Ukrainian Students in Spain after World War II

The paper analyzes a book written by Volodymyr Yarymovych, Oleksandr Bilyk, and Mykola Volynskyi, entitled Narys istorii ukrainskoi studentskoi hromady ta Ukrainskykh poselen v Espanii 1946–1996 (An Overview of the History of the Ukrainian Student Community and Ukrainian Settlements in Spain, 1946–1996), which tells about the Ukrainian students who arrived in Madrid in 1946 and formed part of the early Ukrainian Diaspora in Spain. The book proves to be an important source of information, previously unknown to scholars, which describes the dramatic and controversial process of constructing Ukrainian identity in the aftermath of World War II. The authors of the study consider the historical and cultural context of the Ukrainian emigration in the second half of the 20th century, its connection with Francoist ideology, and its integral role in the Spanish-Ukrainian cultural dialogue.


Introduction
World War II produced waves of Ukrainian emigrants who went to different countries, mainly to the USA,1 Canada,2 Germany, Austria, 3 and Argentina.4In the history of this phenomenon, there is a page which remains almost unknown.It concerns the lives and activities of the Ukrainian students who initiated the Ukrainian Diaspora in Spain.The information about this group can be found in a book by Volodymyr Yarymovych, Oleksandr Bilyk, and Mykola Volynskyi, entitled Narys istorii ukrainskoi studentskoi hromady ta Ukrainskykh poselen v Espanii (1946-1996).A scanned copy of the book is available at the diasporiana.org.uaweb-site.5It serves as important evidence about the complexity of constructing Ukrainian identity in the 20th century.It is also an illuminating episode in the cultural dialogue and exchange of ideas between the two countries, although it has never become the subject of a separate detailed study.
The methodological approach, which we will apply to an analytical reading of the document, is predetermined by the book's complex genre nature.It does not consist of only memoirs in the traditional understanding of the term.On the one hand, it contains reminiscences of the authors about the life of the Ukrainian community in Madrid after World War II, including personal records and descriptions of everyday life and of important celebrations, like Christmas or Easter, and meetings with influential politicians and aristocrats.On the other hand, the book is something more than just a collection of "memoirs" because it also contains elements of research: it provides facts, statistics, biographies of each member of the community, and bibliographies.It also presents information about Spain and Ukraine, which is not directly related to the experiences of the Ukrainian students in Madrid.Moreover, the style of the book suggests to the reader that the document is a propaganda piece, because it reproduces rhetorical clichés typical of other Ukrainian émigré writings during the Cold War period.
Some words should be said about the addresser and the addressee of the text.As for the former, it is important to stress that the book is a product of three authors who try to speak on behalf of the Ukrainian community in Madrid as a whole.The individual voices of the authors can be heard just a few times, when they include their personal reminiscences.In our opinion, the 1997 publication date of the book has special meaning.The Soviet Union had collapsed and independent Ukraine was proclaimed six years prior.The authors of the book and other Ukrainian students in Spain were not just displaced persons but former soldiers and officers of the "Halychyna" division and looked upon themselves as combatants, whose aim was fighting the USSR.Their main enemy had been defeated and diplomatic relations between Spain and Ukraine had been established.These circumstances explain the victorious tone of the objective and even the "academic" style of the "memoirs."The potential readership is complex as well.On the one hand, the book was written for descendants -the children and grandchildren -of those Ukrainians who had studied in Spain.On the other hand, we are confident that the real addressee of the text is the reader in contemporary independent Ukraine, who has to reconsider his/her national identity and to learn to look upon him/herself as taking part in the European project.This is why the authors of the book pay so much attention to the study of Ukrainian-Spanish historical and cultural contacts.
