Ukrainian experience in Canada is focus of continuing research by CIUS (11/21/04)

Ukrainian experience in Canada is focus of continuing research by CIUS

EDMONTON - The Ukrainian experience in Canada continues to be the focus of research by the Ukrainian Canadian Program (UCP) of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

The writing of the second volume of the history of Ukrainians in Canada - dealing with the turbulent years from the 1920s to the onset of the Cold War - is under way and progressing steadily. The book is being authored by Orest Martynowych, who has already produced a manuscript that is currently in the process of being edited on the father of Ukrainian Canadian dance and cinema, Vasile Avramenko.

Meanwhile, the UCP co-coordinators have been active in a variety of endeavors related to the field of Ukrainian Canadian studies, as well as Ukrainian community development in Canada.

Andrij Makuch has now finished preliminary work on a special number of the Journal of Ukrainian Studies that is going to be devoted entirely to Ukrainian Canadian themes. At the same time there are plans for a similar 2006 issue of the journal, Australian Canadian Studies, edited by Dr. Sonia Mycak of the University of Sydney.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the City of Edmonton's celebration of its centennial in 2004, Mr. Balan contributed an article on Michael Gowda, the first Ukrainian to reside in Alberta's capital, as well as several English translations from his writings to a website and book being prepared under the title "Edmonton, A City Called Home."

Two translations by Mr. Balan of Ukrainian Canadian literary works also recently appeared in print. An excerpt from Illia Kiriak's novel, "Syny Zemli," was included in "The Wild Rose Anthology of Alberta Prose" issued by the University of Calgary Press, and the first short story written in Ukrainian in Canada, by the Rev. Nestor Dmytriw in 1897, was published in the March-April 2004 edition of Alberta Views magazine.

Furthermore, an essay by Mr. Balan titled "Vasyl Stefanyk's Literary Monument to the Ukrainian Pioneers in Canada" is among the papers dedicated to the late Danylo Husar Struk in the latest issue of the Journal of Ukrainian Studies. Mr. Makuch has an article on "Ukrainians in the 2001 Canadian Census" in the Jaroslav Rozumnyj edited volume, "Yesterday, Today, Tommorrow: The Ukrainian Community in Canada," published this year in Winnipeg.

Both Mr. Makuch and Mr. Balan have likewise given presentations at several academic conferences over the past year. While the former addressed a fall 2003 meeting of the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association held in Banff, Alberta, the latter spoke at a literary conference devoted to the Icelandic Canadian poet, Stephan G. Stephansson, held in Reyjkavik, Iceland.

Along with Mr. Martynowych, both men also took part in Ukrainian Canadian sessions at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies conference in Toronto last November, and at this year's Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Manitoba. The Winnipeg gathering also included a panel dealing with Ukrainian archival holdings in Canada in which all three UCP representatives participated.

Committed to improving the quality of popular presentations of Ukrainian Canadian history, the Ukrainian Canadian Program has again played an important advisory role in various commemorative undertakings. These include assisting in the drafting of texts for historical plaques and markers erected by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in Manitoba, and by the Historic Sites Service of the Province of Alberta. Whereas Mr. Makuch acted as a consultant on the Ukrainian component of an exhibit titled "Immigrant Furniture of Western Canada, 1870-1930," mounted at the University of Toronto between March and July, Mr. Balan, along with Dr. Frances Swyripa, served in a similar capacity on a documentary film history of the Edmonton Eparchy of the Ukrainian Catholic Church scheduled for release in the fall of this year.

In addition to their research and consulting work, Messrs. Balan and Makuch shared their expertise at various Ukrainian community functions. For instance, the former delivered a comprehensive overview of the Ukrainian community in Canada at a Hamilton conference of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and gave a talk at a January meeting of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional Business Club of Calgary on the beginnings of Ukrainian life in Alberta. Mr. Makuch attended the May founding of the Saskatchewan Ukrainian Historical Society, where he spoke on the topic "Ukrainian Organizational Life in Saskatchewan to the 1960s."

Finally, Mr. Balan has remained actively involved in the Kalyna Country Ecomuseum on behalf of the CIUS, which helped to sponsor its creation in 1991-1992 to mark the 100th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. Kalyna Country is now a well-established heritage district with a growing national and international reputation, thanks in part to the success of the annual Kalyna Country Visitors and Events Guide, which has grown over the years into a popular four-color magazine with a press run of more than 50,000 copies.

In April Mr. Balan spent two weeks in southern Ukraine consulting on an ecotourism project being launched in the coastal regions of the Kherson Oblast, and in May he conducted two days of seminars dealing with heritage tourism for a delegation of Ukrainian officials visiting Niagara Falls as part of a Canadian study tour.

It is hoped that the Kalyna Country model can eventually be applied to other Ukrainian bloc settlements in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, thereby helping to facilitate the preservation of Ukrainian history on the prairies for future generations.

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