HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

Reviews 555tion, a useful history of the school, including discussion of the curriculum,vignettes of the teachers and some students, recollections of memorableevents, and many photographs (some items are reprinted from Galician andemigre Ukrainian newspapers). The volume also contains speeches deliveredat a reunion of graduates in Kerhonkson, New York, in 1978, with a briefreport about a commemorative book, presumably the one under discussionhere. The book is well printed and bound, and the photographs are, for themost part, clearly reproduced.The memoirs offer descriptions of the lives of young Galician Ukrainianmiddle-class women between 1906 and 1944. The reminiscences are oftenidealized, but even so, they provide insights into important facets of Galiciansociety. Among topics discussed or intimated are class differences, romanticism,patriotism, Polish harassment of Ukrainians, as well as the level of studyat the school and the nature of its faculty. The information on extracurricularactivities is of particular interest.All this material, however, is presented in a vacuum. It is stated that theschool offered the best education for Galician Ukrainian girls at the time. Thatmay be self-evident for those who grew up regarding the himnaziia as the"culmination of the striving of the Ukrainian women's emancipation movement"(p. 272), but for others, the assertion should have been supported byfacts. Anyway, such a sweeping statement is simply not true.Much of the writing is laced with clichés. On the other hand, potentiallyinteresting material is undeveloped. For instance, I would be curious to knowsomething more about the Jewish girl who became Mother Severyna Paryllie,OSBM, one of the school's most prominent teachers, than that "God soguided her life that she and her brothers accepted the Christian faith" (p. 77).Surely, too, statements like the one about Iryna Knysh, "now considered theideologue of Ukrainian womanhood" (p. 155), deserve some elaboration.The editorial staff should have given more attention to each contributionand to its place within the whole. Any collection of reminiscences about oneinstitution, especially one with a history of less than forty years, will berepetitive. The historical analyses, however, particularly those by the formerfaculty, should have been edited to avoid repetition of details and to providebackground information.Even with its limitations, however, the book has some value for historians ofeducation and of Galician Ukrainian society.Martha Bohachevsky-ChomiakManhattanville College