Category: 2021

Lisa Shymko holds an M.A. in Political Science (University of Toronto) and a Four-year Honours B.A. with a Specialist in Canadian constitutional law and Soviet history and a Double Minor in Economics and Slavic Studies (University of St. Michael’s College – University of Toronto).

Ms. Shymko brings unique insight into all aspects of communications, having spent decades in the media, nongovernmental, and financial services sectors.

Her news articles and opinion pieces on global security issues have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The American Spectator, Maclean’s magazine, and Ukraine’s daily newspaper, The Day (Hazeta Den’).

Ms. Shymko served as a media advisor to Ukraine’s first ambassador to Canada— former Soviet dissident Levko Lukianenko — writing several editorials for the ambassador, including a 1993 op-ed for the Globe and Mail.

Lisa Shymko was appointed by the City of Toronto to serve on the Toronto Public Library Board, and was later elected Chair of its Services, Planning and Capital Committee. She has managed two international book exhibitions in the House of Commons in Ottawa and the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine in Kyiv.

Ms. Shymko managed several international development projects, including the Ukraine-Canada Journalists Exchange Program for the International Renaissance Foundation of the Soros Foundations Network.

She was the founding Director of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Resource Centre at the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine in Kyiv, established by Canadian Friends of Ukraine in cooperation with the Government of Canada.

At the invitation of the Government of Canada, she has testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and collaborated on the drafting of historic Canadian legislation recognizing Ukraine’s Stalin-era famine as genocide, for which her efforts were officially acknowledged in the House of Commons in 2008. Between 2010–2015, she was part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s delegation on three official visits to Ukraine.

As Director of Corporate Communications for BCU Financial Group, she spearheaded the creation of Forum TV — a community-based television program supported by BCU Foundation and broadcast nationally on Rogers-OMNI, where she served as Supervising Director (2012–2017).

Ms. Shymko has chaired and held various board positions in several nongovernmental organizations, including the Ukraine Support Fund, BCU Foundation, and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. In 2024, she was elected to the Board of Directors of the NATO Association of Canada.

As a member of the Canada Ukraine Foundation’s advisory committee for the Holodomor National Awareness Tour, she chaired the Canadian film premiere of Hunger for Truth: The Rhea Clyman Story (2018) and edited the French translation of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory’s publication, entitled L’Holodomor: Génocide du Peuple Ukrainien, produced by the Canada Ukraine Foundation (2020).

Ms. Shymko is past Chair of Guardian Angels Ukraine, a veteran’s rehabilitation project which operated in Ukraine under the auspices of the LUCW, in cooperation with NATO’s Medical Rehabilitation Trust Fund (2014–2017).

She is a frequent speaker at international conferences, including the 2021 Virtual NGO Forum of the 65th Session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women and the NATO Association of Canada conference, Crisis Response: Is Canada Prepared? — Unrest on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Ukraine, Baltic States, Russia (2017).

Lisa Shymko is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including: The Presidential Order of Merit (2009, Ukraine); Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012, Canada); The Medal of Honour of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine (2017).

Jurij Darewych is a founding member and Past President of Canadian Friends of Ukraine, Past President of the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre (UCRDC), past Chair of the Human Rights Commission of the Ukrainian World Congress, and a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

He was part of the research and creative team that spearheaded the production of the Ukrainian diaspora’s most successful historical documentary — the award-winning film, “Harvest of Despair”, the first documentary focusing on Stalin’s state-sponsored famine of the Ukrainian people.

Jurij Darewych also served as member of the Canadian-based script-writing committee for the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre’s World War Two documentary, “Between Hitler and Stalin: Ukraine in World War II— The Untold Story”.  

In 2014, Jurij Darewych was chosen by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress to convene and direct a special Advisory and Coordinating Committee to provide advice and support to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights on academic research on Ukrainian issues.

Jurij Darewych has served as director of numerous non-governmental organizations, including the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation in support of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

Jurij Darewych is currently President of COSBILD, a Ukrainian-Canadian non-profit that supports historically significant publications and academic scholarship programs considered important to the global Ukrainian community.  

Jurij Darewych is also the recipient of the 2013 Ukrainian Canadian Congress’ Shevchenko Medal Award for Community Development. 

