Ukrainian National Women's League of America

Ukrainian National Women's League of America (Союз українок Америки; Soiuz ukrainok Ameryky, or СУА; SUA). A national women’s organization in the United States of America formed in 1925 by the merger of five women’s associations in and around New York. Its purpose is to promote Ukrainian national consciousness, organize educational programs, participate in the wider women's movement, and provide aid to Ukraine or Ukrainians in need. The league raised funds to help flood victims in the Carpathian Mountains region (1927), victims of the Polish Pacification (1930), war refugees and displaced persons in Germany and Austria (1946–8), widows with children resettled in the United States (1950), elderly women without families in Europe (1958), earthquake victims in Yugoslavia (1969), political prisoners and their families in the USSR, and needy families in Poland and Brazil. The SUA has supported Ukrainian schools in Austria and Germany (since 1954) and in Belgium (since 1963) and has provided scholarships (141,000 dollars by 1986) to needy postsecondary students in Europe and particularly in South America. Local branches run 26 nurseries in the United States. A collection of folk art purchased by the SUA in Galicia in 1932 became the core of its permanent exhibit at the Ukrainian Institute of America in 1967 and then of its Ukrainian Museum in New York (est 1976).

The league has published Spirit of Flame (1950), a collection of Lesia Ukrainka’s poetry in translation; a second edition of the women's almanac Pershyi vinok (The First Garland, 1984); a collection of poetry by Natalia Livytska-Kholodna (1986); several albums of Ukrainian embroidery; and some cookbooks of Ukrainian traditional foods. It provides grants for scholarly research and prizes for scholarly books. In 1938 it began to publish a special page in Ameryka (Philadelphia), and in 1944 the monthly women’s journal Nashe zhyttia/Our Life. The SUA was a founding member of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, and the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations. It is a member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (since 1949) and the National Council of Women in the United States (since 1952). It has participated in various international women’s conferences. Before the Second World War it maintained contacts with the Union of Ukrainian Women in Galicia. The league has over 100 branches with a membership (in early 1990s) of approximately 3,500. Its head office was moved to Philadelphia in 1943 and back to New York in 1975. The presidents of the SUA have been Yu. Shustakevych, Yu. Yarema (1925–31), Olena Lototska (1931–4, 1943–65), A. Kmets (1934–5, 1939–43), A. Wagner (1935–9), Stefaniia Pushkar (1965–71), Lidiia Burachynska (1971–4), I. Rozhankovska (1974–87), and M. Savchak.

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