UKRAINIAN STUDIES AT HARVARD – HIGHLIGHTS FROM A 1998 VOA REPORTING ASSIGNMENT

Abstract

Marking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, next year, we publish the article of Adrian Karmazyn, a member of the Ukrainian Association of American Studies, a historian and journalist, expert in American media and strategic communications, who worked for the Voice of America for more than 25 years and served as the Chief of the VOA Ukrainian Service (2005 – 2015). This is the third in a series of articles illustrating the type of reporting Adrian Karmazyn was engaged in as a radio journalist with the Voice of America’s (VOA) Ukrainian Service in the 1990s. Previously, he have written about his 1993 reporting assignment in then-newly independent Ukraine [2] and his 1996 reporting assignment at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago [4]. A collection of VOA Ukrainian Service recordings is preserved at the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland [5]. Adrian Karmazyn’s memoir about his career at VOA is included in a collection of articles, published in conjunction with the 70th anniversary of VOA’s Ukrainian Service [3]. The Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University (HURI) is one of the most powerful and oldest centers of Ukrainian studies in America. It serves as a focal point for graduate and undergraduate students, fellows, and associates pursuing research in Ukrainian language, literature, and history as well as in anthropology, archaeology, art history, economics, political science, sociology, theology, and other disciplines. Most of the interviews for this story about HURI were conducted in English and then translated into Ukrainian for broadcast to Ukraine. For this article, the Ukrainian versions of interviewee comments were translated back into English.