WTTW News met artist and teacher Elena Diadenko three years ago, soon after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Diadenko teaches art at Schurz High School on the Northwest Side, where she won a Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Now, as in 2022, Diadenko aids the war effort in her native country. When she isn’t teaching she raises funds through art-related events — although now she has a heightened sense of urgency due to the new administration in Washington DC.
“These fundraisers, they make me feel better,” she said.
She moved to Chicago in 1992 as a young woman and stayed when the Soviet Union broke up and Ukraine became independent. Now a U.S. citizen, she still has friends in Ukraine, including a soldier who was recently stationed in Kursk.
“I spoke to a man from the 210th Brigade. They were in Kursk region, Russian territory, and they had to evacuate,” she said. “It was very difficult for them to leave. He was telling me that while they were there approximately eight men would be dead per day, and when they were leaving there were more losses.”
Outside of CPS, she teaches workshops that focus on traditional Ukrainian glass painting and other crafts. The classes raise money to provide heavy gauze for combat wounds, hygienic supplies and food for the many pets and animals caught in war zones.
To date, Diadenko has raised over $100,000.
“We gave it away, to the animal shelters and for combat gauze,” Diadenko said. “We make the money, we buy the product, and we ship it. Or we send money directly to the shelters so they can make the food for the animals. I can’t stop because too many there need help.”
We spoke on the day that President Donald Trump had a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“Hopefully something can be done,” she said. “I don’t have really big hope for President Trump, because in my opinion he leans towards Russia, towards Putin. He was saying that he will stop the war with one phone call. Obviously he cannot. I mean, he makes many promises that he cannot deliver.”
“What was really upsetting is that some Ukrainian-Americans actually voted for him, and now they feel betrayed. But it was kind of obvious in the first place if you really listened to him,” she said.
What does she say to her fellow Americans of Ukrainian descent?
“They usually don’t admit. And those who were pro-Trump on Facebook during the campaign, I would block them or they would block me because they would get irritated. They say ‘Oh, Trump has to act and pretend like that, but he’s really for Ukraine,’ which he is not. Some who have more brains figured out that he is not. The rest of us who were against him are disappointed and sad.
“And just between us – or you can write it, it’s OK – when Trump won the election, I cried so hard because I knew he’s not going to help Ukraine,” she said.
Last year, Diadenko became the leader of a local branch of the 100-year-old organization Ukrainian National Womens League of America (UNWLA). Since then she has raised an additional $23,000 in funds for war relief.
On Saturday, March 22, Diadenko hosts an art class/fundraiser at Magic Jug, a Ukrainian restaurant at 6354 W. Irving Park Road. The class is completely booked, so she’s already set up the next one at the restaurant for April 6. She said she will soon create an events page on Facebook.
Aside from raising money, she has also donated personal funds for drones and for the families of fallen soldiers. She worries about her contacts in Ukraine.
“I have friends in Poltava, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv. Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia get bombed all the time. Odessa, too, and I’m talking about civilian houses.”
Like so many, she just wants the war to end.
“I wish it would be over. I’m going this summer to see volunteers and friends. That will be new experience for me because I haven’t been in Ukraine for a long time and to go there during wartime I will probably see a lot,” she said. “I read, I learn, but it’s better to see with your own eyes than to hear 1,000 stories.”
Source: WWCI
