ON THE AIR: Documentary recounts Ukrainian experience (03/28/99)

ON THE AIR: Documentary recounts Ukrainian experience

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - A landmark documentary on the Ukrainian experience in this century, "Scarred by History," will return to televisions screens across Canada on March 30, April 3 and 4. Significant viewer support of the one-hour film has prompted History Television, a Toronto-based division of the Alliance Communications Corp., to give the film a wider airing as part of its "War Stories" series.

According to the official news release, "the story of Ukraine is told through the lives of Jaroslav 'Jerry' Sywanyk, a Ukrainian immigrant to Saskatoon [Saskatchewan] and his immediate family, specifically his sisters, Maria, Olga and Olena, who remained in Ukraine."

The western Ukrainian experience of Austrian rule, Polish domination, Nazi occupation, and Soviet conquest and repression is vividly brought to life through footage obtained from archives in Ukraine - some never before aired in the West - interviews with Mr. Sywanyk, and the testimonies of relatives interviewed in the summer of 1998, in his native village of Markova, near Manastyrske in western Ukraine.

Mr. Sywanyk joined the Galicia Division, was interned in Italy and the United Kingdom, and then immigrated to Canada.

Maria Sywanyk-Kapeniak followed her in-laws to Siberia when they were arrested and exiled. Soon after her return, she was arrested for telling a joke about Stalin (her 8-year-old son was coerced into testifying against her), originally sentenced to be shot, then sent off for 25 years in the gulag.

Her husband had gone into the underground, then emigrated to Chicago, whence he applied unsuccessfully to bring her over after she was released from the camps in 1971. She died in 1988 in Markova.

Olga Sywanyk-Zayats remained in the village, but her husband, Konstantyn, died of malnutrition while in transit to the gulag. She herself was identified as an "enemy of the people" and died of cancer at age 50.

Olena's daughter, Iryna, died of cancer at age 10, and her husband, Ivan Dzhedzhora, also joined the Galicia Division. In the late 1940s she made a fateful decision not to accompany messengers sent by her husband to bring her out to the West. In one of the documentary's more poignant moments, she is quoted to have said on her deathbed in 1992: "I lost my child, I lost my husband. What kind of life have I lived?"

Also titled "Nezahoyeni Rany" (Unhealed Wounds), the documentary is the creation of Regina, Saskatchewan-based 4 Square Productions and Kyiv-based Novyy Kanal, and was originally broadcast on January 5.

The film's world-premiere, attended by Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow, was in Regina on November 17, 1998. The Ukrainian premiere took place at the headquarters of the National Television Company of Ukraine in Kyiv, on January 30.

The documentary's screenplay was written by Maggie Siggins, a co-owner of 4 Square Productions, who won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction in 1992. The book that garnered the prize, "Rage of the Land," has been adapted for television as a four-hour dramatic mini-series scheduled to air this fall on the Canadian CBC and American CBS networks.

Her husband, Prof. Gerald Sperling, head of the political science department at the University of Regina and 4 Square's other co-owner, acted as executive producer for "Scarred by History."

The director was Guo Fangfang, who immigrated from China to Canada in 1989.

The documentary is narrated by Saskatchewan-based actor Eva Petryshyn.

On Ukraine's end, Novyy Kanal and National Television Company executive Olexander Pelekh was the other executive producer; Alexander Globenko and Anatoly Karas served as associate producers-researchers; Serhiy Mykhalchuk, co-director of photography; Alexey Stremovsky, co-soundman; Serhiy Bondar, camera director.

According to their official press release, 4 Square Productions, the prime movers in producing the documentary, is "a multi-media, multi-dimensional film and video production company involved in all aspects of film, video and audio production and publishing. We have written award-winning books, directed feature films, hosted documentaries and produced variety shows both in Canada and abroad."

According to the release, 4 Square Productions has a special interest in international co-productions, having completed projects in Ukraine and China, with upcoming projects in China, Cuba, Ukraine and Poland.

The primary impetus for the production was Premier Romanow's visit to Ukraine in 1995.

The Saskatchewan provincial government, through the Department of Municipal Affairs, Culture and Housing and the Department of Intergovernmental Affairs, actually initiated the project and facilitated the contacts between Canada's and Ukraine's production teams.

The Winnipeg-based Shevchenko Foundation provided seed capital for the project, while the Toronto-based Ukrainian Research and Documentation Center provided assistance in research.

Telefilm Canada also made an investment in the $300,000 (Canadian) production, while History Television and the Saskatchewan Communications Network provided the pre-licensing that enabled it to go forward.

"Scarred by History" will be shown by History Television on March 30, at 1 p.m. (Eastern), 9 p.m., midnight; then again on Saturday, April 3, at noon, and Sunday, April 4, at 10 a.m.

History Television is carried by Rogers Communications in Toronto and Vancouver; by Shaw in Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria; by Westman Cable in Brandon, Manitoba; and Northeastern Cablevision in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

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For further information, History Television can be reached at 121 Bloor St. E., Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3M5; telephone, (416) 967-0022; fax: (416) 967-0044; website, http://www.historytelevision.ca.

For viewers interested in sending their reactions to the program by e-mail, the address is: [email protected]

Copies of "Scarred by History" may be purchased for $20 (Canadian) from 4 Square Productions, 1808 Smith St., Suite 220, Regina, Saskatchewan, S4P 2N4; telephone, (306) 525-9888; fax, (306) 525-8588; e-mail, [email protected].

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