Sports diplomacy is not a new phenomenon for the world’s geopolitical community. After all, sport as “soft power” has long and often been used by countries, governments, and nations. Ukrainians actively employed sports diplomacy even during times of occupation. This is because athletes of Ukrainian origin were among the participants of various international competitions with a diplomatic dimension. For example, the ping-pong diplomacy of Australia and China, competitions in track and field, weightlifting, swimming, hockey between the United States, Canada, and the USSR, and so on.
Ukrainians Among the Leaders of U.S. Volleyball
Vidbyvanka (volleyball), as one of the most popular sports in the world, has always attracted millions of fans. People play this sport from the youngest age to the most venerable. In the United States, volleyball has long-standing and successful traditions. The Ukrainian diaspora in the U.S. joined the development of volleyball at both amateur and professional levels. Ukrainian names resound across the country: Taras Liskevych, Liubomyr Kormeliuk, Markiian Paslavskyi, Nestor Paslavskyi, Bohdan Zavadovych, Khrystyna Kosh, and many other worthy figures. Among Ukrainians, vidbyvanka was cultivated in Plast, in the Ukrainian Youth Association, ODUM; numerous teams were created — “Chaika,” “Plai,” “Dovbush,” “Chornomorska Sich,” and others.
In the U.S., volleyball was popular among diplomats of various countries. Therefore, an Embassy Volleyball League was organized. Teams of the diplomatic missions of Brazil, the USSR, the U.S. Department of State, as well as the Ukrainian Vidbyvanka Club, joined the League. Of course, the competition between the teams was supposed to be friendly. After all, diplomats-amateur volleyball players were playing, not professional players or members of national teams — that is, not high-performance sport. However, in practice everything was completely different, not friendly at all. Because the biggest violators — and not only — were representatives of the USSR. They brought professional players into their diplomatic teams and presented them as diplomats. They most often complained — and only about Ukrainians. Because they could not bear to see free Ukrainians without the Soviet yoke. So these volleyball matches were always emotional, unpredictable, motivating. Ukrainians used them as a means to demonstrate that we are better than the Russians, and to sting them with our unbreakability and defiance before the occupier.
Such volleyball “wars” began like this: “Matches of the Embassy Volleyball League involving Soviet teams more than once caused controversy; of course, Ukrainians were involved in this, most of whom had ties to the Washington Plast branch. In 1962 or 1963, members of the league of volleyball teams of foreign embassies also included the team of the American Department of State and the ‘Ukrainian Volleyball Club,’ in which Ihor Vitkovytskyi, Vitalii Danchenko, Oles Bachynskyi, Mykola Stavnychyi, Oleksandr Hromotskyi, Yurko Povstenko and others played.”
What happened this time? In the final for the League championship, the Ukrainian and Soviet teams were to compete. But at the last minute, representatives of the USSR embassy refused to play. The reason: the Ukrainians do not represent any embassy! However, the Ukrainian team was recognized as the League champion. How do you like that kind of diplomacy? The representatives of the USSR themselves refused the final match — and the Ukrainian team was declared the winner! If only it were the same today in international sport and on the Olympic stage. But, unfortunately, for some reason that does not happen now!
The hysteria of the USSR representatives also took place in subsequent years. This is not surprising. Because they never competed honestly. They always tried to violate something secretly (doping, hidden professionalism, bribery, pressure, blackmail, etc.). The next similar situation occurred in 1973. Several Ukrainians played on the U.S. Department of State team: Vitkovytskyi, Hromotskyi, and Liubomyr Kormeliuk. When the American team won the first set in the final game, the Soviet team protested precisely against the participation of Ukrainians and left the court. How do you like such behavior by Soviet diplomats? At first they were not against Ukrainian players being on the U.S. team, but when they lost the first set and realized they would not win, they decided to leave the sports court. That is not diplomatic! Isn’t it? They should have protested immediately against the participation of Ukrainians. But they did not. Because they believed they would be able to defeat the Americans easily. Despite protests and obstacles from representatives of the Soviet embassy, Ukrainians each time proved their unbreakability, skill, and immense desire to defeat the opponent — and such a fierce enemy at that!
What happened in the following years? Did the situation change? Surprisingly, yes, it changed. Because Ukrainians did not take part in the Department of State team, and the Soviet “diplomats” always won. Here is how the press writes about it: “For some time it was quite calm: the Soviets dominated the league, winning the championship eight years in a row.” That’s how it happens. However, at the end of the 1970s, the geopolitical situation changed dramatically. The USSR attacked Afghanistan. The U.S. called for a boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games. At that time, diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the “evil empire” were not the best, and the Ukrainian question gained increasing international weight in sport, politics, and the socio-cultural sphere. Sport became an expression of a state’s might and the strength of its political system. Politicians, diplomats, and other official state figures and institutions became ever more involved in sport. In the whirl of international sporting events (the Winter Olympics, the 1980 Olympics, etc.), we might not have noticed — or known at all — about volleyball competitions which, thanks to the memories of direct participants — Yurii Saievych, Zenon Stakhiv, Liubomyr Karmeliuk — have been preserved for us.
Thus, on March 15, 1983, in Washington, in the final tournament match for the Embassy Volleyball League championship, two teams unusual for the sporting dimension met: the U.S. Department of State and the USSR embassy.
