Canadian Ethnic Studies

LLOYD WONG AND SHIBAO GUO Editors’ Note Owing to unforeseen circumstances, we had a number of delays with the publication of this special double issue on Ukrainian Canadians. To our 2010 subscribers, we ask that you please accept our sincere apologies for this delay. Since we are now publish- ing this special issue, we have numbered it Volume 47.4-5, 2015 [Volume 42.2-3, 2010] with the bracketed volume and issue numbers indicating that this was when it was originally scheduled to be publish. We hope this satisfies our obligations to our 2010 subscribers and to the authors who so generously submitted material to this issue and patiently waited for it to be published. We believe this issue will be a sig- nificant and important contribution to the study of Ukrainian Canadians. We thank you for your patience and understanding and for your continuing support of Canadian Ethnic Studies. INTRODUCTION NATALIA APONIUK –SPECIAL GUEST EDITOR Ukrainian Canadians, Canada, Ukraine, and the Popular Imagination “Look at where Canada is, and look at where Ukraine and Russia are…. Neither Canada nor the U.S. have [sic] the same amount [sic] of interests in Ukraine as Russia does.” – Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, as reported by the Canadian Press, May 24, 2014 This special issue of Canadian Ethnic Studies is being published at the intersection of two momentous events. In Canada the 125th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement will be celebrated in 2016. Although it is highly likely that individual Ukrainians came to Canada much earlier, 1891 is generally accepted as the beginning of the first wave of mass migration from Ukraine. Canada is now home to the third largest population of Ukrainians in the world (after Ukraine and Russia), numbering over 1.2 million or approximately 4% of the population in 2011. In Ukraine, contemporane- ously, a battle is being waged to preserve an independent, integral Ukraine. As recently as a quarter-century ago and for centuries before, the preceding reference would have been to “establishing,” not “preserving,” an independent Ukraine. In the century preceding 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence, Ukraine’s cultural heritage was under threat—as it had been for centuries before—but a vari- ant of it was preserved and developed in Canada. This fact was noted with some sur- prise by Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s second president, when he was serenaded in Ukrainian by school children enrolled in the English-Ukrainian Bilingual program in Edmonton on October 25, 1994. With Ukraine’s declaration of independence, Ukrainian Canadians at last had an independent homeland with which they could identify. Older generations—especially the so-called “DPs” (Displaced Persons) who had been forced to leave Ukraine during and after World War II—returned to visit the country that had been pre- CES Volume 47 Numbers 4-5 (2015) [Volume 42 Numbers 2-3 (2010)], 1-10 2| Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada served only in their memories. They came back to Canada having realized that their true homeland was Canada and were grateful for it. This realization was no doubt helped along when their naively offered, unsolicited advice on various matters was rebuffed by Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Krawchuk, who told them in no uncer- tain terms not to meddle in Ukraine’s affairs. Now, finally, we all seem to be on the same page. A younger, more sophisticated, worldly, and English-speaking leadership has emerged in Ukraine—a leadership that has recognized the importance of gaining the support of the Western world of which it wants to be a part. This change in attitude and outlook is exemplified by Ukraine’s national anthem: the first stanza was slightly modified in early 2013 and the result was the transformation of a dirge sung in a minor key in Canada to a triumphal hymn.1 Canada has responded positively and supportively to the most recent events in Ukraine, thereby eliciting President Putin’s dismissive and ill-informed comment. Canada had done the same in 1991 when Canada was the first country to recognize the newly-independent Ukraine. Of course, one does have to admit that the Canadian government’s response in both instances may not have been wholly altru- istic since Ukrainians constitute the ninth largest ethnic group in the country and arguably exert more influence than their numbers might suggest because they are well organized and because of the younger, more activist leadership of their umbrella organization, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.2 However, what is most striking is that Ukraine has caught the attention and the imagination of the Western world for arguably the first time in its entire history. The United States and Western Europe, as well as Canada, are concerned about Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursions along the eastern border of a country they would like to see in NATO. Poland and the Baltic countries are concerned that incursions into Ukraine are a portent of what could happen in their own countries.3 Germany and France are concerned about their gas and oil supplies as Russia peri- odically threatens to shut down the pipeline at the Ukrainian border. With the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine by Russia-backed “rebels” (July 17, 2014), Western Europe—indeed most of the world—has realized that the crisis centering on Ukraine far outstrips the merely political and economic. This tragedy has claimed the world’s attention not least because the dead were citi- zens of so many countries. Ukraine, which seemed not to have left the front page of newspapers for at least the past eight months, now commanded the entire front page of the Globe and Mail (July 18, 2014) and then the top half on July 21. Ukraine was again the lead item on the BBC television news as it had been for months, only briefly displaced by other tragedies such as the disappearance of an airplane in the Far East and the kidnapping of over two hundred girls in Africa, and, later, the cri- Natalia Aponiuk | 3 sis in Gaza and the ebola epidemic in Africa. British and American reporters had been trying for months to interpret events from various locations in Ukraine. Michael Bociurkiw, a Ukrainian Canadian working for the OSCE, was interviewed frequently regarding the shooting down of the plane. President Obama was joined by the prime ministers of the Netherlands and of England and the foreign minister of Germany (among others) in discussing events in Ukraine on television. At a cer- emony in Liege commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Belgium (Aug. 4, 2014), Prince William and several other speakers compared that event with the current situation in Ukraine vis-à-vis Russia. Thus, it is not surpris- ing that Ukraine would be discussed by Charlie Rose and assorted guests and, less eruditely, on the McLaughlin Group. But how does one explain the fact that Ukraine—this poor country caught between East and West and devastated by both at one time or another, this cradle of a great civilization which, until a few months ago, few could locate on a map—had also caught the popular imagination? Could anyone have imagined that David Letterman would be talking about Ukraine with Vera Farmiga, who would use a scat- ological proverb in flawless Ukrainian in reference to Putin—with the censored English translation appearing almost simultaneously on the screen?4 Or, that Letterman would comment that he had a friend who was Ukrainian?5 Indeed, could anyone have imagined that a Ukrainian American actress would become famous enough—and without changing her name!—to appear on Letterman’s show?6 In the past, Canadians and, to a lesser extent, Americans had become familiar with Ukrainian names through hockey broadcasts on radio and television. “Turk” Broda, Bill Barilko, John Bucyk, Terry Sawchuk, Mike Bossy, Dave Andreychuk, Dave Babych, and Dale Hawerchuk were prominent players during the last sixty-seventy years. Juliette, whose variety show was broadcast for many years on Saturday nights was at least as famous as the hockey players. Luba Goy was known throughout Canada, as were politicians like Steve Juba, Roy Romanow, Roman Hnatyshyn, and, more regionally, Sylvia Fedoruk, and Peter Liba.7 There was even a Ukrainian Canadian astronaut—Roberta Bondar! However, in American (and Canadian) films and on television series—with their huge international audiences—Ukrainian and Ukraine were mentioned in passing, if at all. John Hodiak and Jack Palance had been famous movie stars without anyone having paid much attention to their names or their origins. Nick Adams, who had changed his name, was not as famous nor as long-lived as they had been. But by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the attentive viewer might have wondered if a writer on a show had some kind of Ukrainian connection (a friend, like Letterman, an acquaintance, an employee, a wife/husband, a parent, an in-law) or simply wanted to make a character—especially a villain—more “exotic” than a 4| Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada Russian would have been. For example, there was a passing reference to a Ukrainian villain on an early version of Law and Order. By 2007 one of the “good guys” (but still a minor role) in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises was the heroine’s Ukrainian uncle and self-described former KGB officer. (This would make the lead- ing woman character, played by Naomi Watts, at least partly Ukrainian.) By 2012 the events at Chernobyl were well enough known internationally for a movie title to include the name.

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