Social worker, community activist.
Born at Toronto, Ontario on 21 August 1935 to Dmytro and Paraska Nykolyshyn, he grew up in the West Toronto Ukrainian labour temple. His mother was an active member of the hall and his father ran the family store. They enrolled young Zeny in the Ukrainian school at the hall. There he also took violin lessons, learned Ukrainian dances, and served a term as President of the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association’s Junior Section. As a teenager, he was an active member of its youth club as well as the labour temple’s peace movement. The peace movement was a risky pursuit in the 1950s, and he recalled being chased down the street by one irate resident when delivering peace pamphlets in the neighbourhood.
In 1958, the organization sent him to Ukraine to train as a leader at the Communist Party school, where he continued his studies of the Ukrainian language, as well as the history of the culture of the Party. With his studies completed, he returned to Canada and went to work as a Party organizer in Winnipeg. There, while working as a social worker, he dedicated much of his life to political activism for the attainment of social equity and justice. He was a lifetime member and National President of the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and a long-standing member and President of the Workers Benevolent Association.
With his wife Lucy he had four children. He died at Winnipeg on 23 April 2005.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 25 April 2005.
Perogies and Politics, Canada’s Ukrainian Left, 1891-1991 by Rhonda L. Hinther, University of Toronto Press, 2018.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 1 June 2022
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