About Marta Kolomayets
Birth: 1959.
Citizenship: American.
Family: Husband Danylo Yanevsky
Job: Director of Fulbright Program in Ukraine
How to succeed in Ukraine: “Interpersonal communication and tolerance are very important as well as teaching by example.”
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Marta Kolomayets is one of Ukraine’s original expatriates, arriving in her parents’ homeland as a tourist six years before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
After her first visit in 1985, the Ukrainian-American returned two years later and, despite Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost era, promptly got kicked out of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after authorities suspected her of being a CIA agent. Her transgression: shooting videos of the late Vyacheslav Chornovil (1937-1999) and other nationalist leaders talking about their desire for Ukrainian independence and their visions for such a nation.
She was blacklisted and not allowed to return until May 1990, when, as a staff writer for the U.S.-based Ukrainian Weekly – a community newspaper that started in 1933 – she returned to cover an airlift of humanitarian aid organized by the now-defunct Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund.
She returned to Ukraine in January 1991 – the same year that Ukraine regained statehood – to open the Kyiv bureau of the Ukrainian Weekly. After leaving the newspaper in 1997, Kolomayets went on to have a distinguished and varied career in Ukraine, including as press secretary for the U.S. Agency for International Development and as resident director of National Democratic Institute, among other notable positions.
After living outside of America for many years, Kolomayets decided three years ago to return and reconnect with her country, family and friends in Chicago. Her parents, who like millions of Ukrainians fled their homeland during World War II, are still alive and in their mid-80s.
But then Kolomayets got offered a job in Kyiv that proved too good to pass up – director of the Fulbright Program in Ukraine. This year, she came back and is having a great time. Like many Americans who have spent significant amounts of time in Ukraine, she considers U.S. life to be easier but life in Ukraine to be more exciting.
“This is a great job, I must say,” Kolomayets said from her 9th-floor office near Palats Sportu metro station. “This is what I love to do – network Ukrainians with Americans and it’s something that I have had some success with.”
The Fulbright Program is an academic and scholar exchange between America and Ukraine. Ukrainians go to the U.S. in three ways: a graduate student program, a faculty development program and a scholar program. Conversely, Americans come to Ukraine for graduate studies or to teach and do research through the scholars program. It is funded by the U.S. State Department and administered by the Institute of International Education. Ukraine’s current annual budget is roughly $2.8 million.
In its 21 years of existence, the program has sent some 800 Ukrainians to America to study while about 500 Americans have come to Ukraine to study and teach.
The program is named after J. William Fulbright (1905-1995), a U.S. senator and staunch internationalist who promoted fellowships and exchanges.
The exchanges that she oversees go to the heart of two of her strongest desires: To see Ukraine make progress as a nation and to see Americans gain a better understanding of Ukraine.
During the Cold War, many Americans did not distinguish Ukraine from the rest of the Soviet Union, a source of unending frustration for the diaspora who fled their homeland during World War II, such as Kolomayets’ parents, and who brought with them searing memories of famine and persecution.
Human rights, Ukrainian youth organizations, the Ukrainian language and religion – in Kolomayets’ family, an ecumenical blend of Orthodox and Greek-Catholic – were important features in the upbringing of many children of new Ukrainian immigrants in the United States.
The Fulbright Program in Ukraine has many illustrious alumni, including Kyiv Mohyla Academy’s honorary president Vyacheslav Briukhovetskyi and Kyiv Mohyla Academy’s journalism director Yevhen Fedchenko. Internationally, Fulbright alumni have gone on to be presidents, prime ministers and CEOs.
Kolomayets is hoping for the same in Ukraine.
“Once you do a Fulbright, you’re not the same person, you’re not a tourist in the United States, you’re part of the everyday life of the nation,” Kolomayets said. “I’m hoping one day the president of Ukraine will be a Fulbrighter.”
As it is, Ukrainians who return after their studies in America are committed to trying to improve the nation, Kolomayets said. Unfortunately, while she sees progress in Ukraine, it’s coming slowly.
In many social and political areas – such as HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, breast cancer awareness, tobacco use and gender equity – “Ukraine is a whole generation behind what is going on in the United States, which is my point of reference,” Kolomayets said.
She speaks with passion about two issues in particular: women’s rights and the corruption of Ukraine’s mostly male political elite. The issues are connected, she said.
“I think Ukraine is moving in the right direction. I just think Ukrainian men in power are not open to women becoming decision-makers. That’s wrong,” she said. “A lot of Ukraine men are into having power to collect riches. Women are less corrupt, more tolerant and more open to trying to reach a peaceful agreement.”
Unfortunately, Ukraine “has never had leaders who cared about the good of the people,” she said. In this area, she said, Ukraine’s politicians can learn a few things from the moral authority that such Greek-Catholic leaders as Andrey Sheptytsky and Lyubomyr Huzar brought to their roles.
In addition to her professional duties, Kolomayets is very involved in an organization called the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, a Kyiv-based group that seeks to develop female leaders. It relies on grants and volunteers. One of the more rewarding aspects of its work is a girls mentoring program that brings less-fortunate teenagers from Ukraine’s provinces to Kyiv. She is on the organization’s board of directors and also serves on the boards of Sister Cities International (Kyiv and Chicago are sister cities) and UCARE, a charity that stands for Ukrainian Children’s Aid and Relief Effort.
As for the Fulbright program, the application process and peer review can be rigorous and time-consuming, but that shouldn’t deter Ukrainians from going to www.fulbright.org.ua and applying, Kolomayets said.
She has been an eyewitness to many of Ukraine’s positive changes in the last three decades and expects to see more.
“One of the things that I love about Ukrainians is that they do not stand for injustice,” she said. “It may take awhile, but Ukrainians are freedom-loving and will stand up against injustice.”
Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected].
