11 results
Search Results
2. Recreating a homeland: Czechoslovak diplomats in Canada during the Second World War.
- Author
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Raska, Jan
- Subjects
- *
IMMIGRANTS , *HISTORY of diplomacy , *ETHNIC associations , *CZECHS , *SLOVAKS , *TWENTIETH century , *HISTORY , *INTERNATIONAL relations ,CANADIAN foreign relations - Abstract
In the 1920s, a large influx of immigrants from Czechoslovakia came to Canada in search of industrial work and available land for agriculture. Interwar ethnic associations were predominantly led by individuals of Slovak origin. Czechoslovakia maintained contact with its nationals in Canada through its diplomatic officials. Their consular offices promoted loyalty to Czechoslovakia’s policies in the hopes that Slovaks and Czechs would adopt their home government’s pro-“Czechoslovak” ideology, and eventually defend their homeland in the event of a war. The Czechoslovak Consulate General in Montreal oversaw all diplomatic activity between Prague and its nationals in Canada. With Slovakia’s declaration of independence and Germany’s occupation of the Czech lands in March 1939, the Czechoslovak Consulate General in Montreal used its local diplomatic discretion in an attempt to unite Slovaks and Czechs as a “Czechoslovak” national community. However, although nationalist Slovaks supported Canada’s war effort, they opposed the Czechoslovak Consulate General’s pro-Czechoslovak agenda. Czechoslovak diplomats lobbied the Canadian government for political recognition of the Edvard Beneš-led Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London to legitimize their efforts to re-establish a postwar Czechoslovak Republic. After British recognition, Canada became the last Dominion to recognize the London government-in-exile. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. Ukrainian Memories of the Holocaust: The Destruction of Jews as Reflected in Memoirs Collected in 1947.
- Author
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Himka, John-Paul
- Subjects
- *
WORLD War II Ukrainian personal narratives , *HOLOCAUST, 1939-1945 , *MEMOIRS , *WORLD War II , *UKRAINIANS , *PERSECUTION of Jews , *ARCHIVES , *NAZI Germany, 1933-1945 , *HISTORY - Abstract
In 1947 the Oseredok Ukrainian Cultural and Education Centre in Winnipeg held a memoir contest. Sixty-four memoirs were submitted, and most of them are still preserved in Oseredok's archives. All extant submissions were examined in order to determine what they had to say about the Holocaust. Altogether twenty-five memoirs concerned World War II, and of these fourteen made at least some mention of the Holocaust. This body of memoirs is the earliest collection of Ukrainian memoirs of World War II that I am aware of, the closest in time to the events of the Holocaust. Already then, however, Ukrainians had become quite defensive about their behaviour towards the Jews; this perhaps explains why close to half the memoirs about the war omitted the fate of the Jews altogether and why the memoirs that do mention the Holocaust say almost nothing about Ukrainian involvement. The memoirists did, however, reproduce the image of Jews as agents of communism, particularly active in the organs of repression. The majority of the 1947 memoirs nonetheless indicated horror at and disapproval of the murder of the Jews by the Germans. Perhaps characteristically, the account expressing the strongest such feelings was written by an older man from outside Western Ukraine. Conversely, the most outright expression of lack of sympathy with the Jews came from a man twelve years younger and from Galicia. Although the latter felt pity for some individual Jews he knew and gave them alms, he expressly stated that he had no sympathy with them as a group, as "a nation that had done so much evil to my nation." Perhaps this is a case that corresponds to the phenomenon noted by Jan Gross in Fear, that individuals hate whom they have injured: this memoirist served in the civil administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Negotiating Magic: Ukrainian Wedding Traditions and Their Persistence in Canada.
- Author
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Kukharenko, Svitlana
- Subjects
- *
WEDDINGS , *MAGIC , *MANNERS & customs , *IMMIGRANTS , *RURAL geography , *URBAN geography , *RITUAL , *ETHNICITY , *FOLKLORE , *DIVORCED people - Abstract
Magical efficacy has been important in Ukrainian wedding ritual. The korovai, rushnyk, omens, gifts, the showering of the couple, and other "sacred" objects and acts of the Ukrainian folk wedding are believed to be imbued with prophetic qualities. Uprooted folklore tradition, however, faces inevitable transformations, and Ukrainian immigrants in Canada tend to know and believe in magical objects and actions significantly less. The examination of magical beliefs and practices in the context of weddings among Ukrainians in Ukraine and in Canada shows that the two groups possess different belief systems: magical and anti-magical respectively. Rural and urban dwellers, divorced people, and the clergy from both countries were interviewed retrospectively about their wedding days. Their answers confirm that magical beliefs and practices are the most fragile part of the folklore complex transmitted to a different cultural context. By contrast, material culture, which becomes a major means of ethnic identification, remains well preserved and cherished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. The Ritual Language of the British Columbia Doukhobors as an Endangered Functional Style: Issues of Interference and Translatability.