Thus, Volodymyr Yarymovych, Oleksandr Bilyk, and Mykola Volynskyi use the historical narrative about their own and their friends' émigré experiences to address a threefold task.They want (1) to disseminate their understanding of Ukrainian identity in the 20th century and especially after World War II; (2) to present their understanding of Spain as a country, which hosted Ukrainians; and (3) to create a global vision of Spanish-Ukrainian cultural relations in the past and present.In order to understand whether they managed to complete such a complex task the book should be read from three different perspectives.First, it makes sense to compare the worldview of the Ukrainian students in Madrid with the ideological platforms produced by other Ukrainian émigré movements after World War II in the atmosphere of the Cold War.In our opinion, the Ukrainian emigrants in Spain used the same models of behavior and strategies of working through the trauma of separation from the Motherland, which were typical of combatants within Ukrainian Diasporas in other countries.
Second, the Ukrainian students were looking for ways of integrating into Spanish culture and engaging with the realities of Western civilization.It was not an easy process, because it required a deep transformation of their Ukrainian worldview, which was traditional in its core.From this viewpoint, it makes sense to analyze the ideological and aesthetic ideas of the Ukrainian students in Madrid in the context of the dominant trends of Spanish culture in the 1940s-1990s.It is a long period, which includes Franco's dictatorship and the modernization of Spain, and the so-called First Transition to democracy, which began after Franco's death.The most intensive period of the Ukrainian students' activities coincided with the second half of the 1940s through the beginning of the 1960s, when Francoism as a state system and specific worldview was extremely strong.
Third, we will read the book in the context of the Spanish-Ukrainian cultural dialogue.The experience described by the authors was not the first cultural encounter of Ukraine with Spain.Consciously or unconsciously, the Ukrainian students were involved in the global exchange of ideas between the two countries, which had begun some centuries before they arrived in the Iberian Peninsula.In particular, they came to Madrid with the ready-made understanding of the part their homeland had played in the history of the European continent.The students applied this model to the ways they presented Ukrainian culture to Spaniards and to heir study of Ukrainian-Spanish historical, cultural, and artistic contacts.

The Life of the Ukrainian Students in Spain: Dates and Facts
The authors of the book produce a detailed record of the life of the Ukrainians who came to Spain to receive an education at the University of Madrid from 1946 until 1958, from the displaced persons camp in Rimini, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, and other countries.Most of them served in the "Halychyna" division during World War II and became war prisoners.With help of the Greek Catholic Church Archbishop, Ivan Buchko, they received scholarships, which the Obra Católica Foundation gave to young displaced persons from Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine.1947 became the year of the creation of Hromada, the Ukrainian student community, with Yurii Karmanov as its first president.The students joined the organization when they arrived and left it when their studies were over.During its existence, 90 students belonged to Hromada until 1963, when it was closed because most of the Ukrainian students had graduated from the university and emigrated to the USA, Canada, and other countries.
Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi provide statistics and facts about the everyday life of Hromada.Seventy students received their degrees at various departments, mostly in Medical Studies (36).The second largest group were philologists (Filosofía y Letras) -8 persons.Two of the Humanities students presented and defended their PhD dissertations: Semen Fediuk (Political Science) and Petro Kliuk (Literary Studies).The best known Ukrainian student who completed his studies in Madrid was Wolfram Burghardt, the translator of José Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses, the poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez and Pablo Neruda, and the plays of Federico García Lorca into Ukrainian.
Hromada was not a political organization, and its main tasks prioritized cultural, such as meetings, presentations, academies, schooling, conferences, choirs, dances, and participation in church services, not only in Madrid but also in other cities of Spain and Portugal.The Ukrainian students maintained contacts with other Ukrainian institutions all over the world: The Central Union of Ukrainian Students (until the mid 1950s), The Commission on Assistance to Ukrainian Students, The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, and The Ukrainian Canadian Congress.Hromada earned the strong support of bishops and archbishops of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, in particular of Archbishop Ivan Buchko.Its members attended presentations of Ukrainian professors and artists who visited Spain, cooperated with Obnova, an organization of young Catholic intellectuals, among others.From 1946 until 1962, Hromada became the center of Ukrainian life in Spain.
