You're reading: A Word with Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak

Ukrainian-American talks about her work as the Fulbright Program Director

Martha BohachevskyChomiak, Director of the Fulbright Program in Ukraine  for the past 6 years, is packing up her office. Before moving back to the United States, she invited me to lunch at Dolce, conveniently located downstairs from the Fulbright office.

“I have to put down on record that this is not my usual lunch,” Martha protested as we joined her husband of 46 years, journalist Ross L. Chomiak.

“I eat sandwiches… at my desk or call in pizza or something like that. But this is for special occasions,” she smiled.

Starting from scratch

Born in Sokol, Lvivska oblast, Martha grew up and completed her higher education in the United States. She arrived in Kyiv as Director of the Fulbright Program in August 2000.

“Basically my job… was to really set up the office and get the office going,” explains the director.

The Fulbright Program, whose independent Ukrainian office was established only in 1999, provides grants to both Ukrainian and American scholars to teach or pursue independent research.

“The idea is to run an open competition for all of our programs and get applicants from all of Ukraine and then choose them,” explains Martha. Her second major task is placing American scholars at appropriate institutions throughout Ukraine – like in Berdjansk, Luhansk, Ternopil, and not only in major cities.

Most of the Americans who come here fall in love with Ukraine and return, according to the director, who adds, “That’s because scholars understand…the type of work they can do in Ukraine is much more meaningful than what they would be doing in the States.” The Americans also contribute to the modernization of the Ukrainian educational system by introducing strategies such as reading lists, syllabi, etc.

“In my first year here, one of the Americans who was teaching… kept calling me and complaining how people cheat,” Martha recalls. She urged him to write about it for the organization’s newsletter which serves as a forum for discussion and debate in Ukraine’s community of international and local scholars. The issue evolved into one of the first Fulbright conferences and publications comparing cheating in the United States with cheating in Ukraine.

Martha has received positive feedback on her attempts to expand Fulbright’s capacity beyond that of a mere grant program.

“We did really well in terms of the United States accepting this program as actually one of the better run programs, and it’s one of the most active alumni associations in this whole area,” she shares. Ukraine’s association of scholars who have spent time in the United States numbers about 200-250. Together with an official coordinator, they work on publications, organize conferences and outreach sessions and discuss issues like how to get other types of grants.

Martha’s base is “an American-style open office” not far from Yevropeyska ploshcha.

“People just sort of come in, hang out, leave their stuff,” she says, leading me from room to room. Each member of the staff greets me with a smile and a handshake.

“I think it’s one thing to run something, but I think it’s harder to develop a team that actually worked with each other,” admits the out-going director, even for Ukrainians who are reputed to have a community-oriented mindset. “I’m proud that the office functions,” she says, recalling her relief that she was able to leave for an extended period when her husband became severely ill.

Seeds of scholarship

“My claim to fame in Ukraine is that my second book was on… the history of the women’s movements in Ukraine,” says Martha, who holds a Ph.D. in Russian history from Columbia University. While working on Russian idealist philosophy in the 1960s, she explains, “I was going to very quickly write a short book on Ukrainian women; 15 years later the book came out.”

Her book, Feminists Despite Themselves: Women in Ukrainian Community Life, helped show Ukrainians that “feminism is not an import, that it grew out of whatever was happening here,” according to the author. She is proud of the work that Ukrainian academics are doing to expand the disciplines of women’s studies and gender studies, adding, “I’m a very happy scholar because I have now witnessed the development of the field in Ukraine.”

The feminist author has a long career as a university teacher in the field of Russian and Eastern European history, having most recently held posts at George Washington and Johns Hopkins universities. She also held two visiting professorships at Kyiv-Mohyla University in the 1990s.

Martha strongly upholds the mission of the Fulbright Program in Ukraine which she articulates as “reinforcing the notion that the scholar is also a public person, that a scholar also serves the community… So it was introducing the American scholarly community to Ukraine and introducing Ukraine to the American scholarly community and helping both groups do something more productive with themselves.”

She takes her work seriously, elaborating, “If you want to really do the job, it’s a job that really takes all of you. Like you go to this presentation, you deliver this talk, drive to this conference. It’s one thing if a staff member goes and talks to the faculty; it’s a different thing if the Director goes.”

“I probably would have stayed one more year,” says the exiting director, had her husband not become seriously ill. However, she allows one humble boast: “When I started going through my files… I came across a memorandum I did, a sort of 10-year plan, and I actually am right on target.”

Moving on

When asked what’s next, Martha replies, “I still have a couple of books that I want to write.”

But they won’t be about her experience running the Fulbright program in Ukraine.

“Maybe I’ll do a biography of one of my uncles,” she speculates.

Martha certainly plans to spend more time with her two daughters who are each both professionals and mothers. She recalls from her own experience, “The most difficult part in a woman’s life comes precisely in your 30s-40s, when you’re really starting out in a career and your biological clock is ticking and your parents are getting older and you feel you have to do something and your kids need physical attention.”Between family, writing, and any other projects that come her way, Martha’s future is as full as her rich and varied past. But the director, professor, scholar, author, feminist keeps her international ambitions simple: “basically try to be like Mrs. Ross Chomiak, IV – Palm Springs, Kyiv, Washington, New York.”