“Historical appeal of Ukrainian pioneers” is the title of the in-depth and large-scale research project dedicated to the 120th anniversary of settlement of Ukrainians in Canada. On the initiative of the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine Ihor Ostash and with the financial assistance of the Canadian-Ukrainian parliamentary group of friendship and numerous patrons of the Country of the Maple Leaf the joint expedition group covered an extremely interesting route, mostly by trains, from the port Halifax (Atlantic Coast) to Edmonton, located relatively close to the Pacific Coast, practically following in the footsteps of the first Ukrainian settlers in Canada. Including the radial bus trips from railways to specific population centers and objects interesting in terms of photo shooting the distance totaled 6,500 kilometers, and the overall length of the route (together with flights) amounts to 30,000 kilometers.
The expedition group headed by Ihor Ostah, included Vice Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Mykola Tomenko, MPs Yevhen Suslov and Oles Donii, Kanev’s Mayor Viktor Nikolenko, People’s Artists of Ukraine Nina Matviienko and Maria Burmaka, bandura player Yaroslav Dzhus, Ukraine’s General Consul in Toronto Oleksandr Danileiko, editor of the website Istorychna pravda (Historical Truth) Vakhtang Kipiani, as well as this article’s author Mykola Khriienko. The Canadian side was represented by the activists of the Ukrainian diaspora, public figures, journalists, priests of the Ukrainian church, teachers of Ukrainian schools, students and scholars.
FLIGHT FROM KYIV TO TORONTO
When I am lucky to sit near the window in a plane I for some reason always recall the words of the courageous pilot and wonderful writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “Of course, a plane is a machine, yet it is also a tool of cognizing. The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth.”
Below, under the plane’s wing the surface of the Earth turned into a geographic map. After the fields and forests of Western Europe, lined by roads into different geometrical figures and painted in different colors, the boundless Atlantic Ocean emerged. I saw water, water, and water only from the plane’s great height to the violet line of the horizon. After nine hours of flight the green land of Canada emerged under the wing of our airliner, later – the huge Ontario Lake, whose area is half of the Sea of Azov.
French hunters for fur-bearing animals were among the first Europeans who came deep to these boundless lands. And when the Gold Rush started in Klondike and Yukon (read wonderful books by Jack London about that time), thousands of gold seekers from other European countries rushed on feet, on horses, boats and skis to Canada’s north.
Gold resources were exhausted and people left that cold land. But a new gold was discovered in Canada’s south, under the high and thick grass of the prairies, which was black earth, the most fertile soil in the world, which, unlike the yellow gold, never comes to an end, if one treats it properly.
Ukrainians have always had love for land, being skillful agriculturists. Canada attracted them like magnet from Galicia, Bukovyna, Transcarpathia and other territories of present-day western Ukraine with insufficient arable land.
Back as a schoolboy I read in Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s novelette Fata morgana the following sad lines about Ukrainian migrants: “They are going without end, dark, bent down, wet and miserable, like crippled cranes, who strayed from the flock, like autumn rain. They go and vanish in the gray obscurity.” And Ukrainian democratic poet Pavlo Hrabovsky, who lived in exile till his last day in the faraway and solitary at the time Siberia, made the following record about the migrants from eastern Ukraine: “They are simple people deprived or everything and hapless, they travel where their feet would take them, leave the hell of homeland they love, looking for happiness in other lands, only to make certain that there is no happiness and can’t be any under current civic circumstances, and having made sure of this they wait for the sole salvation, death, among the daily poverty, starvation, departing, and hopelessness.”
Having returned from Canada to Kyiv, I went to the library and read Vasyl Stefanyk’s short story The Stone Cross. This impressive story tells about how an impoverished peasant Ivan Didukh from the village Rusove in Pokuttia before going overseas to faraway Canada erected a stone cross with his and his wife’s surnames and names inscribed on it. They went to seek better life overseas, whereas their symbolical grave stayed in the native land. Incidentally, the story is real, because Vasyl Stefanyk even exchanged letter with that man from Rusove.