In 1963, Hromada ceased to exist and a new era for the Ukrainian Diaspora in Spain began.Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi define it as a time of hopes and expectations.The period lasted until 1990.During those years, the Ukrainian migration changed its direction because Ukrainians were arriving to Spain from the USA.Most of them were medical students (30 persons).Some representatives of the first wave of emigration stayed in Spain for good (about 15 persons).They obtained Spanish citizenship, married Spanish women, and had well-paid jobs.Despite the fact that their group was not numerous and was scattered all over the country, former members of Hromada communicated with veteran structures of the "Halychyna" division and did not lose their national and religious identity.They welcomed Cardinal Yosyp Slipyi when he visited Spain in 1970, and organized anti-Soviet manifestations during sessions of the International Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which was held in Madrid from 1980-1983, to protest against the persecution of Ukrainian dissidents.Another important event of this period, organized by the Ukrainian Diaspora, was the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Christianization of Rus.
The last years of the first wave of the Ukrainian Diaspora described in the book is the period from 1990 until 1996.It was a time of the reestablishment of connections with independent Ukraine, assistance to the children of Chornobyl, and official registration of the Ukrainian Association in Spain.The chronicle of events ends in 1996, when diplomatic relations between the two countries were established and President Leonid Kuchma visited Spain.According to the authors of the book, the mission of preserving Ukrainian identity and representing their country in Spain was completed.

In the War Against Communism
Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi pay much attention to the contribution of the group into the global war against communism and Soviet imperialism as its main stronghold.6The proof of this intention is the title of Part I of the book, "…Choho vid nas chekaie chas" (What Time is Expecting From Us).The authors of the book cite words of the anthem of the "Halychyna" division, which contains a program of action and points to the main enemy.This enemy is Moscow, which is "destroying, burning everything around" (ruinuie, palyt vse kruhom).7The anthem depicts communists as wild barbaric hordes, descendants of the Huns, with whom they, "warriors of the Division," have to fight.The authors chose these words because most of the Ukrainian students in Madrid identified themselves with the Division and continued the fight using cultural rather than military weaponry.
There is nothing extraordinary in the ideological position of the Ukrainian students in Spain because the combatants in other Diasporas followed similar life programs.The description of what a model Ukrainian should do in emigration is included in propaganda books produced in DP camps.One of these books was anonymously written and entitled Emigration and Our Tasks.Published in 1948, issue 1 of the "Ridna knyzhechka" (My Book) series of brochures contains a definition and brief history of the phenomenon of emigration, and provides instructions on how to act in order to retain national uniqueness in a new international environment while preserving Ukrainian identity.The main method consists of looking upon oneself as a political emigrant, as this option makes a displaced person an Ambassador of his/her home country: "Himn dyvizii SS Halychyna," accessed January 11, 2018, https://iomedia.ru/empty/гимн_дивизии_сс_галичина/.
Every political emigrant without exception must learn how to in conversation be able to inform any foreigner in a proper way not only about his/her hard life or personal needs, but also about the entire people and its national catastrophe.8 Then, the unknown author provides the reader with a list of subjects on which every Ukrainian political emigrant is obliged to speak.These include the national history of Ukraine presented as an incessant struggle for independence, the territorial integrity of the country, and the European (anti-Russian, anti-Soviet) dimension of its culture.The concluding pages of the brochure sound like a Manifesto: We must not forget that struggle for an independent Ukrainian State is at the same time a struggle for the existence of not only the nation as a whole but also of every Ukrainian individual.To live for Ukraine and to fight for its Freedom up to the final victory is a sacred duty of every Ukrainian regardless of where he/she is or lives.9 Without any doubts, the former "Halychyna" soldiers and officers had read similar brochures before they made their decision to go to Spain.Yarymovych's, Bilyk's, and Volynskyi's book reflects the same rhetoric.The authors call the entire group of students "Cossacks attacking the Alcázar of the academic sphere," or Zaporizhtsi from Rimini.10They are students-patriots, representatives of the oppressed nation and troops, "fighting against aggressive and atheist materialism." 11Oleksandr Bilyk cites the instructions given to the students by Archbishop Ivan Buchko: "your weapon is progress in your studies and dissemination of the beauty of our church rite and the incomparable charm of Ukrainian song." 12 For this reason, the creation of a choir and serving the Liturgy were part of strategic operations of the guerrilla war against world communism and of a struggle for Ukrainianness.No wonder Bilyk and Yarymovych remember Mykola Volynskyi, who died in 1990, "as their old fellow soldier and a faithful co-worker of history." 13From the biographies included in the book one learns that he graduated from the Political Science department at the University of Madrid and for many years worked for the CIA.Another member of the community, who immediately took part in the ideological fight with the USSR, was Volodymyr Borachok.He studied Philology and became a journalist at Radio Free Europe.In brief, university studies were a continuation of the war of liberation.14Many activities of Hromada were politically motivated.The Ukrainian students participated in anti-Soviet manifestations and cooperated with the Ukrainian service of Spanish National Radio, which transmitted its programs to the USSR.
