Зустрічі і прощання: Спогади (книга друга)

Description

A continuation of Зустрічі і прощання: Спогади (книга перша), the second volume of Hryhorii Kostiuk’s memoirs is a unique document of the development of Ukrainian culture and community outside Ukraine. This volume depicts the extraordinarily dynamic, stormy, and creative life of Ukrainians in the western diaspora in the second half of the twentieth century.

Kostiuk continues his saga about the important events in his life from the beginnings of the German occupation of central Ukraine (September 1941) to the end of the century. He describes his move from the Donbas to Kyiv in 1941. From there he goes on to Lviv, then to Plauen and Munich. In each of these places, Kostiuk involves himself in Ukrainian community, cultural, and political organizations, which gives him plenty of opportunities to meet with prominent figures. Kostiuk provides the reader with interesting portraits of such authors as Yurii Klen, Ivan Bahriany, Halyna Zhurba, Mykola Shlemkevych, Todos Osmachka, Yurii Kosach, and many other activists of the Ukrainian diaspora.

Kostiuk was a participant (often a leading one) in many important events in the life of Ukrainians outside Ukraine. The reader will find detailed accounts of such events as the founding of the Ukrainian Revolutionary-Democratic Party, the preservation of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s personal archives, the dedication of a monument to Taras Shevchenko in Washington, DC, the founding of the Slovo Association of Ukrainian Writers in Exile, and about the first attempts to establish contacts with the intelligentsia of Soviet Ukraine.