From Poland to Portland Scholar brings international insights. to Portland State by Cynthia D. Stowell Tucked away in the mind of a university presIdent is the image of the ideal faculty member. There is always the hope thai the candidate walking into the next interview will possess all the desired trails: effective teaching, prolific publishing, loyalty to the University and an international reputation. The university student also harbors an image of the ideal professor: well-prepared, knowledgeable, respected in his field, stimulating and personally interested in each student. Every term, the slUdent hopes a person fitting that description will walk through the classroom door. Such a man walked onlo the Portland State campus in 195& and he's been exceeding the expectations of the academic community ever since. Basil Dmytryshyn, it professor of history for 30 years and now an associate director of PSU's International Trade and Commerce Institute, has earned scholarly distindion for himself and for the university he chose as his base. last May, Dmytryshyn was selected for the 1985 Branford Price Millar Award for Faculty Excellence, a prestigious prize named for PSU's second presiden!. A file of supporting letters from colleagues and former slUdents tells Dmytryshyn's story well. The professor fills in the details. "...a truly distinguished faculty member whose well-rounded efforts have advanced the quality of this institution through its formative years." - Victor C. Dahl. Director, Office of Graduate Studies and Research It took some vision on the part of Dmytryshyn and his contemporaries. When the 31-year-old historian, his Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley still fresh, came to interview at Portland State College, lincoln Hall was Ihe whole campus. "It's easy to start working in a place that someixx:ly else has built up," S.Jid Dmytryshyn. "It's a challenge to build something oul of nothing. This was the challenge of a lifetime." Dmytryshyn feels it was a successful experiment. ''I'd say we made great progress in a short time with limited resources - except the desire to show that we were capable." When Dmytryshyn retires in 1988, it will be from, in his words, "a healthy, respectable and nationally known institution with nationally and internationally known faculty." And he will have the satisfaction of knowing he was par! of the process. ~ 6 1 PSU P e r s p e c t ; v e ~ Winter 1986 Bdsil Dmytryshyn, pro fessor of history at PSU since r 956, captures the drama of the years leiJding up to World War lI;n a recent lecture. The Polish-born professor was an eyewitness to the Europeoln events he brings to life in his "History of World Wolf II" course. "He came to the United States in 1946 with great courage and optimism and no worldly goods. Nine years later he had earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D., was a citizen and already well.launched into a most distinguished career." - LA.P. Crownhart-Vaughan, former student, Coordinator of Foreign Archives at the Oregon Historical SOCiety Born in Poland in 1925, Dmytfyshyn had his education interrupted by World War 11 and then had his freedom interrupted when he was arrested by the Germans just before Christmas in years of great teaching 1943. He escaped to Czechoslovakia, where he joined the anti-German "Slovak Partisans." When the Russians arrived, he was arrested again. ("I don't know for sure why.") Not wanting to go to Siberia, Dmytryshyn escaped again, this time to the U.S. Embassy in Prague, where he failed to win passage to America, and then to the American zone in Germany, where he received the necessary papers from his father, who was already in Ihe U.S. His mother and sister had perished as a result of the war, 50 Dmytryshyn looked .III his trip to America as "going home." The stuff of adventure films, Dmytryshyn's months of flight had been taxing mentally and physically. There was no bellying under barbed wire fences or creeping from farmyard to farmyard, but there were some hair-raising rides on the tops of trains. "Tunnels were difficult," he smiled. The young Dmytryshyn had to be wily. "Traveling without a suitcase and giving the impression you know where you are, it's always easy to get 1051 in a crowd," he confided. Unable to find food regularly, Dmylryshyn was a mere 95 pounds when he arrived in New York. But his father had a good job, and Basil could afford to put off working and finish his education. First, he went 10 night school to learn English, and then he sel off for Arkansas, where he felt sure he wouldn't run into people with whom he could speak any of the several European languages he knew. It was at the University of ArkanS.Js that Dmytryshyn, who started oul in pre·med, was convinced by a mentor Ihal "history should be my beat." He had already lived a bit of history; now he wanled to make a career of studying it. And he had learned something important during his war years. "If gave me a different perspective on life," he said. "Only when you lose freedom do you appreciate what freedom is." Dmytryshyn has spent the last 35 years examining a country where freedom is not defined in the way we Americans take for granted. That country is the Soviet Union. "Any serious student of Russian history knows at least some of his many publications in this field, and he is universally respected for the high quality of his work." - Jim Heath, history professor Four of Dmytryshyn's dozen books on Russia, including A History of Russia, are used as college texts throughout the English-speaking world. USSR: A Concise History is currently being translated into Korean. The man who declined to go to Siberia and has never visited Ine Soviet Union since has become, nevertheless, a recognized authority on the huge, enigmatiC nation. "My views of the Soviet Union have been shaped by the great teachers at the scnools I've attended, but also by the broad spectrum of reading I've done in various languages," he explained. Dmytryshyn has a working knowledge of Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Continued on p a g ~ 14
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