Professor Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky (1919-1984)

The first to make Ukrainian history interesting for me

I’d studied Ukrainian history before but no one made me fall in love with it like Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky did.

Professor Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky died 40 years ago today, at age 64. He was a brilliant historian from whom I took my four undergraduate courses in Ukrainian history at the University of Alberta and he lit a flame in me to pursue graduate studies in that field.

I had studied history at community-based “Ukrainian School” evenings and Saturdays when I was young but my heart was never in these classes, as they kept me from doing other things, such as playing sports.

Wasn’t until I entered high school that I stood my ground with my father and said I’d had enough of that. On to an undistinguished but deeply cherished high school basketball career.

But when I took courses from Professor Rudnytsky some seven years later, Ukrainian history actually became truly interesting to me. In fact, I dedicated my MA thesis to his memory on that basis.

He presented it as brilliant, dispassionate academic inquiry instead of as polemic (as had been the case at “Ukrainian School”), which I took to in a major way. I could have listened to him for hours.

Humour and a genuine interest in his students

One humorous anecdote I recall from my classes with him was at the beginning of a semester – not my first class with him, so he knew who I was.

Professor Rudnytsky’s classes were always three-hour evening classes in a regular classroom (i.e., not an auditorium) with desks arranged in a U-shape and his lectures always well-attended.

I showed up and, like any hetero male in his early 20s, scoured the room for where I might be able to while away those three hours weekly for 13 weeks next to a pretty girl.

Well, as luck would have it that semester, there was not only such a seat available (among many seats that were still open), but a seat right in between TWO of the prettiest girls in the class.

Needless to say, I made a beeline for that seat, thinking that this would be seen as a perfectly innocent seat choice.

As I settled in, Professor Rudnytsky looked at me and, piping up in his accented but impeccable English, declared for all to hear, “I see, Mr. Iwanus, that you have chosen to strategically position yourself for the term.”

Busted. Damn.

I may have tried to mumble some half-hearted denial in response but my undoubtedly beet-red face gave me away.

An academic and public intellectual of the highest order

Professor Rudnytsky was an academic and a public intellectual or the highest order but he also had the type of humorous and gentle way with all students that he engaged me with there.

In fact, at one of the universities where he taught prior to coming to the U of A, they were to cancel his classes for some reason (I don’t know all the details), so the students actually staged a demonstration in his favour.

As for his academic accomplishments, especially in elevating the study of Ukrainian history to the level of a respected discipline in and of itself (rather than as a subset of Russian history), I could never do Professor Rudnytsky justice here, so I won’t even try.

His biography is available in the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine and there’s a video below that describes his very interesting life journey in detail.

It would have been so useful to hear his take on what’s happening in Ukraine today.

I write this as my way of showing gratitude for the profound influence that he had in my life, even if he never actually became my thesis advisor.

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