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L
LOYD
W
ONG AND
S
HIBAO
G
UO
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.
I
NTRODUCTION
N
ATALIA
A
PONIUK
– S
PECIAL
G
UEST
E
DITOR
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 pop-
ulation 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 ref-
erence 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—espe-
cially 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 incur-
sions 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 with-
out 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.
Chernobyl Diaries
(2012), which, ironically, could not be filmed
there due to the radiation,
8
is shown repeatedly on television. It concerns “humanoid
mutants,” which result from the nuclear explosion. The trend of Ukrainians as vil-
lains continued with
Banshee
(premiered on Jan. 11, 2013), but the roles were now
more prominent. Rabbit, the powerful crime lord, is Ukrainian, and his daughter,
Anastasia, is one of the leading characters. Helena, one of the eleven clones of the
leading character on the critically acclaimed
Orphan Black
(premiered on March 30,
2013), was raised by nuns in a Ukrainian convent. Helena’s heavy accent is definitely
Slavic though she mispronounces the one Ukrainian word she speaks at the end of
the first season!
9
Tatiana Masliany, who plays all the clones, has won critical acclaim and been the
subject of a long article (complete with colour photo) in the Sunday
New York
Times,
10
without needing to change her obviously Ukrainian name. Like Masliany
and Formiga, Matt Czuchry, who co-stars in yet another critically acclaimed series,
The Good Wife
(premiered in 2009), chose not change his name.
11
In a more positive vein than the preceding fictional characters, Carrie Roman, a
resident on
Nurse Jackie
(also a critically acclaimed series which premiered in 2009)
reveals, to the surprise of her colleagues (and to the viewers) that she is Ukrainian
and speaks the language fluently, having learned it when she was sent to camp as a
child. The revelation comes when she suddenly begins to translate an ER patient’s
dying (he thinks!) confession to his wife that he has a second wife and two sons. The
confession is in Ukrainian— presumably because the patient has reverted to his
native language as a result of his accident. Although we do not hear Dr. Roman speak
Ukrainian, there is no doubt that the patient (and, most likely, the actor playing him)
is indeed a native speaker of Ukrainian.
It is, of course, difficult to judge what impact any of the preceding has had on
the so-called “average” viewer. If nothing else, all these references had to have had a
cumulative effect since each of these programs/films are viewed by millions of peo-
ple. And, if Ukraine and Ukrainians were not part of the American and Canadian
lexicon, it hard to imagine that programs like David Letterman’s, which pride them-
selves on their broad appeal and timeliness, would have ventured into this area. Even
programs like
Saturday Night Live
and
The Tonight Show
with Jimmy Fallon, which
supposedly appeal to a younger demographic, also included sketches relating to

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