The Cultural Life of Alberta's
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ALB ViHEAl ELK A comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of the life of the first Ukrainian immigrants. Nineteen essays examine conditions in Western Ukraine which led to migration, the nature of the rural bloc settlement, material culture, the fate of women, customs and beliefs, cultural institutions and organizations, as well as problems- of cultural transmission, accommodation and ethnicity. VLanoly R. Lupul is professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, University of Alberta, and editor of A Heritage in Transition: Essays in the History of Ukrainians in Canada. ISBN 920862608 Cover Painting Peter Shostak Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from University of Alberta Libraries https://archive.org/details/continuitychangeOOIupu Continuity and Change The Cultural Life of Alberta’s First Ukrainians edited by Manoly R. Lupul Published by Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta and Historic Sites Service, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Edmonton 1988 1 Copyright © 1988 Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies ii University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data ISBN 0-920862-60-8 1. Ukrainians—Alberta— History. 2. Ukrainians—Alberta—Social conditions. 3. Immigrants—Alberta— History. 4. Immigrants—Alberta—Social conditions. I. Lupul, Manoly R.,1927- II. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. FC3700.U5C65 1988 97 1 .23’0049 1 79 F1080.U5C65 1988 C88-091047-X All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Cover design: Stephen Tate Printed in Canada by: BHC Bruce Hartshorne Consulting Distributed by: University of Toronto Press 5201 Dufferin St. Downsview, Ontario Canada M3H 5T8 Continuity and Change The Cultural Life of Alberta’s First Ukrainians V Contents List of Contributors vii Introduction ix A. PROLOGUE 1 Immigration and Organized Forgetting: Continuity and Change in Systems of Meaning/Roman Onufrijchuk 2 B. OLD AND NEW WORLDS CONTRASTED 9 Cultural Life in the Awakening Village in Western Ukraine/John-Paul Himka 10 The Canadian Prairie Frontier/T.D. Regehr 24 The Ukrainian Bloc Settlement in East Central Alberta, 1890-1930/Orest T. Martynowych 30 Ukrainian Rural Communities in East Central Alberta Before 1930/Radomir Bilash 60 C. MATERIAL CULTURE 77 The First Imprint: The Burdei in the Wilderness/ Andriy Nahachewsky 78 The Cultural Importance of Vernacular Architecture/John C. Lehr 87 Mashyna : Ukrainians and Agricultural Technology in Alberta to 1930/Peter Melnycky 100 D. THE POETICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE 113 Women in Three Households/Marie Lesoway 114 Nation-Building into the 1920s: Conflicting Claims on Ukrainian Immigrant Women/Frances Swyripa 121 E. CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS 153 Ukrainian Rites of Pass^ge/Zenon Pohorecky 154 The Role of Folk Music /Robert B. Klymasz 167 Three Types of Ukrainian Folk Tales in Canada/Bohdan Medwidsky 174 Humour/Robert B. Klymasz 182 Kinship and Courtship Patterns/ Zenon Pohorecky 186 F. CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS 201 Narodni Domy in East Central Alberta/ Andrij Makuch 202 Ukrainian Performing Arts in Alberta/ Andriy Nahachewsky 211 The Cultural Implications of Protestant Missions/Vivian Olender 221 VI G. THE “OPEN-AIR” MUSEUM 233 The Outdoor Architectural Museum/ James M. Fitch 234 The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village: Interpreting Ukrainian Canadian History/Sandra Thomson 239 Living History: A Panel on the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village /Kathleen Conzen, James Fitch, Matti Kaups, Sandra Thomson 244 H. EPILOGUE 255 Oral Tradition as Resistance/Ian H. Angus 256 List of Contributors Ian H. Angus Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Radomir Bilash Senior Research Historian, Historic Sites Service, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Kathleen Conzen Department of History, University of Chicago John-Paul Himka Department of History, University of Alberta James M. Fitch Director of Historic Preservation, Beyer Blinder Belle (Architects and Planners), New York/Professor Emeritus, Columbia University Matti Kaups Department of Geography, University of Minnesota Robert B. Klymasz National Museum of Man, Ottawa John C. Lehr Department of Geography, University of Winnipeg Marie Lesoway Research Consultant, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Andrij Makuch Research Consultant, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Orest T. Martynowych Research Associate, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta Bohdan Medwidsky Department of Slavic and East European Studies, University of Alberta Peter Melnycky Research Historian, Historic Sites Service, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Andriy