Jurij Darewych studied physics and mathematics at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. He obtained an M. Sc. in physics from the University of Manitoba and a Ph. D. from the University of Alberta.  In 1967 he obtained a position of professor in the Department of Physics at York University in Toronto, where he taught physics and mathematics and conducted research in theoretical physics.  Professor Darewych is the recipient of several awards, including the President’s University-Wide Teaching Award at York University, honoring those who, through innovation and commitment, have significantly enhanced the quality of learning.

Dr. Darewych is the author of over 120 refereed papers on physics in Canadian, US and European journals of physics, and was a visiting professor at the Universities of Florida, Paris, Rome and London (UK), as well as various Physics Research Institutes in the US and Europe. He has supervised 14 M. Sc. and 12 Ph. D. students in physics and 7 Postdoctoral Fellows at York University where he is currently a Professor Emeritus.

Nadia Gereliouk holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto. Nadia’s interests complement the variety of perspectives shared by the jury vis-à-vis new publications on Ukrainian themes.

Her research interests include contemporary feminist Ukrainian literature, autobiography studies, the politics of memory, the diaspora experience, and migration studies.

She has taught Ukrainian language courses at several Canadian institutions, including the Slavic Languages Department at the University of Toronto. In 2022, her list of books for readers who seek a better understanding of Ukraine, beyond the headlines, was published by The Globe and Mail.

In addition to serving on the board of BCU Foundation, Nadia also serves on the boards of several other non-governmental organizations, including the Toronto Ukrainian School Board, contributing to its ongoing curriculum development, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress – Toronto Branch, the League of Ukrainian Canadians, and the Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada.

Among the charitable projects where Nadia serves as a board member is the Saskatoon-based non-for-profit Stream of Hopes Aid for Ukraine Inc., whose activities help disadvantaged children in Ukraine

Marko Robert Stech is a writer, literary scholar, and specialist in the history of culture.

He holds a PhD in Slavic Studies and a MASc in Engineering from the University of Toronto.

He holds several positions at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) of the University of Alberta and University of Toronto: director of CIUS Press and Scholarly Publications, overseeing the Press, the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies and Ukraina Moderna; and project manager of the Hrushevsky Translation Project.

His novel, The Voice («Голос»), won the 2009 Mykola Gogol International Prize for Literature. He is the author of  Essays in Search of Sources («Есеїстика у пошуках джерел»), the experimental novel The Undying («Невмирущі»), and numerous other essays.

He is the compiler of the literary legacies of Ihor Kostetsky, Iurii Kosach, and Emma Andiievska; and a compiler and editor of an anthology of Ukrainian short prose in Czech translations.

He has written and produced over 100 episodes of the «Очима культури» TV series on Kontakt TV (OMNI TV, Canada). His writings have received several awards of recognition. He was awarded the Koshelivets International Literary Prize in 2008 (Israel), the Gogol International Literary Prize in 2009 (Ukraine), and the ‘Hlodoskyi skarb’ International Prize in 2014 (Ukraine).

Frank Sysyn graduated from Princeton University (1968), the University of London (1969), and Harvard University (PH D, 1976), taught at Harvard University (1976–1985), and served as Associate Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (1985–1988).

He is a professor in the Department of History, Classics, and Religious Studies at the University of Alberta.

Frank Sysyn was appointed the first Director of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research in 1989 at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), the University of Alberta.

He has served as editor-in-chief of the Hrushevsky Translation Project, which published the English-language translation of Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s monumental 10-volume history of Ukraine — Istoriia Ukraïny-Rusy (History of Ukraine-Rus’).

He served as Acting Director of the CIUS in 1991–93 and currently oversees the Toronto office of the Institute. He serves as the head of the executive committee of the Holodomor Research and Educational Consortium. He has also been actively engaged in the development of the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University in New York.

A specialist on early modern and modern Ukraine, Sysyn has published Between Poland and the Ukraine: The Dilemma of Adam Kysil, 1600–1653 (1985), Mykhailo Hrushevsky: Historian and National Awakener (2001), and numerous articles about the Khmelnytsky Uprising, early-modern Ukrainian historiography, Ukrainian religious history, and the Stalin-era forced famine in Ukraine, the Holodomor.