The participants of the expedition met with the descendants of the Ukrainian migrants in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Oshawa, Winnipeg, Stuartburn, Gardenton, Saskatoon, and Edmonton. They have also visited the Ukrainian village Krai Dorohy, saw the graves of Ukrainian migrants, spoke with present-day farmers and liquidators of the outcomes of the catastrophe at the Chornobyl Nuclear Plant, and took part in the unveiling of a new monument to Taras Shevchenko in Ottawa, gave a couple of joint concerts together with our fellow compatriots for the residents of the abovementioned cities, told about present-day life in Ukraine, specifically about our newspaper Den, which many Canadian Ukrainians read in electronic version.
The Country of the Maple Leaf has an analogue of the Museum of National Architecture and Folkways in Pyrohiv, Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. This is the heart of the history of our migrants, because the museum shows the houses of the Ukrainian pioneers and items of their folkways, as well as various documents, dated back to 1891, when the first Ukrainians, Ivan Pylypiv and Vasyl Yelyniak, came to Canada from the village Nebyliv. Clearly, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village was one of the main sites of our trip.
THE IDEA OF CANADA’S MULTICULTUREDNESS WAS DEVELOPED BY A UKRAINIAN
During the first wave of migration (1891-1914) over 170,000 people left the territory of current western Ukraine for Canada. Then there was the second wave, in the period from 1918 to 1939, which embraced a much greater territory of Ukraine. The third wave lasted in 1947-50. And finally the fourth wave, which started after the USSR’s collapse, is still going on. Currently over 1,200,000 Ukrainians are living in Canada.
Many our compatriots have made a significant contribution into the development of the Canadian state. Those included above all successful farmers (the wheat West Ukrainian migrants brought with them served the base for select new frost-enduring breeds of wheat in Canada), as well as well-known scholars, sportsmen, and politicians. Incidentally, the 24th general governor of Canada Roman Hnatyshyn was Ukrainian and took this office in 1990 through 1995.
Canada’s Ukrainian diaspora is one of the oldest, hence one of the best organized Ukrainian communities in the world. Its representatives have long ago taken an important place in the political, economic, and cultural life of this country. This is precisely the reason why many Ukrainians have been working in the governing bodies in many provinces and federal government, including Mykhailo Luchkovych, Pavlo Yuzyk (who developed the notion of Canada’s multiculturedness), Raynell Andreychuk, Jim Zelenchuk, Ivan Ivasyk, Myron Kovalsky, Petro Savaryn, Rozanna Vovchuk. Owing to Ukrainian community Canada was one of the world’s first countries that recognized Ukraine’s independence and continues to actively cooperate with it. A bright example of love and respect of the Canadian Ukrainians to the land of their ancestors is the fact that namely the descendant of migrants Erast Hutsuliak bought and presented to Ukraine the first premises for Ukrainian embassy in Ottawa. In Canadian universities since back in the 1940s courses on different directions of Ukrainian studies are being taught, there are also Ukrainian Studies departments and bilingual Ukrainian-English secondary schools.
“It is prestigious to be a Ukrainian in Canada”: I’ve heard this phrase many times from our compatriots.
A STAR ROAD OF A STARRY SOTNYK
During our many-day trip across Canada the time was pressed for the participants of the expedition, figuratively speaking, like powder in a cartridge. But in Ottawa I was lucky to have a “window” in the tight schedule and talked for an hour with the legendary UPA sotnyk Yevhen Adamovych Shtendera, who had a pseudonym Zoriany (Starry) during the war. His story could easily serve groundwork for a book.
The future UPA sotnyk was born in the village Volytsia Barylova, Radekhiv raion, Lviv oblast, in 1924, that is why he remembered very clearly the 1939 year, when Bolsheviks came from the east to “liberate” them and started to punish mercilessly first and foremost the Ukrainians who fought for independence from Poland. Germans proved no better than Bolsheviks. In spring 1943 Yevhen Shtendera fought with both Bolsheviks, and Germans as a UPA warrior in Volyn and Galicia, and since January 1945 the kurin “Vovky” (Wolves), which was under his command, got an assignment to dislocate on Chelm Land and Podlasie (currently territory of Poland) and defend ethnic Ukrainians from deportation to the USSR, collective farm slavery and hard labor beyond the Arctic Circle and Kolyma. “Vovky” held several military operations with the Polish units of the Armia Krajowa against common enemies; specifically in May 1946 they crushed the Communist garrisons in the town of Hrubieszow. It was then that during a battle in the Terebinka Forest Shtendera was wounded in chest and underwent treatment in a Polish underground hospital.
