Stefan Maksymjuk

Stefan Maksymjuk lived a long life that was buffeted and shaped by many of the major currents and events of the 20th century. He was born in Uzhorod, a predominantly Ukrainian but multi-ethnic city that exemplifies the shifting frontiers and fate of Eastern Europe: in 1927 it was part of Czechoslovakia; as he began his secondary education, it was reclaimed by Hungary; and when he took up arms for Ukraine during WW2, it was taken over by the Soviets. Stefan’s father had fought for Ukrainian independence during WW1 and set his son on a similar patriotic path.

Stefan also learned Czech from his Moravian mother and perfected it while attending a Ukrainian gymnasium on the outskirts of Prague. This is where he met Halyna, who would later become his wife when they reunited in a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany after the war. On emigrating to the US, Stefan was soon drafted into the US Army and lucked out on two counts: he was sent to Germany rather than Korea and, after galivanting around a Europe that was rebuilding, returned for an extended education on the GI Bill. While studying international relations, Stefan also worked for the Voice of America (VOA), producing radio news and other broadcasts bound first behind the Iron Curtain and later to East Asia. He spent most of his production career in the East Asia Division and went to Vietnam for half a year during the war, to train local colleagues in radio production. Throughout his VOA years, Stefan developed many cross-cultural friendships and a love for spicy Asian food. He was also always active in the Ukrainian American community, helping to build a parish as well as a civic organization that represented Ukrainians with a wide range of religious and political affiliations. In the 60’s, after completing his Master’s, he began to focus on researching and collecting Ukrainian sound recordings. His collection ranged from down home folk music to some of the earliest recordings of world class opera. He also made hundreds of personal recordings that include interviews with Soviet dissidents and other significant events in the Ukrainian diaspora, and published rediscovered recordings of a legendary bandurist as well as 2 books and numerous articles. The collection now resides at the Ukrainian History and Education Center in New Jersey and is being digitized. Stefan was culturally open and internationally adept, but always remained a Ukrainian patriot, a proud Ukrainian American veteran, and an astute observer and analyst of politics. He also loved to sing, was an elegant ballroom dancer, and become an avid fisherman in his middle years, joining friends whose enthusiasm for the patient sport he’d mocked as a young man. In the past two years, until a day before he died, he religiously followed the latest news from the war on Ukraine, analyzing its international repurcussions and rueing his adopted country’s wobbly support for the homeland he had had to flee.  

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