Frank Sysyn was one of the editors of the three-volume edition of the collected works of Mykhailo Zubrytsky, Zibrani tvory i materialy (Collected Works and Materials).

A Festschrift, titled Tentorium Honororum, was published in Frank Sysyn’s honor in 2010.

2021 Translated Book Award

Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag

Translated from the original Ukrainian into English

Oksana Kis – Author
Lidia Wolanskyj – Translator
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Publications – Publisher

“In recognition of this book’s contribution to women’s history and the field of Gulag studies, presented through a rarely explored aspect of Soviet history — the story of Ukrainian female prisoners incarcerated in Stalin’s camps.”

This groundbreaking book showcases an overlooked chapter in the history of Stalin’s notorious Gulag —the untold story of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian women arrested, sentenced, and imprisoned in the vast network of Soviet labour camps. Relying on a rich collection of over 150 memoirs, the book tackles every aspect of repression in the Gulag system and captures the experiences, resistance, and survival of these politically active women and the many ways they sought to overcome the most brutal and dehumanization conditions.

Awards Archive

2021 Translated Book Award

Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History

Translated from the original Ukrainian into English

Yuri Kostenko – Author
Svitlana Krasynsky, Lidia Wolanskyj, Olena Jennings – Translators
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Publications – Publisher

“In recognition of its historical documentary value and present-day relevance, providing insight into Ukraine’s post-Soviet disarmament process, debunking myths promoted by Russia, and exposing critical strategic errors made by the West.”

In December 1994, Ukraine gave up the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world and signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, having received assurances that its sovereignty would be respected and secured by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Written by former Ukrainian presidential candidate, former Environment Minister, parliamentarian, and pro-democracy activist Yuri Kostenko, and based on original and heretofore unavailable documents, the book offers an insider’s view of the domestic and foreign actors that played key roles during Ukraine’s disarmament process. In the aftermath of Russia’s forced annexation of Crimea, invasion of eastern Ukraine, and repeated attempts to destabilize Europe by threatening new military incursions into Ukraine, this book provides relevant insight into mistakes made during the denuclearization process and the strategic importance of Ukraine as a key player in global security.

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2021 Translated Book Award

Український Майдан, російська війна. Хроніка та аналіз Революції Гідності
(Ukraine’s Maidan, Russia’s War. A Chronicle and Analysis of the Revolution of Dignity)

Translated from the original English into Ukrainian

Mychailo Wynnyckyj – Author
Roman Klochko – Translator
Видавництво Старого Лева (Old Lion) – Publisher

“In recognition of this book’s contribution to a better understanding of one of Ukraine’s most consequential modern social movements — the Revolution of Dignity.”

In this book, the Canadian-born scholar Mychailo Wynnyckyj interprets the fate of the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity as a turning point, not only in the modern history of Ukraine, but, in fact, in the history of Western civilization. It is a very positive development that the book’s unique analysis, once only available to English readers, is now accessible to a Ukrainian audience.

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2021 Translated Book Award

The Gordian Knot: The Second Polish-Ukrainian War. 1942-1947

Translated from the original Ukrainian into English

Volodymyr Viatrovych – Author
Ksenia Maryniak – Translator
Published by Horner Press – Publisher

“In recognition of this book’s advancement of new research and analysis, from a Ukrainian viewpoint, of a historically sensitive period in Ukrainian-Polish relations, which will no doubt help generate future academic discussions on this topic.”

Translated from the second edition of the original work published in 2012 by the University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy Publishing House, the 2020 translation attempts to provide a broader historical context to a wider Polish-Ukrainian civil war that was not rooted in one event, namely 1943 Volhynia, but rather began in 1942 and ended in 1947.

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2021 Translated Book Award

Blood Formula

Translated from the original Ukrainian into English

Illiya Titko – Author
Jeffrey Stephaniuk – Translator
Benchmark Press – Publisher

“In recognition of this book’s value as the English-language personal memoir of a volunteer recruit deployed to the frontlines of the current Russian-Ukrainian war.”

The story of Senior Lieutenant Illya Titko’s service in one of Ukraine’s motorized infantry brigades, conveys what it’s like to go to war, and how to find the strength to live with the emotions and memories that haunt you. The book’s value lies in its mission to help all of us to understand the experiences of the people, the country, and the individuals who, like Illya Titko, followed the path of defending their country.

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