Ukraina is a western transliteration of how the name sounds in its own tongue (oo'-krah-ee'-nuh.) In English it means, "Borderland," and rightfully so, for it lies across the borders of continents. The largest country in Europe, Ukraina blends into Asia as it stretches eastward. One end is west of Athens, the other end is east of Moscow, and the great Dnipro River divides the land nearly in two. West of the Dnipro, the land and people look to Europe. East of that river, Ukraina looks to Russia, the Caspian Sea, and the vast stretches of Asia beyond. When one sets out upon the adventure of writing poetry about Ukraina, three great themes are quickly discovered: the struggle for freedom, the agony of war, and the celebration of the land and her people. While this volume has elements of all three themes, its focus is upon the last. The political reality that is Ukraina has shifted and changed over the centuries. But the land and the people remain always the same. Traveling south on the Dnipro, from Kyiv to the Black Sea, is to pass through the deep heart of the land and people. Ancient marshes, quiet farmland, and bustling cities line the banks. Only a day's journey separates the wooded hill of Shevchenko's tomb above Kaniv from the belching smokestacks of Dnipro-petrovsk; the Mediterranean atmosphere of modern Odessa from the turbulent past of the Crimea. This volume is a record in verse of that journey, that land, that people. We hope you will enjoy these Songs of a Beloved Land.
About the Author: James Stanley Melnyk and Walter William Melnyk are grandsons of Nicholas and Katherine Melnyk, who immigrated to the United States in the early 1900's from the small farming town of Dobromyl, now near the Polish border in the Lvov Oblast of Ukraine. Katherine's mother, Annie Fox Cernyak, had immigrated to Ukraine from Ireland. In addition to being an author and poet, this heritage makes Walter William Melnyk one of the few living Ukrainian bagpipers in the United States. He was born in New York in 1947, graduated from Washington and Lee University in Virginia in 1969, and was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in South Carolina in 1982. This eclectic background has enriched his creativity, and sometimes taken him past the boundaries of the ordinary. In addition to Ukraina, Walter William Melnyk is the author of two novels of ancient Avalon, The Apple and the Thorn, written with Emma Restall Orr, and its sequel, Tales of Avalon. A third novel in the series is planned for late 2012 titled The Far Isles. All are available on Amazon.com. He lives with his wife, also a priest, Glyn Lorraine Ruppe-Melnyk, in an old farmhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania. James Stanley Melnyk was born in Mount Vernon, New York in 1955, and grew up in Northern Westchester County, New York. Melnyk recalls many trips to the home of his grandparents, to celebrate "Little Christmas" and Easter according to the Eastern calendar. The family would eat traditional Ukrainian foods as they gathered together. He remembers his grandmother decorating Pysanky (beautifully designed Ukrainian Easter eggs) and trying to teach him the art, which he later learned and taught others in his family. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1977 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism, and The School of Theology at the University of the South in 1989 with a Master of Divinity. As an Episcopal priest he has served six congregations throughout his nearly twenty-one years of ordained ministry. Ukraina is his first book, though he has had numerous sermons and sermon excerpts picked up by various on line and print commentary publications in the past. He is an avid softball player, and loves to do Ukrainian and Italian cooking. He lives with his wife, Lorraine Ljunggren, also an Episcopal priest, in Raleigh, North Carolina.