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young Galician spent time in Poltava before leaving tries to this day
to help the small community of Ukrainian readers in the Donbas city.
Horodyskyj has lived in Chicago since 1950.
"I've seen the whole country from one end to the other," says
Horodyskyj. "But because I lived in Luhansk, and it's Ukraine's
eastern-most city, and it needs our help, I help them out."
"The Ukrainians in Luhansk are asking for help," he said.
LITERARY BENEFICIARY

The Renaissance Ukrainian-Canadian Cultural Education Center, a
library with a large study area, is Luhansk's only source of
Ukrainian-language books. It also doubles as a lecture hall for Taras
Shevchenko National Pedagogical University. The center was
founded through a grant from a Canadian organization in 1993. But
two years after starting the center, the Canadian group's funding
dried up, making Horodyskyj's gifts especially welcome, according
to its director, Volodymyr Semistyaha.
"Horodyskyj is always sending us material," Semistyaha said.
Althoug other groups and individuals from Ukraine's Diaspora give
one-time cash gifts to the library, without Horodyskyj's monthly
shipment of books, the center would not be as popular as it is today.
Semistyaha estimates that the center can operate on as little as
$1,000 a year. "There is no other Ukrainian-language literature in
Luhansk," he said. "Nothing."
The center holds thousands of books and maintains subscriptions to
dozens of Ukrainian-language trade publications and newspapers
from Ukraine and abroad, making it the oblast's only source of that
kind of material. "This region is Russian-speaking, and all the rest of
the books, newspapers and magazines here are in Russian,"

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