andrew gregorovich
Librarian, University of Toronto Library
Date and Place of Birth: 1935 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Date of Interview: April 26, 2018
Place of Interview: Toronto, Ontario
Interviewer: Sophia Isajiw
Length of Interview: 40 minutes (raw)
(Excerpt):
Andrew Gregorovich: There was an experience I had in the beginning of high school, where the schoolteacher was talking about countries, and he asked us to give him names of countries, and I said Ukraine. And he said, “There is no such place as Ukraine,” and he showed the blackboard – and there was no Ukraine on the blackboard.
Interviewer: What did you do then?
AG: Well, I had occasion to give a talk at the McMaster University about the Holodomor, and that was way back in about 1950 or so, the earliest era. As a result of that, I also published an article, which was very early as well. In fact, as far as I know, it was one of the very first articles in English on the Holodomor.
AG: Because of my interest in my heritage – that’s why I did research on my heritage, and because of Taras Bulba I became enthusiastic about my heritage. So I have actually, over the years, become very involved with Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian history as well, and I’ve produced a number of books. The first item was a Chronology of Ukrainian Canadian History, and people have told me that they find it a very useful publication. Also, another one that I’ve done is called the Holodomor Bibliography. As a librarian, I believe in making available, to students or to academics, access to materials on Ukraine. So this allows people to discover the early period of Ukrainian Holodomor materials. And this is just another publication, The Ukrainian Fraternal Association [Centennial 1910-2010]; in fact it has a picture of me in Forum Magazine on the back. So, those are the main publications that I have.
I: You mentioned Forum Magazine, can you talk a little about Forum?
AG: Oh yeah, I don’t have a copy of Forum. Forum Magazine was founded in 1967, I think it was. And, I was actually hired by the Ukrainian Fraternal Association in Scranton, Pennsylvania – they couldn’t find an editor for their magazine, which they called Ukrainian Life. And because they couldn’t find an editor, they finally ended up coming to Canada and searching in Canada for an editor, and it turned out that they decided that I was the person that would be the best choice. So I became the editor of the magazine and I published 117 issues, which is quite a large amount of work, a lot of research went into it. And it was especially important for me to produce materials that nobody else covered. So that my materials in Forum Magazine much of it is so original that nobody else has touched it yet.
I: And, what are you proudest of in your life?
AG: I guess my work on the FORUM Magazine, because I think that it actually has a lasting value. There are articles there that, when people finally discover the magazine in Ukraine, they’ll be surprised at many items. For example, a story about Ukrainians in Hawaii – you know, nobody else has really basically pursued that. I pursued it and did a major article on it. There’s a story about a Ukrainian who went around the world in the Russian Navy, and he was the first Ukrainian to circumnavigate the entire world. So those kinds of things, that were the first steps in certain directions, are most important to me.
CROSS REFERENCES:
• Obituary for Andrew Gregorovich’s brother John Bohdan Gregorovich in New Pathway, 25 October, 2016
• Books published by Andrew Gregorovich on WorldCat
• Ukrainian Fraternal Association, FORUM: A Ukrainian Review, Scranton, PA, USA. List of articles
The interviews can be accessed at the UCRDC. Please contact us at: office@ucrdc.org
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