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3 2 WW W.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 2020 Letters from Our Readers Working on Our Life is sometimes akin to being a medieval alchemist, pulling things out of various bottles or boxes, revising some and tweaking others and then combining them this way and that way to make t hem fit in to a bilingual package, hoping the random pieces do not conflict or clash with juxtaposed articles. The editors seldom hear from readers unless someone wants to complain; now and again an author emails or calls to thank us for printing her articl e on a color page. But just as we were working on pulling together and proofreading the February issue, I received a few emails that made me think, “Hey, people are actually reading this stuff! And they like it! ” The first email in this series of surprise package s ca me from Ivanka Olesnycky, someone I’ve known for decades (we attended the same high school and hung out at the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey). Ivanka is currently serving as the UNWLA’s liaison for Members at Large (MAL s ), and we’ve been collab orating on an idea she proposed, which center s on a series featuring MALs in Our Life. One product of this collaboration was featured in an article about author and professor Natalie Kononenko, which was published in the January issu e of OL . On January 10, I received an email from Ivanka, which included a message from Ann Beams, another MAL. I cit e these in the order received: Tamara, I rec’d the message below last night. Ann does not read Uk r and is a new MAL. I thought you would en joy how thoroughly Ann is reading and enjoying your portion of Our Life. Thank you for all you do ! - Ivanka Hi Ivanka . Great article about Natalie Kononenko ! What a fascinating woman and all the better, a contemporary. Her research about folklore sounds interesting, but her book s sound like text books. Are there any Ukrainian h istorical fiction books you know of? I thought the last paragraph was interesting. I also enjoyed the article on the works of Marsha Skrypuch. I may have to give her a read. Especially interesting to me als o was the Ukraine and Ireland connection. And lastly Taking O ur T reasures out of the C loset. Thanks for introducing me to “Our Life.” Another email ( received on January 18 ) came from another old friend, Christine Shwed, who used to supply OL with a series of interesting and beautifully illustra ted children’s stories : Сервус Тамара! [Hi, Tamara] Happy New Year Greetings! I've just come back from Florida this week. I was glad to see the January issue of Наше Життя [Our Life] and wanted to let you know how mu ch I enjoyed reading the "Ukraine and Ireland Random O bservations ” article . . . The parallels she [author Natalka Gawdiak] drew are spot on (in my humble opinion) and it brought to mind something my father would say over and over again in the late 60's an d early 70's when the IRA and the "Irish crisis" was discussed on PBS News . . . " бідні ірляндці - вони невигідна нація для англ ійців, так як ми українці невигідна нація москалям ” — roughly translated : “ those poor Irish are an inconvenient n ation to the Eng lish, like we Ukrainians are an inconvenient n ation to the Russians . " I thank her from the bottom of my heart for her random obse rvations on cultural and historic parallels between Ukraine and Ireland and for being such a good Irish - Ukrainian sister to all of us. The third email message came from Myroslava Stefaniuk (author of Dibrova Diaries , a book that was reviewed in OL in Febr uary 2019 issue) . An excerpt from Myrosia’s letter concludes this trilogy: Hello Tamara and Happy New Year! I trust your sviata were everything they were meant to be and that you celebrated what was as you look forward to what will be. I thoroughly enjoyed traipsing along on your excursions on the East Coast and recalling many parallel experiences in last issue. Particularly memor able was my own pilgrimage back to our D.P. camp in Landeck, Austria. I have written and spoken about it on n umerous occasions. A whole new and enlightening perspective through adult eyes. . . . I met Viktor Morozov when Ne Zhurys first performed in Detro it and the group stayed at our house. I still remember the words to many of their witty satirical songs and am dismayed that many of them continue to be pertinent today. We met again, many years later at Novyj Sokil . . . his child ren and our grandchildren were at the same novackyj tabir. Amazing how paths crisscross. And, of course, Marianna Crans’ encouraging and instructive words about writing for Our Life are much appreciated. Total agreement.
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