Memory, Identity, and the Challenge of Community Among Ukrainians in the Sudbury Region, 1901-1939

Memory, Identity, and the Challenge of Community Among Ukrainians in the Sudbury Region, 1901-1939 by Stacey Raeanna Zembrzycki, B.A., M.A. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario 27 June 2007 © Stacey Raeanna Zembrzycki, 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be includedBien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. i * i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract This dissertation examines the ways in which Catholic, Orthodox, nationalist, and progressive Ukrainian men, women, and children, both immigrants and those of Ukrainian descent, formed a distinct ethnic community in the Sudbury region between 1901 and 1939. Specifically, it demonstrates how the community developed, paying particular attention to the ways that individual and group identities, social networks, and power relations impacted its evolution over time. Moreover, this dissertation depicts the ways in which the host society, on a local, regional, and national level, perceived and treated Sudbury’s Ukrainians. Set in a period of change for this ethnic community, the region, and the country more broadly, this dissertation offers new narratives about World War I, the so-called “Roaring Twenties,” and the Depression. In addition to viewing gender, ethnicity, class, region, and age as important categories of analysis, it regards community as a problem which ought to be studied. Community, in this instance, is not a simple and static entity, but rather an imagined reality, a social interaction, and a process. The adoption of a fluid model thereby enables an examination of the varying ways in which individuals, Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, attached different meanings to community. These meanings, as this dissertation argues, were dependent upon the geographic spaces that these individuals occupied, the social networks to which they belonged, and the real and imagined identities and experiences that they had both within and on the margins of their communities. This dissertation not only reconstructs the contours of this ethnic community and the ways in which its members negotiated their places within and outside of it, but ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. also includes a discussion of the author’s archive stories. Sensitive to what constitutes as an archive, it is a highly personal journey into the author’s imagined Ukrainian community, her Baba’s (grandmother) Ukrainian community, and the communities which other Ukrainians in the Sudbury region have experienced. The archive stories which wind through the narrative of this dissertation detail the challenges of working with both written and memory sources and at the same time, offer new interpretative frameworks for understanding the histories of immigrant communities. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements Reconstructing the history of Sudbury’s Ukrainian community would not have been possible without the support and guidance of a number of people. In many respects, acknowledging their assistance reads much like an archive story. After interning at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2000,1 decided to pursue a master’s degree that concentrated on Canadian- American relations. I completed this degree at the University of Ottawa in a nine month period, and due to Carleton University’s reputation in foreign policy circles and its proximity to Library and Archives Canada (LAC), I decided to enrol in its doctorate program. My interests however quickly changed when I began my course work. During my first year, I became excited about Canadian ethnic and immigration history. In particular, reading important studies, like Franca Iacovetta’s Such Hardworking People and Frances Swyripa’s Wedded to the Cause, and being from Northern Ontario and of Ukrainian descent led me to question this region’s exclusion from social history. Mining drew thousands of immigrants to northern towns and yet most historians either did not mention them or only referred to them in the footnotes of their studies. Hoping to fill this void in the historiography, I made the decision to switch fields as well as thesis supervisors. Although this was a difficult decision because it required me to take two extra graduate courses and thus delayed my ability to publish articles and make conference presentations - two variables which are very important on a graduate curriculum vitae - 1 made this compromise because I believed that being passionate about my dissertation was of the utmost importance. Certainly, I never would have made this bold decision if it were not for Kerry Abel and Norman Hillmer. I thank them iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. for sharing my enthusiasm for this project. Moreover, I would like to thank my thesis supervisors, Marilyn Barber and John C. Walsh, for embarking upon this intellectual journey with me. I was both lost and behind when I began the research for this dissertation and therefore without their help as scholars, teachers, mentors, and friends it would never have come to fruition. Encouragement from other faculty members and graduate students of Carleton University’s History Department has also been central to the writing of this dissertation. In particular, Bruce Elliott, David Dean, Jim Opp, Emily Arrowsmith, Jeff Noakes, Vadim Kukushkin, Andrew Burtch, and Kristina Guiguet have not only listened to me speak about Sudbury’s Ukrainians, but also offered me sound advice when I needed it. For this assistance, I am truly grateful. Moreover, I thank Joan White for her unwavering support and guidance. In addition, I would like to thank the members of my examining board, Franca Iacovetta of the University of Toronto, Susanne Klausen of Carleton University, and Timothy Stanley of the University of Ottawa for their lively and thoughtful engagement with my dissertation. They asked many insightful questions that I will continue to ponder for many years to come. Since the narrative of this dissertation has been based upon a scattered set of sources, I also owe a great deal of gratitude to a number of individuals who hail from a variety of institutions and communities. Myron Momryk, a recently retired archivist at LAC, was instrumental in getting this study off the ground. He engaged me in insightful conversations, directed me to sources that I otherwise would not have found, and translated sources which I could not read. He went well beyond his call of duty as an archivist and, undoubtedly, will be terribly missed at LAC. Rhonda Hinther, the v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Western Canadian history curator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, has also provided encouragement for this project; specifically, her work inspired me to think about how the experiences of Sudbury’s Ukrainians and their subsequent identities were regionalized. Moreover, I also must thank Rhonda for introducing me to Larissa Stavroff. Larissa has been an integral part of this dissertation. Together with Rhonda, she stressed the importance of getting “inside Sudbury’s Ukrainian community” through Ukrainian sources. When I admitted that I could not read them, she offered to translate

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