On Wednesday, September 6, 2023, at 12:30 in the afternoon, the Ukrainian heart of Larissa Lozynskyj Kyj stopped beating. Larissa succumbed to the serious illness that she battled for more than two years, the illness finally overcoming her strong will to live. During this serious illness, when one of the nurses asked Larissa what she desires most in her life, Larissa replied that her grandchildren speak Ukrainian.
Larissa was an immigrant to America. In January 1951, she came by ship from Europe (she was born in Munich on March 17, 1950) together with her parents Maria Safian-Lozynskyj and Evhen Lozynsky. Her arrival was marked by the American press. A photo of the smiling but tearful face of the new immigrant graced the pages of American newspapers.
Larissa combined the best features of her parents, her mother's passion and her father's deliberative nature. Larissa tackled her tasks both with enthusiasm and circumspection. She excelled as a student and earned a PhD in economics at Columbia University in New York. She spent her entire professional life as a professor of economics at various universities and authored numerous academic papers. Still, she found time to engage in Ukrainian folk dancing, classical music on the piano (albeit with significantly less enthusiasm), in the youth organization of the Ukrainian Youth Association, the Ukrainian Student Community in New York, the Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations of America (SUSTA). Her main community activism was primarily concentrated in three organizations, the Association of Women for the Defense of Four Freedoms of Ukraine (WADFFU), the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), and for many years she headed the preeminent Ukrainian humanitarian organization, the United Ukrainian-American Relief Committee (UUARC).
Under her leadership the UUARC significantly expanded its activities throughout the world to wherever Ukrainians live. Since independence, she directed the focus of the organization’s work towards Ukraine. This work fed the poor, rescued victims and, since 2014, treated the war wounded and disabled.
Larissa was so community minded that one might think that this left little time for her personal life. However, family was utmost for Larissa. In 1974, she married Myroslaw Kyj, and three years later, the couple had their first son Oleksa, later a daughter Lada and then a second son, Evhen. Perhaps the greatest achievement of her life was that her children not only speak Ukrainian, but are committed to Ukraine with their mother's passion. As Larissa intimated to the nurse, perhaps the biggest regret of her premature death is that unlike her own mother, she will not be able to help raise her grandchildren to be good and useful Ukrainians.
Larissa was a very kind person – a good child who did not rebel against her parents, not even on the subject of dreaded piano lessons. She was a caring older sister for her brother, a faithful and loving life partner for Myroslaw and an exemplary mother and grandmother. However, this does not mean that she was somehow simply obedient. She was always principled and acted upon her ideals. When she disagreed, she was vocal and concrete.
The value of human life can be measured in various ways, but Christian and Ukrainian life in particular can be measured by good deeds that leave their mark. Based on her good deeds Larissa must surely be in heaven, but the evidence and benefits of her good deeds remain not only among the members of her family, but also within the local community in which she grew up and labored, as well as among the Ukrainian people all over the world. This record of good deeds remains tangibly, as well as symbolically as an example for others to follow. Perhaps the best memorial to Larissa will not be the one at the cemetery of St. Andrew in South Bound Brook, but in the activities of her children and friends who will remember and memorialize Larissa, not only in word but also in deed. Eternal memory to her!
