Memorial Day honored at program

The 26th annual Memorial Day Program at Venice Memorial Gardens on Friday was a solemn and moving one.
Marjorie Dellecker of Venice Memorial Gardens did a superb job of organizing and running the affair. I felt honored and pleased to be able to represent at the program, as past national commander, the Ukrainian American Veterans, Inc. and North Port Cpl. Roman G. Lazor Post No. 40 of the UAV as its organizer and first post commander.
On Sunday May 29, Post No. 40 sponsored the traditional Panakhyda (requiem service) for the repose of souls of all departed veterans celebrated by Rev.Vasyl Petriv, pastor of Presentation of the Most Holy Mother of God (St. Mary’s) Ukrainian Catholic Church in North Port after the regular Sunday’s Mass.
Members of Post No. 40 and color guard led by UAV National Commander Ihor W. Hron formed a honor guard and rendered a hand salute during the singing of “Khrystos Voskres” (“Christ is Risen” – sang during the post-Easter season in lieu of“Eternal Memory.”) The church choir sang the responses and concluded with the singing of“God Bless America” with members of congregation joining in.
The Memorial Day observance Monday at Veterans Park in North Port, sponsored by American Legion Post 254, included a contingent of UAV Post 40 Members, led by UAV National Commander Ihor W. Hron, and members of the local Ukrainian American community participating with the post’s color guard.
Post No. 40’s wreath was presented by Hron and yours truly.

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The Post No. 40 monthly membership meeting will take place at 1 p.m. Friday, June 10, at St. Andrew’s Ukrainian Religious and Cultural Center. A luncheon will be served after the meeting, the last meeting for the season.There will be no meetings in July and August.
The North Port Milena Rudnycka Branch No. 56 of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America, popularly known as Soyuz Ukrayinok (Union of Ukrainian Ladies) headed by Ann-Marie Susla of Englewood will hold its monthly membership meeting at 10 a.m., Tuesday, June 7, at the Ukrainian Catholic Parish Center, 1078 N. Biscayne Drive, North Port.

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Last month was a month of joy and a month of sadness. Ukrainians all over the world were overjoyed by the Ukrainian singer Jamala, of ethnic Tatar minority, winning the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest held in the Swedish capital, Stockholm.
Jamala dedicated her song “1944” about the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars during World War II by Soviet troops ordered by Stalin to her great-grandmother Nazylkhan who was deported with her five children to Central Asia along with the entire Crimean Tatar people – the peninsula’s indigenous, predominantly Muslim, population.
Another happy local occasion was an exhibit at the Ukrainian Catholic Parish Center of icons hand embroidered by the late Rev. Dmytro Blazejowskyj, who was a pastor of several Ukrainian American Catholic parishes in years 1946-1973.
Ukrainians in Ukraine and throughout the world commemorated in May murders by the Soviet Russian KGB agents of two prominent Ukrainian politicians and statesmen, Head of Government of Ukrainian National Republic Symon Petlura (May 25, 1926, in Paris, France), and a military and political leader, organizer and Head of Ukrainian Military Organization and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Yevhen Konovaletz (May 23, 1938 in Rotterdam, Holland).
 
Our Neighbors — The Ukrainians
by Atanas Kobryn (atanask@aol.com)