- Author
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Schaarschmidt, Gunter
- Subjects
- *
DUKHOBORS , *LANGUAGE & languages , *RITUAL , *CHRISTIAN sects - Abstract
Currently, there are about 13,000 persons of Doukhobor descent living in the Province of British Columbia (mainly in the West Kootenay area). Roughly 60% still speak Doukhobor Russian. Ritual activities among the Doukhobors depend largely on orally transmitted prayers, psalms, and hymns that are based on Russian Church Slavonic; home life in those homes where Russian is still used is conducted in a 19th century South Russian dialect with both Ukrainian and English admixtures. The effort at preventing a full-scale language shift to English is an example of a communal decision to maintain and revive a language in terms of given needs; there are many spokesmen in the Doukhobor community, however, who advocate an emphasis on shifting to world languages (English, Standard Russian). The percentage of Doukhobors, especially in the generation born after 1970, subscribing to this view is increasing, thus raising the much-debated question whether the decline of a language or of a functional style necessarily entails the loss of a culture and of the disappearance of ritual practices. Many First Nations communities, e.g., Cree in Alberta, are engaged in an active endeavour of reversing language shift partly as a necessary healing process. It seems that their efforts serve at least as partial support for maintaining the Doukhobor ritual style, perhaps in a "reconfigured" form allowing code- switching between cognitive structures (in English) and contextual-mnemonic devices (in Russian/Church Slavonic). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Interview with David Albahari.
- Author
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Mraović-O'Hare, Damjana
- Subjects
- *
SERBIAN literature , *EXILES' writings , *LITERATURE - Abstract
An interview with Serbian author David Albahari is presented. When asked on how he feels after more than a decade of living in Canada, as compared to the protagonists in his books who are very uncomfortable to the environment where they migrated, Albahari said that he is completely different from the characters in his books. He also relates his experience as an exiled author in Canada who never stops from being part of Serbian literature.
- Published
- 2008
7. Ukrainian Ballads in Canada: Adjusting to New Life in a New Land.
- Author
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Kononenko, Natalie
- Subjects
- *
FOLKLORE , *BALLAD (Literary form) , *PRAIRIES , *ALCOHOL , *ADULTERY , *CONSOLATION , *RAILROADS , *CULTURE , *MAGIC , *PIONEERS - Abstract
Folklore is the artistic expression of belief. The various forms of folklore change and adapt to reflect changing circumstances and changing views of the world. When Ukrainians came to Canada, they brought their folklore, ballads included, with them. In the new land, ballads helped voice the struggles of the Ukrainian Pioneers. Examining a collection of ballads made approximately sixty years after Ukrainians began arriving on the Prairies shows that the ballads performed in Canada spoke of real problems, problems attested in both folk sources and historical records. These include the physical hardship of life on an acreage, male absence as they went to work on the railroad, and the tension between women and their daughters-in-laws, who were left to struggle on their own. Ukrainian girls attracted to non-Ukrainians were seen as problematic, as were men seeking solace in alcohol and infidelity. And there were many other Canadian issues for which traditional ballads provided a powerful means of expression. The ballad tradition was modified through selection, i.e., only relevant songs continued to be performed. It was also changed internally and individual ballad texts were altered by the addition of new terminology and new ideas. This is especially true when attitudes in Canada differed from those in Ukraine. A very important change in attitude applies to magic. While the use of magic is treated ambiguously in ballads performed in Ukraine, it is routinely condemned in those performed in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. In Memoriam C. Harold Bedford 31 October 1929–6 November 2015.
- Author
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Lantz, Kenneth
- Subjects
- *
COLLEGE teachers - Abstract
An obituary is presented for professor emeritus at the University of Toronto university in Toronto, Ontario C. Harold Bedford.
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Editor's Note.
- Author
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Coleman, Heather J.
- Subjects
- *
PERIODICAL publishing , *JOURNALISTIC editing , *CANADIAN periodicals - Abstract
An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the publications within the Canadian periodical, editing, and financial planning.
- Published
- 2014
10. The Constructed Mennonite: History, Memory, and the Second World War.
- Author
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Baran, Emily B.
- Subjects
- *
RUSSIANS , *NONFICTION - Published
- 2014
11. From Peasants to Labourers: Ukrainian and Belarusan Immigration from the Russian Empire to Canada.
- Author
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Stebelsky, Ihor
- Subjects
- *
UKRAINIAN Canadians , *BELARUSIANS , *NONFICTION - Abstract
The article reviews the book “From Peasants to Labourers: Ukrainian and Belarusan Immigration from the Russian Empire to Canada," by Vadim Kukushkin.
- Published
- 2009
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