Canadian Postal Museum, UPNS and Weekly collaborate on survey of Cold-War era mail (11/19/00)

Canadian Postal Museum, UPNS and Weekly collaborate on survey of Cold-War era mail

by Ingert Kuzych and John Willis

The Canadian Postal Museum, the Ukrainian Philatelic and Numismatic Society (UPNS), and The Ukrainian Weekly are cooperating in a groundbreaking venture focusing on mail exchange between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world from the beginning of the Cold War to the collapse of the USSR, roughly 1945 to 1991. We would like to get some idea of how pervasive Soviet censorship was during this time. Were all mails censored, or only particular types? Was it more so during certain periods? Was the surveillance blatant or discreet?

We would also like to determine what sort of preventive actions letter-writers undertook to foil the efforts of censors.

We are hoping that as many Weekly readers and UPNS members as possible will participate in this unprecedented survey in order to give as representative a cross-section of the Ukrainian diaspora as possible. Submittals can be made in one of three ways: by regular mail, e-mail or fax. Please do not feel you need to limit your responses to the space provided. If you can relate additional information or can include pertinent examples, so much the better.

The questionnaire does not seek anyone's name; respondents' anonymity is assured. If you wish to add you name, however, for possible follow-up questions or a future survey, you may do so.

The plan is to run this survey in The Ukrainian Weekly and to include it with the next issue of the Ukrainian Philatelist journal later this year. The more respondents, the more accurate and valid the final tabulations and analysis will be. If the response to this questionnaire is positive, we intend to publish the results in The Ukrainian Weekly and/or in Ukrainian Philatelist in the not too distant future. The Canadian Postal Museum may also use the information as the basis for museum exhibitions, publications and further research.

Background to the survey

Historians are gradually turning to private correspondence as a resource for the study of the social history of immigration. Number-crunching can provide useful results, but nothing can replace the first-, second- or third-person voice of the immigrant himself, exchanging news and views with the folks back home.

In the fall of 1999 the Canadian Postal Museum developed a questionnaire in which Ukrainian respondents were asked to report on the experience of exchanging mail with friends and family in Ukraine during the Cold War. The questionnaire was part of a larger research project into the personal history, papers and letters of one immigrant to Canada, who left Ukraine in the wake of World War II. The family and friends of one letter-writer made us aware of the intrusive reality of the Soviet censor during this era. This impression was later confirmed by the dozen or so Ukrainian Canadian respondents who filled out an earlier version of this questionnaire.

Ukrainians residing overseas would develop various strategies - recourse to symbolism or parables in language, use of carbon paper to prevent reading by X-ray machine, etc. - in order to cope with the fact that a party that was not an intended recipient was opening and reading their mail.

The following questionnaire is intended to help us collect hard data as to the experience of exchanging mail with Ukraine primarily during the Cold War era, i.e., from the 1940s through the 1980s. We ask that readers fill it out and return it to us. You would literally be helping us make history!

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