FACES AND PLACES: The third wave revisited (11/26/00)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

The third wave revisited

Much time is spent in our community discussing the "Fourth Wave" and its future. Some Ukrainian Americans demand that our newest immigrants return and help rebuild Ukraine. Others are reconciled to some Fourth-Wavers remaining here, but worry about their indifference towards our community. "They have no great commitment to Ukrainianism," we often hear.

Most of those complaining are third-wavers who have forgotten how it was when they came over and the second wave groused about them. While many third-wavers joined existing Ukrainian organizations, especially the fraternals, others formed their own, separate organizations and networks. The Banderite wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN [B]) loyalists was especially active in this regard.

It is for this reason that Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk's groundbreaking book "Searching for Place: Ukrainian Displaced Persons, Canada and the Migration of Memory" is such a significant contribution to Ukrainian immigration history. A professor of political geography in the department of politics and economics at the Royal Military College of Canada, Dr. Luciuk, son of third-wave immigrants, is director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, an organization defining Ukrainian Canadian positions on issues such as redress for evil perpetrated by the internment of Ukrainians during 1914-1920, injustices associated with deporting alleged Nazi war criminals, and inclusiveness in the proposed Canadian Museum of Genocide.

Originally intended as a study of refugee migration, Dr. Luciuk's meticulously documented research study (211 pages of notes) emerged as a comprehensive political history of Ukrainian Canadians as they navigated the shoals of changing realities in Canada and Ukraine over some 100 years.

"Searching for Place" begins with a fascinating historical overview of the situation in the Ukrainian Canadian community prior to the second world war, especially the socio-political and religio-cultural developments which led to the establishment of various reading rooms (chytalni) and national homes (narodni domy), and such early organizations as the socialist-oriented Taras Shevchenko Educational Association (1906) and the Ukrainian Teachers' Association (1907), the latter helping organize various patriotic student "bursy" (hostels), including Saskatoon's famed Petro Mohyla Institute (1916).

The origin of such Canada-wide societies as the Orthodox-associated Self-Reliance League, the pro-Soviet Ukrainian Labor Farmer Temple Association (UFTA) the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League (USRL), the OUN-inspired Ukrainian National Federation (UNO) and the Brotherhood of Ukrainian Catholics (BUC) are also examined as prelude to the chief focus of the book, the third wave - the displaced persons (DP) generation.

The role of the Canadian government in the formation in 1940 of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (UCC), an umbrella organization, especially the involvement of the "enigmatic and dapper Englishman Tracey Erasmus Philipps," a person who appreciated Ukrainian Canadians as well as any Anglo, is examined in great detail.

One fascinating chapter is devoted to the critical role played by Ukrainians serving in the Canadian army who came in contact with Ukrainian DPs in Germany.

Led by such extraordinary individuals as Bohdan Panchuk, they established the Ukrainian Canadian Servicemen's Association in London. It was the UCSA that alerted the UCC to the plight of Ukrainian DPs and led to the formation of the Canadian Relief Mission for Ukrainian Refugees. Writes Dr. Luciuk: "For Panchuk it was obvious that Ukrainian refugees were being 'kicked about like a football,' and were suffering this unhappy fate simply because they were Ukrainians."

The bulk of Dr. Luciuk's book is devoted to third-wave settlement in Canada and the inevitable conflicts that emerged between second-wave immigrants sensitive to the issue of loyalty to Canada, and the militant OUN (B) faction, founders of the Canadian League for the Liberation of Ukraine whose only loyalty was to Ukraine. Efforts by UCC executives to bring the league into the Ukrainian Canadian fold were initially rebuffed. "We are not trying to build Ukraine in Canada," the league's president, Dr. Roman Malaschuk, reminded his membership as late as 1954. "We are trying to do everything possible to help liberate the homeland and thus make [our] return there possible." It wasn't until 1959 that the league formally joined the UCC.

Dr. Luciuk demolishes many myths regarding Ukrainian Canadian history. First among them is the myth that Ukrainians were well-treated in Canada and have nothing to complain about. Other myths include: the idea, disseminated by Canada's Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that thousands of "Nazi collaborators" snuck into Canada by claiming to be DPs and victims of the war; the notion that Ukrainians were encouraged to retain the ethnic identity as a community in Canada; and the fantasy that Canada and other Western governments were sympathetic to Ukraine's liberation.

Dr. Luciuk's lucid and engaging 576-page book will enlighten all Ukrainians about their past. Softback copies are available in time for the holidays from Ukrainian Educational Associates, 107 Ilehamwood Drive, DeKalb, IL, 60115 for $25 (U.S.), including shipping and handling. Chicago Ukrainians will have an opportunity to purchase autographed copies on Sunday, December 17, when Dr. Luciuk addresses the community at the Ukrainian Cultural Center, 2247 W. Chicago Ave., at 1:30 p.m.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is [email protected]

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