Ukrainian Academic Hromada

Ukrainian Academic Hromada (Українська академічна громада в Чехословаччині; Ukrainska akademichna hromada v Chekhoslovachchyni). The oldest and largest Ukrainian students organization operating in the interwar Czechoslovak Republic (CR). It was founded in November 1919 as the Ukrainian Academic Circle in Prague, and changed its name to the Ukrainian Academic Hromada in May 1920. Immediately after the First World War all Ukrainian students at Czechoslovak and Ukrainian schools of higher education in the CR enrolled in the Hromada, with the result that in 1922 there were 1,258 members. By 1923, however, organizations based on regional affiliations, such as the Hromada of Students from Great Ukraine and the Union of Student Emigrés from Northwestern Southwest Ukraine, or on political orientation had broken away and left it with only 321 members. Membership continued to decline steadily and in 1937 it could claim only 40 members. During the Second World War membership increased, and in 1943 there were 164 members. The Hromada had branches outside of Prague, in Josefov, Brno, Mělník, and Přibram. It had separate professional sections and cultural groups. By the late 1920s the Hromada had developed a nationalist orientation, the promoter of which was the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth. The Hromada formed the basis for the Central Union of Ukrainian Students, all the presidents of which were members of the Hromada. In 1941 the Hromada was reorganized as a branch of the Union of Ukrainian Student Organizations in Germany and Danzig, which lasted until the arrival of the Soviet Army in 1945. The Hromada published the periodical Ukraïns'kyi student (1922–4) and the literary almanac Sterni. The leading activists in the Hromada were I. Kharak, Matvii Stakhiv, Osyp Boidunyk, Roman Sushko, Vasyl Oreletsky, Oleksander Boikiv, M. Masiukevych, Mykhailo Mukhyn, Oleh Olzhych, Mykhailo Soroka, M. Ryndyk, Marko Antonovych, and V. Kunda. Antonovych wrote a history of the Ukrainian Academic Hromada in 1941.

Ostap Skrypnyk

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]