BRAMA, January 22, 2010, 9:00 AM ET
Letter
Prof. Ihor Ševčenko: The NYT obituary
On January 5, 2010, the NY Times published Professor Ihor Sevcenko's
obituary. Alex Labunka followed with a letter published by Brama News on January 15, which addresses a key omission in
the obituary.
In the New York Times obituary (January 5, 2010) for
the late Harvard professor Ihor Ševčenko, the
pronunciation for his first name was given as
[EE-gore]. I immediately dashed off an e-mail to
the author, William Grimes, informing him that the
correct pronunciation of his name was [EE-hore], the
Ukrainian form, and not [EE-gore], the Russian
form. He replied that he had learned of the
pronunciation with "g" from members of the immediate
family. When I inquired about that, I learned that,
indeed, his close family members all used the name
Igor. The pronunciation carried with it no
disrespect whatsoever for Ihor's Ukrainian heritage,
but being more familiar to American ears, it became
their private name for him. He himself used only
Ihor, the name by which virtually all his
colleagues, students, and friends from the academic
world and the Ukrainian community knew him. The
family, not wishing to depreciate the otherwise
wonderful obituary that Mr. Grimes had produced,
decided after due consideration not to request a
correction.
In response to the second point
in Alex Labunka's
unpublished letter to the Times, I wish to call
attention to the obituary for Professor Ševčenko
on our HURI website, which
highlights his significance to Ukrainian as well as
Byzantine studies and underscores his fundamental
role in cofounding our Institute with Professor
Omeljan Pritsak. The website provides links to
other obituaries about Professor Ševčenko and to
his memorial website, as well as information about
the public memorial service to take place in
Harvard's Memorial Church on February 26, 2010, at
3:00 p.m.
Michael S. Flier, Director
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
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