The state of war, in which the Ukrainian students continued to live, helped them cope with the trauma caused by military defeat and emigration.In contrast to Polish students who suffered from consequences of post-traumatic stress disorder and demonstrated explosions of aggression and depression, the young Ukrainians looked optimistic.They did not have the time or even the duty to be frustrated as they were still in the army.At the same time, the authors of the book stress that the students belonged to the entire global Ukrainian community fighting for the freedom of Ukraine.The book opens with a chapter by Natalia Pazuniak about the history of the Ukrainian students' movement, and Hromada as an inseparable part of it.A sense of solidarity helped maintain a combatant spirit inside the group, which became an additional factor of mobilization and the channeling of energy against the main enemy -the communist regime of Moscow.However, the reader can conclude that, despite of their combatant spirit, the Ukrainian students looked upon Spain as a temporary stop in their migration to more developed, more comfortable, and richer countries, like the USA and Canada.The statistics and short biographies provided by the authors confirm this observation.

Learning to be a Spaniard in Francoist Spain
The Ukrainian students adjusted to Spanish life and accepted Francoism.According to Eamonn Rogers, the Francoist culture was one of the outcomes of the Civil War and its aftermath.The propaganda of the Francoist side fostered the notion that in overcoming the "red hordes" they were also redressing the effects of two centuries of negative and alien influence deriving from the Enlightenment, nineteen-century liberalism and modern democracy.15 A key element in this cultural program was National Catholicism.It proclaimed conservative traditional Christianity to be the essence of the Spanish nationality.Another pillar of the Francoist culture was Falange ideology, the Spanish variant of fascism.Both doctrines coincided in their glorification of the Spanish imperial past.Such controversial historical figures as Phillip II became symbols of the ideal Politician and Governor.The historians paid attention primarily to the "Reconquest" of Spain from the Moors in the Late Middle Ages, the unification of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, the achievement of religious uniformity by the "Catholic monarchs" Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth century, and of Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Franco and his followers manipulated these components of the great Spanish historical narrative to culturally legitimize their rebellion against the Second Republic and their political system, and to present the regime as a "Crusade" against communism.
There are a number of factors that predetermined the ideological choices of the Ukrainian students.First, they and the Spanish dictator had the same enemythe Soviet Union and global communism.Second, most of them were Catholics or Greek Catholics who shared the same deeply traditional understanding of religion with Francoist ideology.The communist state wanted to destroy their church and to exterminate religion as a whole.In this situation, they had two very bad choiceseither join the anti-communist forces or cease to exist.Third, they were grateful to the Spanish government for providing them with a home and opportunities to study.Fourth, the Francoist regime with its terrible repressions in many aspects was less destructive of human life than the Soviet Stalinist system with its GULAG, purges, and persecutions of dissidents.
