Myroslaw (also known as Myron or Mike) Smorodsky was born 1944 in Vienna, Austria and came with his parents Petro and Olha to New York in 1949 in the third wave of Ukrainian immigrants. His father and mother were born in Ukraine but became displaced persons in Europe after World War II. Petro was an engineer and had been a colonel with Ukrainian National Republic Army from 1917-1922. Olha (Nahlak) was a teacher, but also a trainer in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Myron and his parents initially settled in Chester, Pennsylvania, but moved to Passaic, New Jersey in 1953.
Mike attended St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic School in Passaic and later graduated with a law degree from Rutgers University (Newark) in 1968. Early on, he was a practicing attorney living in Rutherford. He worked for the N.J. Public Defender’s office for a time.
In January 1972, Myron and his wife Camille (Huk) hosted an organizing committee to raise funds for a third chair at the Harvard University Institute of Ukrainian Studies.The Herald-News, Passaic, N.J. “Ukrainians organize to aid institute”, January 6, 1972, p. 17. Peter Paluch of Wayne attended the meeting as chairman of the institute’s fund-raising committee. The group continued to meet and by the fall held a major successful fund-raising event. In May 1973, Harvard President Derek Curtis Bok announced the establishment of three chairs devoted to history, literature and Ukrainian language within the institute. The goal of raising $1,800,000 for this effort within the Ukrainian community had been achieved in one year thanks to the work of Myron, Camille, Peter and many other Ukrainian Americans from New Jersey and elsewhere.The Herald-News, Passaic, N.J. “Ukrainians organize to aid institute”, May 4, 1973, p. 15.
The 1970’s -1980’s were a tumultuous time for the Ukrainian American community. There was a major effort to publicize the plight of Soviet Ukrainian political prisoners including Valentine Moroz, Vasyl Stus, Nadiya Svitlychna, Major General Petro Hryhorenko (Grigorenko), Lev Lukyanenko and others. There were numerous demonstrations and protests to make the U.S. public aware of what was happening in the Ukrainian SSR at the time. In 1977, Petro Hryhorenko, one of the founders of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group (1976), left the Soviet Union for medical treatment at St. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston, New Jersey. He was treated there pro bono by a team of doctors including the Ukrainians Dr. Lubomyr (Myroslaw) Kuzmak and Dr. Michael Olesnicky. Dr. Kuzmak was instrumental in convincing the hospital to take General Hryhorenko’s case for free.The Ukrainian Weekly, “General Grigorenko Released from Hospital”, December 25, 1977, p. 4. He had emigrated to the U.S. from the Lemko region of Poland in 1965 and was very active in the New Jersey Ukrainian community.
In the spring of 1980, Mike Smorodsky was the chairman of a special five-member committee of the Ukrainian American Bar Association that was trying to get the American Bar Association to intercede for Lev Lukyanenko. He said that Mr. Lukyanenko was a 51-year-old lawyer in Soviet Ukraine who “has been arrested and sentenced to long prison terms because he tried to stand up and protect the rule of law.” He was one of the founders of The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU) in 1976.The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) “Anti-Soviet groups open new campaign”, April 6, 1980, p. 19. It should be noted here that Myron was a cofounder of the Ukrainian-American Bar Association and was twice elected its president.
From November 1980-January 1981, Myron attended the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Madrid which was the second international follow-up meeting to the Helsinki Final Act, which was signed in 1975. The session was held to review the 35-nation Helsinki Accords on security, economic and human rights issues. He was appointed by President Carter as one of the 30 public members of the 75-member delegation of the United States to the meeting because of his work for Ukrainian human rights.The Herald-News, Passaic, N.J. “Attorney back from Helsinki pact review”, January 5, 1981, p. 1. His efforts on behalf of Soviet Ukrainian political dissidents would continue throughout the 1980’s.
After Ukraine became an independent state in 1991, Mike Smorodsky’s work took him to Ukraine on a regular basis. He acted as a consultant to U.S. companies who wanted to do business there. Eventually he would serve as Legal Counsel to the Ukrainian Mission to the UN, the Ukrainian Consulate in New York, and the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. Myroslaw Smorodsky online obituary, 4/30/2020. One of Mike’s most significant accomplishments in his 50-year legal career was his work as an integral member of the legal team that secured compensation for Eastern Europeans held captive as forced laborers during WWII. The German compensation program for World War II forced labor was established in 2000 as the result of international negotiations between German companies, the governments of the US, Germany, and Central and Eastern European countries and the representatives of victims. It was a 5.2 billion Euro fund which benefitted various Eastern European ethnic groups including Ukrainians. A separate compensation agreement was also negotiated with the Austrian Government on behalf of Nazi-era Eastern European forced laborers.The Ukrainian Weekly, “Austria agrees to settlement for Nazi-era forced laborers”, November 19, 2000, p. 1.
Myron continued to be very active in the Ukrainian American community in New Jersey until his untimely death in April 2020. In 2014 during the period of the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that ended in the Revolution of Dignity, Mike made a presentation along with Rutgers Prof. Alexander Motyl at a meeting organized by the Ukrainian National Association with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at his office in Newark, N.J. The group wanted to express their ongoing concerns about what was happening in Ukraine. Senator Menendez offered to raise the issue at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C. Another meeting was held by the group in 2017 with Senator Menendez regarding continued Russian aggression against Ukraine and to express their concern about the nomination of Rex Tillerson to be the next U.S. secretary of state in the Trump administration. They feared that his new role as U.S. secretary of state could have a significant negative impact on Ukraine’s struggle to maintain its territorial integrity and independence.The Ukrainian Weekly, “Sen. Menendez meets with New Jersey Ukrainians, addresses Russia’s growing aggression, interventionism, January 22, 2017, p. 3.
Myroslaw Smorodsky accomplished significant achievements in his almost 70 years as a Ukrainian American living in New Jersey. His impact was felt not only in the state, but also far and wide throughout North America, Europe and Ukraine and he touched many lives in a very personal way with his work including my own.