CYM (Ukrainian Youth Association / Spilka Ukrayinskoiy Molodi) in Bradford was founded on 29 August 1948 and named 30 June 1941 branch in commemoration of Ukraine’s declaration of Independence on that date. The first chair was Stefan Nakonechnyj. Bradford was one of the very early CYM branches, as the organisation was only set up in the UK up on 1 July 1948, when Myroslaw Szawrytko (the authorised UK representative of CYM Central Executive), Mychaijlo Hryniuk and Ihnaty Fedzyniak created a...

CYM (Ukrainian Youth Association / Spilka Ukrayinskoiy Molodi) in Bradford was founded on 29 August 1948 and named 30 June 1941 branch in commemoration of Ukraine’s declaration of Independence on that date. The first chair was Stefan Nakonechnyj. Bradford was one of the very early CYM branches, as the organisation was only set up in the UK up on 1 July 1948, when Myroslaw Szawrytko (the authorised UK representative of CYM Central Executive), Mychaijlo Hryniuk and Ihnaty Fedzyniak created a CYM organisational centre at a PoW camp in Tattershall, Lincolnshire. This built on an underground Ukrainian liberation movement established in the 1920s by Mykola Pavlushkov which was resurrected in the Germany displaced people’s camps in 1946. The first general meeting of CYM in Great Britain was held on 16 January 1949, when the first Nation Committee for CYM in the UK was elected.

In common with other branches of CYM, Bradford has a four-tier membership structure: Sumeniata (youngest children), Yunatstvo (children and teenagers), Druzhynnyky (young adults) and Seniors (adults). CYM branches organise educational meetings for younger members which focus on Ukrainian history and culture, and Bradford is one of the branches with strong tradition of performing arts groups such as choirs, folk dance groups and musical groups. In 1958 Petro Wasylyk set up a dance group and Wolodymyr Parfaniuk set up a string orchestra (first mandolins then guitars) which was directed by Jaroslaw Hawryliuk. In 1959, a drama group was established by W Bukowskyj and M Hryniszak. In 1960, chess and table tennis clubs were set up and a newsletter ‘Nash Druh’ was set up and edited by M Mykolyshyn. In 1962, a wood carving group was set up by V Rybczyn then Mr Panchak. Around 1962, Mrs E Jakowiw and Mrs M Salamacha set up an embroidery group. In 1963, the dance group was reorganised and renamed Krylati, choreographed by Ostap Buriak until his death in 1995. In 1996, an a cappella of bandurists was set up by Vera Tymczyzyn assisted by Halyna Zamulinska.

CYM Bradford also plays an active part in community life and leads on several significant community occasions including providing the guard of honour for the plashchenycha (icon of Jesus Christ) in the Ukrainian Catholic Church at Easter, the commemoration of Battle of Kruty (29/30 January 1918), the Declaration of Ukrainian Independence 30 June 1941, and the feast of St Michael Archangel (8 or 21 November). It also manages to persuade St Nicholas to visit every year to give out gifts to children.

Taras Shevchenko (9 March 1815 - 10 March 1861), poet and painter, was born into serfdom in Kaniv, just outside Kyiv, and was orphaned by the age of 12. Aged 14, he became a servant of Pavel Englehart and served him in Vilnius, Lithuania and St Petersburg, Russia. Noticing his artistic talent, Englehart apprenticed him to the painter V. Shiriav for four years, allowing Shevchenko to meet other artists as well as receiving his education. When he was 24, Shevchenko's friends organised an art auction to raise money to buy his freedom from serfdom.

Shevchenko is recognised as Ukraine’s national poet and enjoys a status similar to that of William Shakespeare in British culture. The significance of Shevchenko is in his use of the Ukrainian language and his loyalty to using it in order to elevate it from a vernacular to a literary language at a time when its use was restricted by the Russian Empire. He was a member of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, a secret society dedicated to the abolition of serfdom and the education of the peasantry. This resistance against the systemic oppression of Ukrainians resulted in his arrest and exile to various penal settlements, which had a huge impact on his health. Tragically, he died weeks before serfdom was abolished. The significance of his work as a statement of national identity and the use of the Ukrainian language was of great importance to the diaspora community, who felt a duty to perform his work as widely as possible. It was, and continues to be, usual for Ukrainian communities in the Britain to hold a celebratory concert in honour of Shevchenko in March each year.