this pact, I delved deeper in- to the subject of Franko by browsing through my basement, where I discovered a blue hard-backed copy of his Lys Mykyta . The book I found (pub- lished in NYC in 1957 by an outfit called Tova- rystvo Knyhospilka) made me remember the black and orange cover of the paperback edition from my childhood and the happy hours spent listening as my father read to me about the adven- tures of Lys Mykyta and the animals he torment- ed, hoodwinked, or allied himself with. On the same shelf I discovered a tattered paperback edi- tion of Abu Kasymovi Kaptsi , a discovery that made me laugh at the recalcitrant brat (me, my- self, and I) who had claimed ownership of the book by attacking every illustration in it with a Crayola crayon. Still in the basement, I decided to see what I could find about Franko in the archives of Our Life . I have shelves and shelves of old issues dating back to the 1950s. Flipping through several year-end indexes, I found two excellent items: one from 1966 and another from 2006. The first was written by Lydia Burachynska, the indomitable woman who served the UNWLA as president and editor-in-chief of Our Life . The second was an article describing a commemorative program honoring Franko, which was hosted by UNWLA Branch 54 in 2006. The article was penned by the late Sophia Sluzar, a friend and colleague I liked and admired, who left us too soon when she passed away in 2013. Excerpts from both articles cited here follow. My search for the substance and spirit of Franko continued with memories of my father laughing at and sharing with me selections from Lys Mykyta , the satirical magazine edited and illustrated by E. Kozak. I also reminisced about visiting Franko’s gravesite in Lviv, the statue that stands at the entranceway of the university named in his honor, the bas relief portrait embossed on one of the city’s corner buildings, and the song about Lviv created by Viktor Morozov of Ne Zhur- ys, a song that includes a reference to “Frankove cholo” (Franko’s forehead) and always makes me think of that bas relief portrait. Oh yeah . . . before sitting down to write this morning, I deliberately donned a favorite T-shirt that I bought years ago at some Ukrainian festival. Created by someone or something named Koolzak Grafiks, it features a haughty, pipe- smoking Lys Mykyta flanked by inch-high sketch- es of assorted animals that populate the story- poem; Franko’s name (in Ukrainian) hovers above Lys Mykyta’s head. — tsc
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