OLEH ROMANYSHYN

University Lecturer, Journalist

Date and Place of Birth: 1941 in Lviv, Ukraine

Date of Interview: July 14, 2016

Place of Interview: Toronto, Ontario

Interviewer: Sophia Isajiw

Length of Interview: 01:58:00 (raw)

(Excerpt):

Interviewer: What were you protesting at the time?

O.R:  Well, we were constantly defending Ukrainian dissidents, political prisoners, national rights, human rights, and so on and so forth.

Interviewer: So, you were fighting for Moroz then too?

O.R: Yeah, so it was a worldwide movement, at that time. These hunger strikes, and you know, a lot of Ukrainian dissidents and patriots were arrested in Ukraine towards the early 70’s. Like [Valentin] Moroz, [Yuriy] Shukhevych, and [Sviatoslav I. & Nina] Karavansky, [Ihor & Iryna] Kalynets, and [Stefania] Shabatura and all these people, you know, a lot of them [Viacheslav] Chornovil, [Ivan] Dzuba. So, these were, you know, very active and angry times. And that particular demonstration was pretty angry at that time.

Interviewer: and it got results?

O.R: Well…Uhmm… yea, the Soviets protested that, and I think a part of the, maybe because of the student protests, which lasted throughout the 70’s, Valentin Moroz was released remember in 1979, because all of these hunger strikes, and especially…there were three people that I…that were involved and started these hunger strikes: Andrij Bandera, Mykola Lypovetskiy, and Lada Hirnyj. Mykola Lypovetskiy and Andrij Bandera are dead, unfortunately they died young. Lada Hirnyj lives in Toronto. There were others who joined them, but they were the three who started these hunger strikes, which spread to other you know, countries actually, and students and young people. And maybe that was the reason that they ended up with the release of Valentin Moroz, I remember that… this was a huge thing. You know these people were two or three weeks on hunger strike in front of the Soviet Embassy. So, Andriy Semotiuk, you probably know him, the lawyer... and others who were joining in that hunger strike. 

CROSS REFERENCES:

1. •Romanyschyn, Oleh S. "Re-creation of the Don Quixote theme in Ukrainian literature." Dissertation Abstracts International. 41.2 (August 1980): 671A. Half-page abstract of a 1980 University of Toronto Ph.D. dissertation which provides bibliographical data on 66 known translations and adaptations of the Cervantes novel. The author considers Ivan Franko's Pryhody Don Kikhota "the single most important poem on the theme of Don Quixote in Ukrainian literature." According to Romanyschyn, "Within the framework of Quixotic concepts and symbols the knight is portrayed in a variety of roles - from the eternal rebel and the archetypal fighter for truth, justice and human dignity to a genial fool and even a false 'messiah.'"
   

1. •Oleh S. Romanyschyn, "Don Quixote in Ukrainian Literature: A Bibliographical and Thematic Review." Studia Ucrainica 3 (1986), 59-76.
   

•Romanyschyn, Oleh S. "Historical background to Spanish-Ukrainian cultural and literary relations." Ukrainian Quarterly. 45.1 (Spring 1989): 13-29; 45.2 (Summer 1989): 176-194.

• Article Mentioning Oleh Romanyschyn: "Parliamentarians Honoured in Toronto as Canada Passes Historic Genocide Law." Canadian Friends of Ukraine: Press Release [2006-11-13] Foreign Affairs Minister MacKay Meets with Canadian Friends of Ukraine. N.p., 25 June 2008. Web. 05 Aug. 2016.