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12 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 2017 By the time you receive this issue of Our Life , the registration deadline for participation in the XXXI Convention of the UNWLA will have passed (March 1, 2017). We sincerely hope that we will be greeting many of you—delegates, members, and OL readers to this exciting event. Our branches’ work since the 2014 UNWLA Convention has been intense, and the focus on Ukraine has been very productive as past issues of OL and reports in our Convention book illustrate. Together we’ve lived through the ups and downs of the evolving events in Ukraine since 2014, urging our government rep- resentatives to support Ukraine’s efforts toward democracy, providing humanitarian support to the wounded and the families of the fallen, all while continuing with our organization’s mission here in the United States. The chosen XXXI Convention slogan is “Our membership—our strength!” This slogan identifies the foundation and reason for our joint successes of the past 3 years but also points out possibilities for the future. Each of our members offers her own talents to our joint effort, and it is because of these individual diverse talents and generous hearts that our achievements have been so broad, so meaningful. On page 34 of the convention book of UN- WLA’s 3 rd Convention held 80 years ago in 1937, we find a statement issued by the National Board: “Members of the UNWLA should, at every oppor- tunity, propagate information about our organiza- tion across these United States. There should not be one Ukrainian community without a branch of the UNWLA!” An ambitious statement but a lofty and very attainable, goal! Each UNWLA Conven- tion offers a tangible view of what a union of women of Ukrainian descent “looks like,” the en- ergy it exudes, and its possibilities! It was a pleasure to witness the impressive talent of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (NSOU) at one of its concerts as part of a 40-venue 2017 tour of the United States. My hus- band and I attended the concert in Troy, New York, on February 16. The NSOU has a long and remark- able history since its founding in 1918. As the NSOU website notes: “On the 28th of November 1918, the newspaper ‘Derzhavny Visnyk’ published the Decree of the Council of Ministers of Ukraine about the creation of the Public Symphonic Or- chestra named after M. Lysenko. One of the first concerts of the orchestra in December 1918 was dedicated to the works of M. Lysenko . . . sym- phonic fragments from his opera Taras Bulba . . . orchestral work was highly commended by the mu- sical critics.” Fittingly, the grand finale of the Troy con- cert was a piece from Taras Bulba. Ukrainians in the audience were overwhelmed with pride and demonstrated this with standing ovations. The Times Union newspaper echoed this sentiment with glowing reviews. The very next day we attended a presenta- tion at Vassar College. Entitled “The Tragedy of Ukraine,” the program was hosted by the Vassar’s Department of Russian Studies and featured a pro- fessor from the University of Rhode Island, an ac- ademic “specializing in Russian and Ukrainian af- fairs.” Sadly, the presentation was completely bi- ased as the speaker laid out a theory that Russia is being entirely misunderstood and was and is not involved in any of Ukraine’s current problems (which he, moreover, identified as being self-in- flicted). He placed no responsibility on the Rus- sians for the war in Donbas and asserted that the dissatisfaction of the residents of eastern Ukraine had preceded the events at Kyiv’s Maidan. Avoid- ing the term “separatist” altogether, he also con- tended that the forces in eastern Ukraine are Ukrainians “rebelling,” and he entirely ignored the forcible takeover of Crimea, concluding that this usurpation of Ukrainian territory was “the will of the people.” Voicing other blatant “inaccuracies,” the professor denied that Putin viewed the collapse of the Russian empire as “the greatest geopolitical ca- tastrophe of the century” and that Putin had iden- tified eastern Ukraine as “Novorossiya.” Yet both comments had been clearly reported in the Ameri- can press. The speaker also claimed that Ukraine is the party at fault for not abiding by the Minsk agreement. He was reluctant to address any of our questions and seemed somewhat disturbed by our presence. This single event raises a question: How much distorted disinformation about Ukraine and Ukrainians is being presented to students across this country? Addressing such disinformation con- tinues to be one of the UNWLA’s important assign- ments. Please be vigilant, and do not stay silent!
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