Nahachewsky Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Alberta Vivian Olender Neporany Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto Roman Onufrijchuk School for Liberal and Professional Studies, Simon Fraser University viii List of Contributors Zenon Pohorecky Department of Anthropology, University of Saskatchewan T.D. Regehr Department of History, University of Saskatchewan Sandra Thomson Assistant Director, Historic Sites Service, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism Multiculturalism) and Culture . IX Introduction This volume contains the proceedings of the conference on “Continuity and Change: The Cultural Life of Alberta’s First Ukrainians,” held on 2-4 May 1985 at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village and sponsored jointly by the Historic Sites Service, Department of Culture and Multiculturalism, Province of Alberta, and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. In recent years the Historic Sites Service has commissioned numerous studies to assist in the development of the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village as an “open-air” museum fifty kilometres east of Edmonton on Highway 16. The purpose of the conference was to bring together the academic and field research on the cultural, social and economic life of the first Ukrainian immigrant generation in Alberta, which the Village is concerned to portray. Through the conference the academy obtained a better idea of what Village research has uncovered and the Village was provided with a formal opportunity to explore possible directions for the future. The volume consists of eight parts. It begins with a prologue by Roman Onufrijchuk which sets the stage for understanding the difficult process of cultural transmission and accommodation, made even more difficult for the first Ukrainian settlers who were from the peasant strata as well as pioneers. It ends with a more theoretical epilogue by Ian H. Angus that points up the unique significance of ethnocultural communities in rescuing Canadian identity from the universalizing grip of homogenizing cultures like that of the United States. In between, the volume explores (in the second part) the historical conditions in Western Ukraine and western Canada at the turn of the century, the overall nature of the rural Ukrainian bloc settlement in east central Alberta (the largest in Canada) and the contrast between the cluster village in Ukraine and the railroad village in the West. In this part John-Paul Himka presents the hypothesis which is tested indirectly by subsequent “ presentations: . Ukrainian immigrants in Canada were at first not only culturally more traditional/backward than most Canadians but also more traditional/backward than their contemporaries in Western Ukraine.” X Introduction The next four parts on material culture, the life of women, customs and beliefs, and cultural institutions and organizations in the new world could be said to constitute the heart of the volume. The life of the first immigrants is analyzed in detail in terms of the problems of shelter, agricultural technology, the status and responsibilities of women, the endurance of customs and beliefs and the evolution of institutions and organizations that were similar to, yet distinct from, those in the Old Country. The analysis is as strong as the field work on which it depends, and there is no doubt a lesson here for all ethnocultural groups: research in the field should begin early while most of the immigrant generation is still alive. The seventh part on the “open-air” museum may be seen as the applied part of the conference and is, of course, most directly relevant to the needs and concerns of the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. As a type, the Village has numerous models in other countries and its problems like its accomplishments are in some respects unique. On the whole, the future appears promising. In any joint effort, debts are incurred, and the editor (who was director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies when the conference was organized) would like to thank Dr. Frits Pannekoek, Director, Historic Sites Service, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism, for his understanding and co-operation and Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism for sharing equally the costs of the conference and this publication. As chairman of the programme committee, it is a pleasure also to express my personal thanks to the committee’s three other members: Dr. Carl Betke, Chief of Research, Historic Sites Service, Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism; Dr. John Foster, Department of History, University of Alberta; and Dr. Bohdan Medwidsky, Department of Slavic and East European Studies at the same university. Finally, the scholars and researchers who participated