Obituary
Jaroslav Rozumnyj, a distinguished academic and advocate for Slavic Studies, died
peacefully at home on December 9, 2013 at the age of 88. Jaroslav taught for over thirty years at
the University of Manitoba (since 1964), was promoted to Full Professor in 1989 and headed the
Department of Slavic Studies in the years 1977-1989. He has been a Senior Scholar of the
Department of German and Slavic since his retirement in 1996. He maintained close
connections with other institutions. He taught at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich,
where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in 1995-96. In 1992 he became a member
of the International Advisory Board of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy National University, and was
made an honorary professor of that institution in 1996. He also spent time as a visiting professor
or research scholar at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome, the University of Ottawa, and
Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Professor Rozumnyj maintained scholarly interests in a number of fields, including
modern Ukrainian poetry, early modern Ukrainian writing, the Ukrainian cultural experience in
Canada, and postwar Ukrainian film. He was throughout his life an active reviewer, contributor
to newspapers, and contributor to community life. This aspect of his life has been recognized
through awards presented by the University of Manitoba, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and
other community bodies.
Jaroslav was born in 1925 and grew up in the village of Vychilky (now Honcharivka) near
Ternopil in Western Ukraine. The Second World War interrupted his secondary school
education, which he was able to complete only after the war as a displaced person in Germany.
He obtained a B.A. in philosophy and theology from the Ukrainian Catholic Seminary in
Culemborg, Holland, in 1951 before moving to Canada, where he completed an M.A. and Ph.D.
in Slavic Studies at the University of Ottawa. His wartime experiences and early training in
philosophy and theology left their mark on his work and activism. Throughout his life he was
vitally interested in historical and political issues.
At the University of Manitoba Professor Rozumnyj introduced and taught many courses
in Ukrainian folklore and literature. In the 1970s and 1980s he organized poetry readings for
many writers from Ukraine. These visits led to the establishment of links between our university
and a number of writers and scholars in Ukraine. In the early 1990s Viacheslav Briukhovetsky
visited our university. Upon returning to Ukraine, he revived the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the
first university among the Eastern Slavs, and became the first president of the recreated
institution. This is today the leading reform university in the country. Professor Rozumnyj
helped gather support for it in Canada and other countries.
Professor Rozumnyj edited several volumes, including two collections of essays on
Ukrainians in Canada, and is the author of scores of articles, many of them on poetry. He leaves
unfinished one work, a collection of his writings on Taras Shevchenko. Jaroslav’s contribution to
scholarship and community life was a weighty one, and he will be much missed. He is survived
by his wife Oksana, daughter Larysa, and sons Roman and Ruslan.
[Written by Dr. Myroslav Shkandrij, Professor of Slavic Studies, Department of German and
Slavic Studies, University of Manitoba]