The authors of the book interpret the events of the Civil War and the situation of Spain after World War II in the international arena in Francoist language.In the chapter "Spain after World War II," one learns that the Spaniards are people of Christian virtues who heroically defended Europe against communism.Spain itself was a victim of the former Allies, the Western countries and the USSR, which were responsible for not ending the Civil War.The authors of the book repeat other clichés of Francoist propaganda, which presented the Cold War as a chance for Spain to break out of its isolation with the help of the USA.A constant zone of reference in the book is the role of the Spanish Catholic Church in the everyday life of the students.The authors proudly recall visits of influential archbishops and bishops, contacts with high officials of the Francoist government, and with Inés Luna Ternero, a rich eccentric woman from Salamanca who supported the Ukrainian emigrants.They describe the activities of the Obra Católica, which donated money for their education and dormitory.
Left-wing Spanish journalists have used the affinities of the Ukrainian students' worldview with Francoist ideology in their publications dedicated to the war in the Donbas.The pretext for studying the history of the first wave of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Spain was an incident, which took place on October 8, 2014.The followers of a Ukrainian nationalist party tried to protest the meeting of Spanish students who had gathered at the Department of Political Science of the University Complutense to commemorate the victims killed in the fire at the Trade Union building caused by the "fascist Ukrainian government" on May 2, 2014.16The publication is a typical example of 16 @iLeninOficial, "Neonazis ucranianos revientan un acto en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid," Actualidad.Alternativa.es,accessed January 11, 2018, http://actualidadalternativa. blogspot.com/2014/10/neonazis-ucranianos-revientan-un-acto.html.
anti-Ukrainian propaganda and reflects pro-Russian trends, which are popular among Spanish left-wing parties.The continuation of the episode was story by Nahia Sanzo, who posted on the web-site slavyangrad.es,a blog about the Ukrainian students who came to Madrid after World War II.The author of the blog neither knows the Ukrainian language nor understands Ukrainian history.The main goal of the publication is to prove (1) that the presence of Ukrainian nationalists has long roots in Spain; (2) that the members of Svoboda are descendants of the first wave of Ukrainian emigrants who came to study in Madrid after World War II; and (3) that both groups are fascist.The text manipulates numerous leftist clichés, which do not distinguish between "fascism" and "nationalism," and refuses to recognize the fact that the USSR with its leaders, Lenin and Stalin, comprised no less a criminal regime than Nazi Germany.
The disruption of Svoboda members of an event at the University Complutense of Madrid made visible the presence of Ukrainian nationalists in Spain, a presence which was never new or incidental.The history of Ukrainian right-wing extremists in Spain begins in the post-World War II period after the defeat of Nazi Germany.It began the collaboration of exiled Ukrainians and the secret services of the USA during the Cold War.17 The sources of information are newspapers (ABC and The Ukrainian Weekly) and the works of Kevin C. Ruffner, who has studied the activities of the CIA.In general, the facts, names, and dates in Yarymovych's, Bilyk's, and Volynskyi's book and in N. Sanzo's publication coincide, but their interpretation in the blog differs.The Spanish journalist depicts the Ukrainian students as Greek-Catholic fanatics, outraged anticommunists working for the CIA in the Belladonna and Trident operations, and as young people full of hatred against Jews and Poles.The Yarymovych's, Bilyk's, and Volynskyi's book undermines this simplified and stereotypical vision of the first wave of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Spain as xenophobic and extremist nationalists.First, some of the students, like Volodymyr Volynskyi, without doubt, worked for the CIA as we have previously mentioned, but it would be an exaggeration to suggest that all of them were CIA agents.Many members of Hromada were not involved in political issues and not all of them were Greek-Catholic believers.Second, Oleksandr Bilyk comments on the incidents of Ukrainian and Polish students in the university dormitory.He demonstrates that the two groups reconciled on the ground of having a common enemy -the USSR.
Another proof of the pro-Polish sympathies of the Ukrainian students is their active contacts with Józef Łobodowski.He was well-known Polish poet and contributor to Jerzy Giedroyc's journal Kultura (Culture), and a frequent visitor of the Ukrainian students' community in Spain.He believed that the future of Polish-Ukrainian relations needed a basis of mutual respect and equality.The authors of the book call him "a great friend of Ukrainians." 18 They provide biographical information about him and include the beginning of his poem Song about Ukraine in the original and in a Ukrainian translation by Sviatoslav Hordynskyi.Bilyk indicates that when Petro Kliuk gave his presentations about Symon Petliura and pogroms at the Catalonian club in Madrid, the Jewish inhabitants of Madrid who attended the event received the speech warmly.This fact is hardly compatible with the anti-Semitic image of the Ukrainian emigrants.