The strengths of the UPA warriors were vanishing day by day, whereas their enemy became gradually stronger. They had to retreat with battles further to the west. In 1948 sotnyk Zoriany found himself in Munich. There he studied at the Ukrainian Free University (received a master’s degree), worked as an informative referent of the Mission of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army at the foreign office of the Ukrainian Main Liberating Army, was a co-editor of the magazines, To Arms, Present-Day Ukraine, The Ukrainian Independence Supporter.
In 1956 Shtendera, his wife Liubov Mavska and their four children moved from Germany to Canada. In Toronto he issued the newspaper Development, further became a co-editor of the weekly Ukrainian News in Edmonton. After coming to work at the State National Library in Canada’s capital Ottawa, he gathered during 15 years almost all materials on Ukrainian studies in Canada.
Back in the early 1990s, when Ukraine gained independence, Shtendera initiated cooperation with the Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Resource Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Main Archives Department at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. It was owing to Shtendera’s persistence that the agreement on studying the archives of the former USSR and publishing materials on the struggle of the UPA and Ukraine’s independence.
Former sotnyk Zoriany worked as a responsible editor of the publishing house Litopys UPA for 25 years. In this long period Shtendera prepared and published 15 volumes of documentary materials about the struggle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army for Ukraine’s freedom.
Ukraine’s president Viktor Yushchenko awarded Shtendera with Mazepa Cross by an edict dated Feb-ruary 3, 2010, namely for this titanic labor, as well as the “significant personal contribution into the preserving and enriching of the national historical-cultural heritage, active part in the cause of bringing back the cultural values to Ukraine.”
In the end of our meeting I asked Shtendera: “How do you personally assess your life path?” His reply was: “It is really hard to answer this question because to live in exile from one’s land is not a drama, it is a tragedy, which was expressed in a very deep and extremely strong way by Polish composer Michal Kleofas Oginski in his polonaise ‘A Farewell to the Homeland.’ He was an insurgent and he lived in exile as well. I’m extremely happy that I lived to Ukraine’s Independence Day, therefore my life path can be called starry. I only regret that few of my comrades-in-arms have lived to this day.”
PRIEST MAKSYM LYSAK: WHEN IN 1997 I WENT WITH MY FATHER TO HIS SMALL FATHERLAND, IT TURNED OUT THAT HIS NATIVE WOODEN HOUSE WAS PRESERVED AT THE DUBYNY HOMESTEAD
When we were going on a train from Toronto to Vinnytsia, my companion in the two-place compartment was a dean of an orthodox cathedral of Christ the Savior in Ottawa Maksym Lysak. We were sitting like in a classical novel at the window, leading a slow conversation, Since Father Maksym is a regular reader of Den on the Internet, I was the first to answer his questions: “What is going on in Chornobyl zone? How do his compatriots, Ukrainians in Russia and beyond the Urals live? What is the role of present-day journalism in the sociopolitical life of Ukraine?”
Then it was my turn to ask. In his 52 years Father Maksym has covered a very interesting and unexpected life path. At first he studied at the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies (he prepared for diplomatic work in Eastern Europe), but in a year before graduating from this institute he transferred to the department of Ukrainian Language and Literature at Manitoba University. He received a diploma, but he already felt in his soul that his call was not political diplomacy, but serving God. “This feeling, this call did not dawn upon me all over sudden, it was born very slowly, but inevitably deep in my soul, like a beginning of a river, in order to become the beginning of my new life.”
After studying at the seminary and church service Father Maksym also finished St. Vladimir’s Academy in New York and Orthodox Academy of Christ in Boston (the US). He has a degree of Master of Theology.
“Where do your kin come from?” I asked Father Maksym.
“I was born in Canada in Winnipeg, and my father came here in 1929 from the homestead Dubyny, current Ostroh raion, Rivne oblast. (At that time that was the territory of Volhynia.) And the parents of my mother Lyntsa Havreliuk came from Bukovyna, village of Kostyntsi, Storozhynets raion, Chernivtsi oblast.”
“Who is your wife? Does she have Ukrainian roots?”
“No. My Ivanna is of English origin. But maybe out of love to me as her husband and respect to my parents she has learnt Ukrainian and became Ukrainian. For this my father and mother came to love her wholeheartedly. We have two daughters. The older, Anastasia, is already 14, the younger, Yuliana, is only 11. They study at a Ukrai-nian school and know our language like pupils in Lviv or Ternopil.”
