By Roman Zakaluzny
Post Staff Writer
The last time that Orest Horodyskyj was in Luhansk, he was in his mid 20s, the German invasion of the Soviet Union was in full swing, and he was putting his life in grave danger by writing for an underground Ukrainian newspaper.
Now 86 and retired from a life of factory work in Chicago, he is still contributing Ukrainian-language literature to the city. He sends monthly parcels of books to Ukraine�s eastern-most urban center, contributing as much as he can to the city�s sole Ukrainian-language library.
In 1941, the Ivano-Frankivsk native was conscripted by an expansionist German army and sent to Luhansk to act as a translator for Germans stationed there.
But without his boss� knowledge, Horodyskyj risked his life between 1941 and 1943, reporting on the news, events and culture of the city in Ukrainian, for the underground Nove Zhyttya (New Life) newspaper.
�I was trying to encourage use of the Ukrainian language there,� Horodyskyj told the Post from his home in the American Midwest on Nov. 18. �[The Germans] would have killed me if they had known what I was doing.�
In fact, he said that the newspaper�s editor was shot and killed when the Bolsheviks retook the city. To this day, one can read Horodyskyj�s articles. Every issue of Nove Zhyttya is on file in the former KGB archives in the city.
During his time in the army and in the chaos of war, Horodyskyj saw much of Ukraine firsthand. The young Galician spent time in Poltava before leaving Ukraine through Odessa. But he never forgot his two years in Luhansk, and tries to this day to help the small community of Ukrainian readers in the Donbas city. Horodyskyj has lived in Chicago since 1950.
�I�ve seen the whole country from one end to the other,� says Horodyskyj. �But because I lived in Luhansk, and it�s Ukraine�s eastern-most city, and it needs our help, I help them out.�
�The Ukrainians in Luhansk are asking for help,� he said.
Literary beneficiary
The Renaissance Ukrainian-Canadian Cultural Education Center, a library with a large study area, is Luhansk�s only source of Ukrainian-language books. It also doubles as a lecture hall for Taras Shevchenko National Pedagogical University.
The center was founded through a grant from a Canadian organization in 1993. But two years after starting the center, the Canadian group�s funding dried up, making Horodyskyj�s gifts especially welcome, according to its director, Volodymyr Semistyaha.
�Horodyskyj is always sending us material,� Semistyaha said. Although other groups and individuals from Ukraine�s Diaspora give one-time cash gifts to the library, without Horodyskyj�s monthly shipment of books, the center would not be as popular as it is today.
Semistyaha estimates that the center can operate on as little as $1,000 a year.
�There is no other Ukrainian-language literature in Luhansk,� he said. �Nothing.�
The center holds thousands of books and maintains subscriptions to dozens of Ukrainian-language trade publications and newspapers from Ukraine and abroad, making it the oblast�s only source of that kind of material.
�This region is Russian-speaking, and all the rest of the books, newspapers and magazines here are in Russian,� Semistyaha said. �We get one-time grants every once in a while, but nothing as regular as [Horodyskyj�s] donations.�
Living language
On a cold Tuesday evening earlier this month, the center filled with university history students for a lecture on Ukrainian nationalism in the 20th century. Standing at a lectern at the front of the class, Semistyaha introduced the evening�s guest lecturer. Behind him stood a bust of poet Taras Shevchenko, and beside him, regional crests of many Ukrainian cities and regions, and the center�s collection of 20,000 books on topics as diverse as history, politics, linguistics, children�s literature and foreign languages. The books are available for anyone to come in and read.
Luhansk residents seem to be getting comfortable with the Ukrainian-language library. When it was first established 10 years ago, it wasn�t unusual for an occasional brick to be thrown through its windows, or for spray-painted slogans against �nationalists� to be scrawled on its walls. But since 1995, Semistyaha said, the hostile activity has stopped.
Today, the library doubles as the city�s cultural center. The university�s student council holds its meetings there, as does the oblast�s Cossack council. Semistyaha said that students, academics and private citizens from throughout the oblast go there to read Ukrainian literature. A few also mistakenly drop in to ask for advice on immigrating to Canada.
But the ones who come to read � and Semistyaha said there are more and more of them all the time � largely have Horodyskyj to thank.
�This month, I�ve got four large boxes to send,� said Horodyskyj matter-of-factly. He collects them from members of Chicago�s large Diaspora population. �The Ukrainian community here helps me with it.�
Horodyskyj said that he is unlikely to visit Luhansk anytime soon.
�Not in my condition,� the veteran said, laughing. As his reports in Nove Zhyttya will live on forever, tucked away in the old KGB files, so too will his gifts to the city�s lone Ukrainian-language library.