Ukrainian Flag Raising Echoes City’s Past

As Ann Salemme watched the Ukrainian national flag lifted high above the Green, she couldn’t help but think back to another time — nearly seven decades ago — when New Haven elected officials and local Ukrainian Americans celebrated another independence day for the embattled Eastern European nation by raising its flag and declaring support for Ukrainian self-rule.

Salemme offered that deep dive into Ukrainian-New Haven history Wednesday midday during a flag raising ceremony on the Green.

She joined roughly two dozen fellow local Ukrainian Americans — many of whom are members of St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church on George Street — for the flag raising event and subsequent press conference with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Mayor Justin Elicker. 

Wednesday’s event took place on the 31-year anniversary of Ukraine declaring independence from the then-crumbling Soviet Union on Aug. 24, 1991.

The event was also held six months to the day after Russia kicked off its current war with Ukraine when its military invaded the country on Feb. 24.

Elicker presented the group on Wednesday with an official proclamation, while DeLauro promised that, as the chair of the federal Appropriations Committee, she would continue to advocate for the U.S. to keep sending financial and military aid to Ukraine during its ongoing war with Russia.

“We have a moral responsibility to help end the grievous loss of life, to hold Putin and his cronies accountable, and to protect global democracy,’ DeLauro said, ​“because if we don’t hold onto democracy in Ukraine, we will not have democracy in the rest of the world.”

During her time at the mic, Salemme, who is the president of the New Haven branch of the Ukrainian Women’s League of America, touched on both the past and the present as she described this city’s history of honoring Ukrainian independence day. 

“I am happy to be here on the historic New Haven Green, and yet, at the same time, I am saddened that today, Aug. 24, Ukrainians cannot even observe this day in Ukraine,” she said.

That’s because the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy ​“has requested that there be no large gatherings, no mass celebrations” to avoid creating a human target for Russian shelling.

Salemme, who was born and raised in New Haven and who currently lives in West Haven, said that Wednesday’s flag raising ceremony and press conference called to mind for her and for many fellow New Haven Ukrainian Americans of her generation a similar event that took place downtown in the mid-1950s.

In January 1954, she said, ​“New Haven was the first city in the U.S. to fly the Ukrainian flag. Some of us may even remember that day. Most of us have seen the photo taken on the front stairs of New Haven City Hall.”

Salemme told the Independent that she didn’t attend that ceremony in 1954. She was only 3 years old at the time, and her parents thought it was too cold to bring her to the outdoor event.

But her late father, who was born in Ukraine and who emigrated to New Haven after World War II, did attend that 1954 ceremony. She said he would often describe for her the large crowd of Ukrainian Americans that met up with then Mayor Richard Lee outside to celebrate the flying of Ukraine’s flag from the front of City Hall in honor of the country’s first independence day — Jan. 22, 1919, which was declared in the aftermath of World War I.

“We see that photograph,” Salemme said at Wednesday’s presser, recalling that 1954 event, ​“and we remember all of those who came here after World War I and World War II and found work, raised families, and built our community.”

“We all know what happened during World War II and the era of the Soviet Union,” she said when describing how Ukrainian independence was dashed for most of the 20th century.

Then, in 1991, the Ukrainians ​“again declared their freedom. And now, again, Ukraine is fighting for its very existence.”

Online-preserved press clippings from the New Jersey-based newspaper The Ukrainian Weekly offer even more details on that original New Haven Ukrainian independence celebration some seven decades ago. (Those press clippings also indicate that the flag ceremony took place in 1955, not 1954.)

A Jan. 30, 1954 edition of The Ukrainian Weekly includes a front page article entitled: ​“Ukrainian Banner to Be Unfurled Over New Haven’s City Hall.”

“Over four hundred persons attended last Sunday, January 24th, a mass meeting at the YWCA in New Haven, Conn. to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the union of Eastern and Western newly-born Ukrainian republics of that time in form of the Ukrainian National Republic,” that article reads.

“One of the highlights of the affair was the declaration made at it by New Haven’s Mayor Lee in the course of his address that ​‘on the next January 22, 1955, on the anniversary of that historic day of January 22, 1919 the Ukrainian blue and golden banner will be unfurled over the City Hall of New Haven.’

“Congressman Albert W. Cretella, another principal speaker, praised the Ukrainian people for ​‘their valiant fight to win their national freedom and independence, which they so richly deserve.’

“Senator Levy of the Connecticut State Legislature in the course of his talk to the assembled voiced equal hope that the Ukrainians will soon regain their national statehood.”

A subsequent article from the Jan. 29, 1955 of that same newspaper described the Ukrainian flag raising at New Haven City Hall that year — and included a photograph of then Mayor Lee meeting with a dozen Ukrainian Americans. That article is entitled: ​“New Haven Mayor Lee Presented With Citation.”

“Ukrainian Day was officially observed in New Haven, Conn. on January 23 with the Ukrainian flag flowing from the facade of its City Hall,” the article reads. ​“Ceremonies were held at the Eagle Hall, at which a fine address was delivered by Joseph Lesawyer, treasurer of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. …

“Pictured above is Mayor Lee presented with a citation for his sympathetic understanding of the Ukrainian cause. He also received a Ukrainian photo album. On his immediate left is Mr. Joseph Lesawyer.”

After Wednesday’s press conference, the Independent caught up with Salemme about her connection to modern-day Ukraine — and about how the ongoing Russian war has affected her life.

“My goddaughter’s son was in the service,” she said, referring to his decision to stay in Ukraine and enlist in its military defense force at the start of the war to protect his country from Russian aggression. ​“He died in March,” she said.

Her goddaughter, meanwhile, had to flee from her family’s home in Odessa. ​“She was a horse trainer,” Salemme said. And, miraculously enough, she and her other son and their horses were able to make it to Lviv, where they are now. She said she hasn’t heard from her goddaughter in several weeks, and is worried about how she and her son are faring as the war now drags on into its seventh month.