[Photo: embroidered rushnyk]
A rushnyk (ritual embroidered towel) I photographed at the Museum of the Ukrainian Rushnyk, Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy.
Today I am wearing my vyshyvanka (embroidered shirt) for Liubomyr Medyk, known to his friends as Liubko. He was a historian, collector and storyteller from Yaremche in the Ukrainian Carpathians. He was killed in October 2026 while carrying out a combat mission near Stepnohirsk, in the Zaporizhzhia direction, as a soldier of the 157th Separate Mechanized Brigade (Ukrainian Catholic University [UCU], 2026).
I did not know Liubko personally. My Facebook friends did, and their grief brought me to his page. What I found there is a gift to all of us.
I learned of his death in Edmonton, where I am attending the symposium for the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. Yesterday I met Metropolitan Borys Gudziak for the first time, after his keynote, the 25th Bohdan Bociurkiw Memorial Lecture, “The World Has Never Been So Ukrainian” (University of Alberta, n.d.). His message was that Ukrainians abroad are no longer a diaspora apart but part of one global Ukrainian community, held together by human dignity, shared memory and mutual service (Gudziak, n.d.). Today he shared the news of Liubko, a UCU graduate, with the words «Більшої любові ніхто не має» [No one has greater love], echoing the Gospel of John (Gudziak, 2026). I felt his keynote come alive: a man in Kamloops grieving a man from Yaremche he never met, through friends in Ukraine.
Liubko earned his master’s degree in history at UCU in 2009. He loved old photographs, collected antiques and Ukrainian traditional clothing, and shared this collection openly on his social media pages, so that others could see the everyday life of Ukrainians in earlier times (UCU, 2026). His page holds albums such as Chorni vyshyti sorochky (black embroidered shirts), where he posted family photographs that owners shared with him, always thanking them and noting what was known and unknown about each image (Medyk, n.d.). This is careful, generous history: material culture kept alive by one person, thread by thread.
He was also a writer. His novella Smert vidmy (The Death of a Witch), which Ivanka Dymyd republished after his death, is set in a Hutsul village and draws on mountain customs and beliefs: a roof opened so a dying witch can pass, a trembita (long Carpathian horn) announcing a death, and quicksilver carried as an oberih (protective charm) (Dymyd, 2026). His own notes at the end explain these customs for readers, so the story also works as a small lesson in Hutsul folk culture.
Friends remember him as a philosopher and a talented storyteller, a kind and noble man with fine humour who was glad for other people’s success (UCU, 2026). Even his last posts from the front were light: one about the Radio Dictation of National Unity made his classmates smile (UCU, 2026). His brother Mykhailo said that Liubko «прагнув жити простим людським життям» [wanted to live a simple human life] (UCU, 2026).
Social workers speak about cultural continuity as part of healing. Liubko did this work without the vocabulary: he gathered photographs, clothing and stories so that families could find their grandparents’ embroidery and recognise themselves in it. When we lose a person like this, we lose a living archive. What we can do is keep looking at what he shared, wear what he loved, and pass it on.
The rushnyk at the top of this post is my small thank you. Every thread keeps a memory, and Liubko kept thousands of them for us.
Vichna pamiat (eternal memory). Slava Heroiu (glory to the hero).
Love. Care. Share.
References
Dymyd, I. (2026, October 29). + Любомир. Ми не зналися. Дякую за чин! Публікую тут новелу Любомира, яку знайшла на його сторінці [+ Liubomyr. We did not know each other. Thank you for your service! I am publishing here Liubomyr’s novella, which I found on his page] [Status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=3177115295815690&set=a.1021912944669280
Gudziak, B. (n.d.). What holds together a scattered people? A land, a territory, a language, a shared history, a shared suffering? [Status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/borys.gudziak/posts/pfbid02bFjkVMi1YZt1ZzEP7b1Xa8GDs89MYvqoTzzT7bXvNJjVPVVTpiFtU1BjaYCvkJ23l
Gudziak, B. (2026, October 29). Наш випускник Любомир Медик на щиті. Більшої любові ніхто не має… Вічная памʼять! [Our graduate Liubomyr Medyk has fallen. No one has greater love… Eternal memory!] [Status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/borys.gudziak
Medyk, L. (n.d.). Liubomyr Medyk [Facebook profile]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/liubomyr.medyk
University of Alberta. (n.d.). 25 years of the Bohdan Bociurkiw Memorial Lecture: “The world has never been so Ukrainian: Challenges and opportunities of the global Ukrainian community.” Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. https://www.ualberta.ca/en/canadian-institute-of-ukrainian-studies/news-and-events/annual-lectures/bociurkiw-memorial-lecture/25-ann-bociurkiw-memorial-lecture.html
Український католицький університет [Ukrainian Catholic University]. (2026, October 29). З великим сумом повідомляємо, що на війні загинув Любомир Медик, випускник Гуманітарного факультету Українського католицького університету [With great sorrow we announce that Liubomyr Medyk, a graduate of the Faculty of Humanities of the Ukrainian Catholic University, was killed in the war] [Status update]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1538807711612726&set=a.613937614099745
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