In other words, the everyday and historical reality of the Ukrainian students in Spain proves that the Ukrainian nationalist ideology, which they represented, was a more complex phenomenon than its ideologically motivated interpretation suggested by Nahia Sanzo.

Ukraine as a Christian Orient
The Ukrainian group in Spain was not large in membership, and the existence of Hromada was short-lived.However, it was impossible to silence its members in the cultural dialogue between the two countries.Following the code of the political emigrant, they took every opportunity to spread word of Ukraine in Spain and to research Spanish traces in Ukrainian history, literature, and art.
One may ask, what can unite these nations, which are located at the two opposite ends of Europe?Moreover, in the past Ukrainian history has never been favorable for establishing and developing contacts.These were the issues discussed by the Ukrainians trying to find answers to historical mysteries.19 In their interpretation of the issue the authors depart from the idea that Ukraine had always been an inseparable part of Europe.For them it was the European Orient or the Christian Orient.We are sure that the young Ukrainians arrived in Spain with this idea and that it penetrated deeper into their consciousness under the influence of the intellectual environment of Spain.First, we should mention the Center of Oriental Studies (Centro de los Estudios Orientales) recalled in the Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi book many times.The founder of the institution was Santiago Morillo, a Jesuit who taught at the Dubno (Volyn or Volhynia) seminary before 1939.He spoke many languages, including Ukrainian, and knew the history of the oriental churches very well.Santiago Morillo was a member of the Board of Directors of Obra Católica and communicated with the students.He was the editor of the The European East (Oriente Europeo) journal.In 1957 he published a special issue of the journal, dedicated to Ukraine.20 It included papers about Ukrainian history, geography, literature and culture, written by renowned experts, such as Dmytro Chyzhevskyi and George Shevelov.As one can see from the name of the journal, its authors imagined Ukraine as a part of the European (Christian) East.The same persons who helped the Ukrainian students get scholarships to study in Spain participated in the creation of the journal; they included Greek-Catholic Church hierarchs Maksym Hermaniuk, Ivan Buchko, and Andrii Kishka.
Another key person in the intellectual world of the Ukrainian students was Dmytro Buchynskyi, a journalist, literary scholar, and a leading researcher at the Ukrainian department of the Center of Oriental Studies.He also supported the vision of Ukraine as an integral part of Western civilization and encouraged the students to disseminate this viewpoint in their research and communication with Spaniards.Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi recall his name with great respect and describe his early death (in 1963) at the age of 53 as a dramatic event, which puts an end to the first period of the first wave of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Spain.
Thus, the book is about an important episode in the Spanish-Ukrainian dialogue, which remains almost unknown to scholars.It concerns cultural practices used by the students to speak about their country.These included Ukrainian church music, folk songs, and dances performed at the University, in the dormitory, in religious processions, and at the International Festival of Folklore Arts in Madrid in 1949.Ukrainian subjects often appeared in the agenda of Obnova sessions.In particular, Dmytro Buchynskyi spoke about Taras Shevchenko, the philosophy of Skovoroda, the Cult of the Virgin Mary in Ukraine, and the life and works of Natalena Koroleva and Ivan Franko.

