Illustration by Tabitha Walters
It’s not easy planning a “cheerful” Ukrainian celebration these days, but U-M statistician Iryna Bondarenko is determined to do just that. The observance of Vyshyvanka Day on May 15 “will not focus on the war,” she says. “ It’s something for people to enjoy.”
Despite worries about friends and family back home, several hundred attendees last year gathered to appreciate live music and sales of Ukrainian food, beer, crafts, and clothing—particularly the traditional embroidered shirts called vyshyvankas, an important symbol of Ukrainian tradition and pride.
Bondarenko is president of the Ann Arbor branch of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America (UNWLA), launched fifty years ago by émigrés who wanted to keep their culture alive and visible. In addition to holiday celebrations, the twenty-eight local members organize and promote Ukraine-related lectures, films, poetry readings, and art exhibits on campus and at libraries.
The Russian invasion three years ago pushed them in a grimmer direction. Calls to legislators, marches, and war-focused fundraising now crowd the schedule. At a “Vigil for Ukraine,” Bondarenko was moved to see that seventy-five of the 100 people who came were not Ukrainians.
Related: Ukraine Aid
The funds raised on Vyshyvanka Day will support volunteer Ukrainian paramedics who deliver the wounded from battlefields to the nearest hospital. “I have friends on the front lines,” Bondarenko says. “Female and male friends are fighting.” She’s returned to Ukraine twice since the war started and is struck that, despite the constant threat of missile attacks, people are pulling together. She is planning another trip to Kyiv this month. “”I don’t feel safe,” she says, but “I feel at home.”
But “we don’t want people to think Ukraine means war,” she says. “We want people to see behind it—because there’s a lot of beauty.”