culture
Donald Sadoway Interview with Cassian Soltykevych
C - Thanks for the time to speak with me to-
there were big protests. So that was some-
there was another one with Canadian Indige-
day. Before we get to discuss your involvement
thing that captured my attention. And the
nous people and how they were going about
in yourstudent years, I’m interested in your
other thing was that SUSK was involved in
organizing. So, we looked at those films as
life before university. How were you or your
discussions at the national level about multi-
inspiration of how we were going to get
family involved in Ukrainian organizations?
culturalism. We were very adamantly op-
smart and get attention. We would have a
posed to the declaration of Canada being
day of disruption where we would all go to
D - My mother’s family was involved heavily
bilingual and bicultural. We said, ok you can
telephone booths and make a collect call to
in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. They
call it bilingual but it’s not bicultural, it’s
the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, they would
were among the founders of St. Volodymyr’s
multicultural. So we were active on that front
answer the phone and we would ask for Val-
Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Toronto. My
as well. Showing up at public forums and
entin Moroz and we would do this from mul-
mother and her parents were active in CYMK.
making representations. Being seen and
tiple phone booths at the same time and jam
I was born in Toronto, but when I was 3
being heard. Those bigger issues, that’s what
the lines of the Soviet Embassy and the Soviet
years old I moved to Oshawa and grew up in
attracted me.
Consulate. Moves like that we learned from
Oshawa. I would go to CYMK summer
these activist films.
camps; there was an oselia, Kyiv, west of
C - So with SUSK and at the University of
C - How do you feel that your involvement in
Oakville. It was there I was first involved. My
Toronto back in those days, who were the
SUSK affected your upbringing and how im-
father became the coach of a baseball team
most involved individuals or leaders with
portant was it?
that played out of Ellis Park. They won the
you?
Toronto championship in 1949. He had all of
D - I can honestly say the time that I spent in
these Ukrainian boys playing on his ball team
D - I remember my very first SUSK meeting in
SUSK was fantastic, it was worth two years
and he didn’t care where they came from;
Thunder Bay. The president of SUSK was
at Harvard business school. I learned so
they were Catholic, Orthodox, or from a com-
Bohdan Kravchenko, he was very active and
much about real world politics and how to
munist background. It became a place where
politically astute. Roman Petryshyn and his
negotiate difficult conversations with people
a lot of people met each other that otherwise
wife Marusia Kucharyshyn who continue to
who opposed my views, and of course I
wouldn’t have met, that was a place where
remain active at the Ukrainian Institute of
learned a lot about how things were in
everyone was on equal footing. So I saw the
Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alber-
Ukraine and the Soviet Union. I think my
sense of civic service in my parents and
ta. Yuri Boshyk was the editor of the Student
career would not be where it is now if not for
grandparents and I think it probably had an
newspaper. Andriy Bandera was with us, he
the precious lessons I learned from being in
influence on me. When I came to the Universi-
was very active at that time, as well as Halya Kuchmij.
SUSK.
ty of Toronto, I became involved with the
(Continued on page 11)
Ukrainian students’ club. In my senior year I was actually the president. Then, when I
C - Can you share with us any other interest-
graduated and stayed on for graduate school
ing memories from your time with SUSK?
I became involved with SUSK. In 1974 I was the national vice-president, Andriy Semotiuk
D - The National Film Board of Canada had a
was the president and we had an office at
series of films about community activism,
Harbour & Spadina in a beat up old building.
and I can remember we went to screenings of these films. One of them was Saul Alinsky
C - What got you interested in joining SUSK as
organizing community groups in Chicago,
opposed to staying more locally involved with the University of Toronto club? D - SUSK was more interested in national things. They had political action on two
Top (1979): Chr y stia Fr eela n d, cu r r en t Minister of Foreign Affairs, attending Ukainian bilingual school.
fronts. One was the anti-Soviet work, taking
Left (2018): Childr en still celebr a tin g
positions in support of political prisoners.
Ukrainian culture at Montreal’s CYM tabir.
Oleksiy Kosygin came to Toronto in 1971 and