The Spanish-Ukrainian Cultural Dialogue
The second part of the book contains a mosaic of many facts about the past and present of the Spanish-Ukrainian cultural dialogue.The authors begin with two questions: 1) whether the Alans and Scythians, whom the Ukrainians consider their ancestors, reached the Iberian Peninsula and 2) if the Cossacks had ever been to Zaragoza or any other place in Spain.The answer to the first question is positive.The authors stress that they do not have in their minds to insinuate or to prove a biological affinity between the Ukrainians and Spaniards, but one should recognize the fact that the mentioned peoples were at a certain moment on the lands of both peoples.21 The other question remains without an answer, as no evidence has been found.However, Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi suggest that the Cossacks most likely were in Spain, because there is information about their participation in the Thirty Years War, at the battle of Lepanto, and the battle of Dunkirk.These historical speculations were important for the Ukrainian students because they looked upon themselves as the inheritors of the heroic spirit of the Cossacks.The section about the medieval period concludes the discussion about possible contacts of the people of Ancient Rus with Al-Andalus, and provides information about Ukrainians who came to Spain during the Napoleonic wars.In general, this data is fragmentary and anecdotal but, in any case, the selection and interpretation of the facts reflect the Eurocentric mode of thinking of those who collected them.
When speaking about the history of the 20th century, the authors of the book show the attempts of the Spanish Ambassador in Vienna to liberate Andrei Sheptytskyi, who was arrested by the Russian Tsarist government for his ecumenical ideas.The grateful metropolitan encouraged the Spanish church to pay more attention to the Eastern Church and gave an impulse for the creation of the journal Obra del Oriente Cristiano.Another important episode treated by Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi is an attempt to establish diplomatic relations between Spain and the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918-1920.King Alfonso XIII authorized his Consul in Odesa, José María Sempere y Olivares, to establish and maintain contacts with the government in Kyiv.As a response, the Ukrainian People's Republic appointed Yevhen Kulisher as its Ambassador in Madrid, but the diplomatic mission never begin its functioning.Along with events of religious and political history, the second part of the book discusses groups of musicians who visited Spain.Among them were Oleksandr Koshyts's Ukrainian National Bandura Chorus (January, 1921), the Mykola Leontovych National Chorus (November, 1921), and Hryhorii Kytastyi's and Volodymyr Bozhyk's Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus (October, 1958).
The Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi book is especially valuable for those who study Spanish-Ukrainian literary contacts.An important person to study is Dr. Yaroslav Rudnytskyi, a professor at the University of Manitoba, who participated in the International Onomastic congress, held in Salamanca in April of 1955.He gave a talk in Spanish, entitled "Spanish topo-and anthroponomy in Ukrainian versions of Don Juan."The professor spoke about two plays -Lesia Ukrainka's The Stone Master and Spyrydon Cherkasenko's Don Juan and Rosita.The authors indicate that during his stay Rudnytskyi presented a Spanish translation of Bohdan Ihor Antonych's well-known poem, "A Word about Alcazar," to the museum of Alcázar in Toledo.They provide a description of this act: Impressed by the courage and heroic struggle of the defenders of Alcazar, B. I. Antonych, in Lviv, wrote and dedicated the poem "A Word about Alcazar" dedicated to the heroic participants of those events.Yaroslav Rudnytskyi, Antonych's schoolmate and friend since university, brought a copy of the poem to Spain.Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Buchynskyi, the Ukrainian original and its Spanish translation were framed and, with the permission of Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi provide information about translations of Spanish literature.They pay attention to the Ukrainian translations of Lope de Vega's works and of Mykola Lukash's translation of Don Quixote.Another intellectual included in the overview is Mykola Osadchyi, who during his imprisonment in a concentration camp in Mordovia, translated Federico García Lorca's poetry.It is important to stress that the authors of the book had only a vague idea of the history of translating Spanish literature into Ukrainian, as they do not mention intellectuals most readers have likely heard of, Ihor Kachurovskyi and Yuriy Tarnaswsky, who both lived in the Diaspora.The artistic dimension of the Spanish-Ukrainian dialog in the book is represented by figures such as Borys Kriukov (who lived in Argentina and illustrated Don Quixote), Oleksa Hryshchenko (a friend of Pablo Picasso), Liuboslav Hutsaliuk, Ivanna Nizhnyk, Andriy Solohub, Petro Andrienko, Oleksa Klymko, and Roksolana Luchakovska-Armstrong.Some of these artists spent time in Spain and created works reflecting Spanish motifs.The concluding paragraphs of the overview provides information about Ukrainian opera singers who visited Spanish cities with their performances.
