ANATOL JULIAN KURDYDYK

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ANATOL JULIAN KURDYDYK 1905 - 2001 Peacefully in blessed sleep at his home in the 96th year of life, on June 25, 2001, Anatol Julian Kurdydyk quit Earth for eternal rest in a place of light, verdure and tranquility from which pain, sorrow and mourning have fled. Born in Pidhaytsi, Western Ukraine on July 24, 1905, as the eldest son of Rev. Petro Kurdydyk and Stefania de-Ostoia-Steblecka, Anatol Kurdydyk received his elementary education in Ternopil, attended the Ukrainian Gymnasium in Lviv and studied law at Lviv University. A passionate Ukrainian above all, he forfeited the opportunity to practice law by virtue of his involvement in Ukrainian nationalist activity, first under the Polish, and subsequently the German, administrations of Western Ukraine: these condemned him as political prisoner to Polish and Gestapo jails, respectively. Reverting to the Ukrainian literature he had loved from his childhood, he ultimately found his niche in life as a published poet and author, and as a highly regarded journalist and well respected publicist of the Ukrainian press. Rising from newspaper correspondent to co-editor in Ukraine as he did, his formative years in journalism were intimately linked with the Lviv newspapers "Ukrainsky Holos", "Nedilia" and "Dilo". Even when forced to flee Western Ukraine during the 1939 Russian invasion for his uncompromising and militant anti-communist positions in the Lviv press, he found the will and time to serve as Vienna correspondent for "Krakivski Visti", and yet continue with his literary and journalist activity in the Ukrainian post-war emigre communities of Poland, Germany and Austria. The respect and confidence he enjoyed among his displaced compatriots as Ukrainian-community animator resulted in his election as president of the Mannheim Ukrainian Refugee Camp, a position he held until its disbanding. His post-war travels and travails as political refugee took him randomly through the German cities of Ettlingen, Giessen, Berchtesgaden, Aschaffenburg, Ludwigsburg and finally Bremen, where with his family he boarded the "Nelly" for Canada in May 1951. The Ukrainian community of Toronto offered new challenges and opportunities for working with, and for, his displaced compatriots. Here he was active in the Ukrainian Catholic Church, in the Ukrainian Co-operative Movement, in the Ukrainian Business and Professional Club, and in the publishing house "Nasha Slava". His journalistic bent first found expression in his reanimating the Ukrainian weekly "Ukrainsky Robitbulkloadnyk" and, subsequently, in co-founding and editing of "Vilne Slovo", a weekly newspaper aimed at, and popular with, the highly literate post-war Ukrainian emigre readership. A crowning achievement of his in Toronto was his organizing of the Convention of Ukrainian Artists and Literati of the USA and Canada in 1954 as president of the "Literaturno-Mystetsky Klub". He moved with his family in 1960 to Winnipeg to assume the editorship of the Ukrainian weekly "Novy Shliakh", and, later in 1962, the co-editorship of "Postup". Even after retirement in 1970 he held part-time positions with "Kanadiysky Farmer" and "Ukrainsky Holos", and continued to free-lance for the Ukrainian press for as long as he could type on the trusty portable Remington typewriter which followed him in hand to Canada. Not one to suffer fools gladly and detestful of pomp and pretense, he was much admired and respected both for his unique impressive editorial style, as well as for his unbridled, yet balanced, critique of personalities and events in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian diaspora. To Ukrainian journalism he represents an irreplaceable loss, bearing witness to his redactorial talent are thousands of newspaper articles, editorials, commentaries and reports scattered throughout countless Ukrainian newspapers printed in North America and abroad over seven decades of journalistic activity. Similarly, hundreds of poems and novellas in Ukrainian magazines, textbooks and almanacs, as well as a number of volumes of literature and publicist works compiled yet during his lifetime remains as silent witnesses to a creative literary life lived to the full. When asked toward the end of a life humbly lived how he would like to be remembered, he replied, quick as a flash: "As a mere editor of the Ukrainian press..." For as long as possible he continued to take interest in events in Ukraine and particularly enjoyed reading hard copies of articles from the Kyiv and Lviv dailies off the internet, marvelling at the availability, content and quality of these. Having truly yearned for his homelands freedom all his living days, after Ukraines Independence in 1991 he regretted in silence being unable to ever see with his own eyes Lviv, the city of his youth and prolific literary and journalist activity. In his latter years he especially missed the loyal friends and press colleagues of long standing, who had, in his words, "quit this world and left him, not unlike an old oak, to stand on guard in the forest of life, tall yet firm, in sardonic observation of the harvest of firewood about it." Totally unimpressed by materialism and pretentious fools to his dying day, he also instilled this attitude in his sons. He is survived by his wife Stefania; sons, Taras of Calgary, Les of Winnipeg, and Lew with wife Halyna and children, Klym and Maxym of Vita; by his brother Evhen and wife Olha of Toronto; as well as extended family in Canada and in Ukraine. He was predeceased by his daughter Maria in Germany; and his son Boris in Australia; by his brothers, Jaroslaw and Mykola of the United States, as well as by brothers, Nestor and Lubomyr, and sister Lida of Ukraine. He will be fondly remembered by the legion of readers and subscribers of the newspapers he had edited in his lifetime, and by the communities that he untiringly served in the Ukrainian diaspora. His contribution to the Ukrainian community in Canada has been duly acknowledged by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Free Academy of Arts and Sciences with their Shevchenko Medal and the Pochesna Hramota, respectively. The family honours his wish to be laid to rest quietly in a simple coffin among sons of the soil in the Kurdydyk family plot of St. Demetrius Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery. Panakhyda will be sung at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, June 29 at Klassen Funeral Chapel, 1897 Henderson Hwy., Winnipeg, with Fr. Mykhailo Kouts and Fr. Ihor Royik co-officiating. Parastas will be sung at 10:30 a.m. at St. Demetrius Ukrainian Catholic Church, Vita, MB on Saturday, June 30, with parish priest Fr. Ihor Royik presiding. Loewen Funeral Chapel of Steinbach in care of arrangements in co-operation with Klassen Funeral Chapel of Winnipeg. VICHNAYA PAMYAT

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Jun 28, 2001