“Have you ever come to Ukraine?”
“Yes, I have. Not once, but twice. In 1992 my wife and I went to the homestead Dubyny, where my father was born, we also went to the village Kostyntsi to Bukovyna, where my mother comes from. That was a shock for me. In 1997 I went again with my father to his small homeland, where he was born and grew up. In the homestead Dubyny by this time his native wooden house with white tiled roof has been preserved. It has survived through two world wars and escaped destruction by this time. We drank water from the well under an old pear tree from which my grandfather Martyn and my father used to drink water in those faraway times. The old residents of the village recognized my father, and he recognized his compatriots. This meeting was the highest reward for him, the most precious present given by destiny in the evening of his laborious life. And then in the village Ukrainka in the church of Descent of the Holy Spirit on Apostles (my father was christened there) I celebrated Divine Liturgy. I was one and whole thing with my compatriots and relatives. I had a feeling that I was born and grew up here, in Ukraine, that I am part of this people in the past, and I will always remain a part of it.
“Far away from Ukraine on the opposite side of the planet Earth a night train was going from Canada’s east to the western coast of the Pacific Ocean. Near the window of the compartment two elderly men were sitting at the table, a priest and a journalist. One of them was speaking, the second was listening. Then the journalist stopped to record what he heard, because that was not simply a story of a priest about Ukraine, but rather a confession. And confession should remain a mystery.”
WHAT CARVED IN MY MEMORY
It was the first time in my life that I went to the classical capitalistic country, that is why I was studying and memorizing everything I saw with particular interest.
I was most impressed by the sight of people in Canada, who are not worn out by hard physical labor, neither depressed nor broken morally or psychologically. Even old women and men aged about 70 look merry and healthy. Canada’s residents are active sportsmen: they jog, ride bicycles, skate, ski, swim, and this is so needful for their full-fledged life like air, food, and clothes. People in Canada do not surround their houses with fences; neither do they put metal entrance doors. All churches and cathedrals there have no metal grids. People don’t shoot at birds and wild animals after the hunting season is over, they do not cut trees even on private area without special permission, because they will be severely punished for this. Raccoons and squirrels run about the street of Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and “miserable” homeless cats are living in the park near the parliament building in nice-looking wooden houses, the residents of the city feed them with milk, sour cream, and cheese.
Incidentally, there are few expensive cars in Canada’s streets. Many officials go to work by bicycles, whereas MPs are brought home on nice-looking minibuses. There is no showy luxuriousness, like in Ukraine. Canada is one of the richest countries in the world, yet it is very reasonable and economical. The same can be said about its people.
Unlike the poor Ukrainian diaspora in Russia, Canada’s diaspora is well-funded. A part of the costs for its development is allotted by governmental programs, but mostly it is maintained from the citizen’s contribution and voluntary donation. All Ukrainian associations own nice-looking multi-storeyed buildings, which should have a hall for ceremonies: celebrations, meetings of delegations, weddings, or funeral meals. For this aim they have a good kitchen with refrigerators and utensil. The buildings of Ukrainian communities house museums, libraries, computer halls for children and gyms. Such house complexes are entitled Dnipro, Karpaty, or Odesa. Different tours and tourist hikes are held. People in need receive material support, and all handicapped people are given electric wheelchairs. When they move along bicycle tracks, small Canadian or Ukrainian flags can be seen on flexible masts on the back of their wheelchairs. There can be Canadian and Ukrainian flags on one wheelchair.
Be as it may, Canadian Ukrainians preserve many Ukrainian things, they are eager to live in their homeland, in spite of the comfort and care of the new one. Most of them would have returned, but one thought prevents them from doing so, that abroad, in faraway Canada they can do more for Ukraine than if they come home. It is a paradox. Like hundred years ago during the first emigration wave, today, during the fourth one, Ukrainians leave their country because of lack of prospects, because they want to know that they will be able to realize themselves. And this is the time when the world is getting more globalized. Of course, it is good that we have such a strong support abroad, but the interest paid to them, not their wallets, by the Ukrainian power and compatriots is unacceptably miserable at times. And the attempts to create in the country conditions which will encourage people to leave and work here are also unacceptably miserable.