The picture of historical and cultural contacts between Spain and Ukraine presented in the Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi book is far from complete and lacks methodology.It appears as if the authors were following the recommendation of the brochure for Ukrainian political emigrants, who had to use any opportunity to tell everything they knew about their country to a foreigner.However, we would like to again stress that the addressees of the book are not Spaniards, but Ukrainian readers, both from the Diaspora and from independent Ukraine, which appeared as a result of the collapse of the USSR.In this sense, this attempt at rewriting the history and culture of Ukraine as part of a Christian (European) Oriental narrative, undertaken by the memoirists, has special meaning.It teaches all Ukrainians, regardless of where they live, to look upon themselves as a part of the Western world.

Conclusion
Yarymovych, Bilyk, and Volynskyi's book reveals the controversial experience of Ukrainians in the 20th century.First, the information provided by the authors makes a researcher take into account all varieties of displacement.In particular, the Ukrainian students in Spain were not displaced persons in the strict meaning of the words.They were war prisoners, who for a certain period found themselves in DP camps.They identified themselves as political emigrants and combatants, which, in our opinion, played a decisive part in developing their strategies of survival in coping with the consequences of stress, and in mobilizing their energies to live.
Second, the book underlines that the students in Madrid, like many other Ukrainian emigrants, faced dramatic challenges during the aftermath of World War II, and had to adjust to cultural circumstances of the country to which they emigrated.In their case, this country was Spain, where the dominant ideology was Francoism.They accepted this authoritarian worldview because it gave them a chance to protect their Ukrainianness during the Cold War between the Western world and the USSR.
Third, the book proves the importance of Christianity as an identificational and civilizational factor of the Ukrainian nation.The students had to leave their home country, but they did their best to preserve their religious identity.Moreover, they believed that Ukraine was European, therefore a Christian Orient.They were conservative representatives of what Tamara Hundorova has defined as Occidentalism -a cultural paradigm, which consists in the modernization of Ukraine through its westernization.
Finally, Yarymovych's, Bilyk's, and Volynskyi's book provides researchers with new theoretical perspectives and empirical information, important for the comparative study of displacement and emigration experiences of Ukrainians in the second half of the 20th century.It opens unknown subplots of the Spanish-Ukrainian cultural dialogue and includes biographies of Dmytro Buchynskyi and Santiago Morillo, who maintained intensive contacts with the Ukrainian students and contributed to their spiritual development.Future research should include archival work, which will allow for collecting data about the Ukrainian service of Spanish national radio and about the involvement of the Ukrainian students in CIA operations against the USSR.This future quest, without any doubt, will bring unexpected discoveries, which will help to better understand Ukrainian destinies in the global world.
General Moscardo (the commander-in-chief of Francoist troops in Toledo.-O.P., O. Sh.) located in one of the most visible places in Alcázar, which anyone can easily see from the entrance.22Yarymovych,Bilyk,andVolynskyicite the titles of two PhD dissertations about Spanish literature defended at the University of Madrid.Their authors are Semen Fediuk (Political Ideas in Cervantes' Don Quixote, 1953), and Petro Kliuk (Spanish Motifs in UkrainianLiterature, 1971).23In Kliuk's dissertation one can find an overview of the use of Don Juan's image in Spanish, world, and Ukrainian literatures.Dr. Kliuk, with the help of Prof. Carlos Jiménez, translated Lesia Ukrainka's The Stone Master into Spanish.Another subfield of Dr. Kliuk's research is Ivan Franko's contribution in discoveringfor the Ukrainian reader -the works of Cervantes, Calderón, Lope de Vega, and the world of the Spanish romances.Dr. Kliuk also analyzes Spanish imagery in the works of Natalena Koroleva, a Ukrainian writer born in Spain.Among the facts of her biography connected with Spain he mentions Natalena Koroleva's translation of St. Teresa de Ávila's book, The Way of Perfection, which remains unknown to scholars.