In a tense match, the American volleyball players celebrated victory 18–16, 9–15, 15–13. Here it is worth noting that two Ukrainians contributed to the win — Plast members of the Washington branch, pl. sen. Yurii Saievych and pl. sen. Zenon Stakhiv, who played in the starting lineup. This year’s final was not without a scandal. Yurii Saievych recounts it as follows: “a further scandal arose when I refused to shake the hand of the captain of the Soviet team. And that happened after the newspaper wrote that he had been involved in the case of the Ukrainian sailor Myroslav Medvid, who twice escaped from a Soviet ship in New Orleans, and the American authorities twice returned him to the KGB men.”
Every time the American team won, representatives of the Soviet embassy team raised scandals and filed protests. For example, in 1982, when Yurii Saievych played for the U.S. Department of State team in a match against the USSR, at first everything was fine. The USSR team agreed to his participation. But when they lost a game, which deprived them of the chance to play in the final, they immediately protested. The USSR representatives claimed that Mr. Yurii Saievych was not on the players’ roster and called him an “izmiennik rodiny.” As a result, the League supported the Soviet protest and they defeated the American team in the semifinal 15–13, 13–15, 15–13. This difficult diplomatic volleyball game “behind the scenes” was widely covered by the American press (The Washington Post, Stanychni Visti) and television (CBS).
In 1985, the champions of the League became the volleyball squad of the U.S. Department of State, which included pl. sen. Zenko Stakhiv, pl. sen. Yurko Saievych, st. pl. Andrii Stasiuk, and Liubko Kormeliuk. In the semifinal on April 4, the Americans defeated the USSR team 15–9, 15–12, and in the final they beat the Brazil embassy team 13–15, 15–11, 15–14, 15–5.
Memories of Participants
Mr. Zenon Stakhiv shared his memories of those turbulent volleyball competitions with me. I recall our interview with pleasure. Here is what he says: “In the embassy league we played three matches against the USSR. The first match took place in 1982, and we lost — all very even matches. But Yurii Saievych was disqualified because his name was officially not listed on the team roster, although he was a legitimate employee of the State Department. The Soviet team protested, and our team lost the match.
The next year, 1983, the U.S. State Department team again lost to the USSR team in three sets. But we were the two finalists who played for the championship later in March of the same year, which the State Department team finally won. Two Washington Post articles about the first two matches of 1982 and 1983 are also attached.
In addition, the Soviet team brought against us two players who were clearly former high-level volleyball players — one about 7 feet tall and a setter. And about 100 spectators from the Russian embassy to cheer them. After every Russian point they chanted ‘Sasha, Pasha, Grisha, Vanya, Kolya.’
Yurii Saievych went to fight as a volunteer after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, when the Russians invaded Donbas — at the age of 70. For a year he served guard duty in a hospital for those wounded on the front line.”
Truly unique memories of the unbreakable character of Ukrainian athletes. It was Ukrainians who “gave a real fight” to Soviet diplomats, who are in fact the occupiers of Ukraine. Therefore, it was a real war on the volleyball court.
Now it is time to speak in more detail about Mr. Yurii Saievych. After all, Mr. Zenon, at the end of his memories, singled out a short biographical note specifically about his good friend Yurii Saievych. They called him an “izmiennik rodiny,” and he resisted the “legions of Eternal Darkness”! Why and for what did Soviet diplomats and special services call a U.S. citizen that? Yurii Saievych is a patriot of Ukraine who went through the burning Maidan during the Revolution of Dignity and continued the struggle for Ukraine’s freedom at the front, defending the country from Russian aggression today. And he has been fighting the rashists from the very beginning. I had a wonderful opportunity to make with Mr. Yurii interview interview.
Here is what Yurii told about those decisive matches with the occupier of Ukraine: “When organizing Plast in Chicago, we decided to create our own volleyball club. It was called the ‘Ukrainian Volleyball Club.’ This club competed in All-American tournaments. I was the captain and coach of this team… There were interesting matches, not at a high level, but at the diplomatic level. They had great prestige because there were teams from the embassies of different countries. The State Department had its own team. I learned about it and approached them. Because I worked at the editorial office of the ‘Voice of America’ and had the right to play on the team. I came for the first time to the locker room where the Soviet athletes were, and I spoke with them a bit. I spoke to them in Ukrainian, and they spoke to me in Russian. After that, we beat them. And they began to call me an ‘izmiennik rodiny.’”
That is the attitude of communists toward an American citizen with Ukrainian roots. Yurii Saievych did not betray his Motherland — Ukraine. All his life he has fought for Ukraine’s freedom from Soviet occupation and from the Russian onslaught.
Outstanding coach Liubomyr Kormeliuk, a participant in those matches, also shared his memories of the extremely important games in the Embassy Volleyball League. He said the following: “The League was created among representatives of different embassies located in Washington. The Soviet embassy from Moscow also entered the league with its team. Very often they won against other state teams. The games were considered friendly. The League had existed long before I joined the team. Familiar participants invited me to join. I participated for five years with the State Department team from the early 80s. In addition to the American team, we often played against secular [teams] — Brazil, Argentina, Poland, Spain. Not everyone reached the finals. In the last year of my participation, Ivan Bilynskyi and my son Mykola joined. It was that year that the U.S. team won against the Soviets in the finals, which made them very angry; they very much disliked that there were four players of Ukrainian origin. That was 1987.”
Thus, Mr. Liubomyr’s words testify to and confirm the stubborn confrontation between Ukrainians and the rashists. It was Ukrainian players who irritated the communists the most. Because, first, Ukrainian volleyball players are stronger. Second, the Soviet terrorists could not tolerate the will and freedom of Ukrainians.
We truly have much to be proud of—and many remarkable individuals to celebrate.
Author: Oleksii Lyakh-Porodko
