Immigrants to Canada and the United States and their descendants from a territory in
eastern Europe now officially called Ukraine. This country borders with Romania,
Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, and Russia. When the first Ukrainians came to
North America, their territories were part of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires.
Ukrainians arrived in three waves: 1870s–1914, 1920–1939, and 1947–1955.
Ukrainian immigrants during the first wave settled in Pennsylvania, where they found
work in the mines, as well as in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, usually being employed in factories there.
A small number settled elsewhere and became farmers. In Canada the first wave of
Ukrainian immigrants settled mainly on homesteads on the prairies, where a significant
number are still involved in agriculture; others worked in mines and on railway gangs. In
the 1990s, Ukrainian communities are found in major cities of both Canada and the
United States.
Ukrainians who came to North America derived from a variety of dialectal regions.
The majority of immigrants in the first wave had litde or no education but a rich oral lore.
The settlement patterns in the New World (either urban or with huge distances between
farms) did not resemble the village or small-town life to which they had been
accustomed. Also, the new settlers now found themselves in a foreign-language milieu.
These factors weakened the traditional oral-lore processes among Ukrainians, especially
among those born in North America. A form of bilingualism, sometimes termed
“macaronism,” developed among Ukrainian Americans in which English words became
part of Ukrainian-language texts and vice versa. An example of this is found in the
following lyrics (with English words italicized):
Skrypky hraly i tsymbaly; Dzhoniz Meri tantsiuvaly.
Tantsiuvaly dyfrent valets; Dzhoni Meri stav na palets.
[The violins were playing, and so was a hammered
dulcimer; Johnny was dancing with Mary.
They were dancing a different waltz; Johnny stepped
on Mary’s toe.]
In many instances, Ukrainian names were Anglicized (Bill and Bob substituted for the
Ukrainian given names Vasyl and Bohdan) or, North American place names were
humorously Ukrainianized (Derzhy syto [hold the sieve] was used for Jersey City and
Mizerota [poverty, wretchedness] for Minnesota).
Many examples of minor verbal genres—proverbs, proverbial sayings, riddles, and the
like—are found in the speech of Ukrainian North Americans. Proverbs included “Not
every pig comes on four feet” and “A good wife and health are the greatest treasures.”
Riddles are found in song texts or early childhood education material, for example:
“There are no windows or doors yet the house is full of people”—Answer: Pumpkin or
melon seeds, or “Who died yet was not born?”—Answer: Adam. Rhymes and folk poetry
also were part of Ukrainian settlers’ cultural baggage. A great number of these texts were
produced in North America, and others were published in newspapers or in separate
collections. One popular example is Fedyk’s Pisni imigrantivpro Kanadu i Avstriiu
(Immigrant Songs about Canada and Austria) (1908).
North America as a land of milk and honey became the subject of myths and legends.
After generations of Ukrainian settlement in America, stories appeared to “prove” that
Ukrainians arrived in the New Wodd much earlier than most people believed. (A certain
Lavrentey Bohoon supposedly accompanied Captain John Smith to Jamestown.)
Ukrainian folktales also made their way to the New World. Some were repeated with
minimal variations. For example, an anecdote is told in which a husband on his way to
town is instructed by his wife to buy her a pair of boots, “bom bosa” (because I go about
barefoot). He returns home without them, saying that “Bombosa” boots are not sold in
any of the stores. Other stories went through major transformations as with the following
tale:
There, in Winnipeg, I was told about this Dowbush. That these big
landowners had a big orchard in their village; well and right in the midst
of it they would gather. Well and there was Dowbush.
A certain woman whose name was Zazulie [cuckoo bird]…Well
and…“Crawl up there Zazulie!”
And she crawled up there on the fruit tree, and he shot her because she
was Zazulie [a cuckoo bird]. Dowbush, he says, shot a cuckoo bird on a tree. (quoted in Rudnyc’kyj 1956:79)
In Ukrainian folk tradition, the real Dowbush was, in fact, a highwayman hero who
robbed the rich and gave to the poor.
Folksong texts had greater staying power than narrative lore, partly because the
melody, meter, and rhyme served as mnemonic devices. It is not unusual to hear third- or
fourth-generation Ukrainians in North America singing folk or popular Ukrainian songs
without understanding the lyrics. A great many Ukrainian folksongs are of a lyrical
nature. For example,
[O] the cuckoo cooed,
The cuckoo cooed.
O my sweetheart is in the old country,
And I, poor one, am here.
And the cuckoo cooed
On the wide bridge,
“Do come, do come, my sweetheart,
At least visit me.”
My head is aching so much
That I’m squinting my eyes.
There’s no one to ask me
Why I’m worried.
Other folksongs are more historical, including the recitative epic Duma forms (performed
in North America almost exclusively by professional singers often accompanied by the
national Ukrainian instrument, the bandura). Folk music performed by North American
Ukrainians has changed from traditional tunes to more popular ones, although polkas and
waltzes are still common at Ukrainian weddings. Ukrainian folk music is performed by
groups ranging from smaller bands with a traditional instrument, such as the tsymbaly
(hammered dulcimer), to the more elitist and urban band. The hurdygurdy (lira), which
was popular at the turn of the 20th century when a great many Ukrainians came to North
America, is in the 1990s almost unknown among Ukrainians in the New World. Other
instruments, such as the drymba (Jew’s harp) have become exotic.
Many of the customs practiced and believed in by Ukrainians in the old country
survived in North America, at least in the first and second generations, and superstitions
are not uncommon among Ukrainians. For example, Ukrainians may not greet guests or
pass items to one another across a threshold for fear of bad luck. Black cats crossing a
path bring bad luck just as they do with mainstream North Americans. Unmarried persons
should not sit at a corner of the table during a meal, because then they won’t get married
for seven years. Some superstitions exhibit white magic, such as, for example, throwing knives and forks on the ground when storm clouds approach someone’s farm to avoid
hail damage.
Traditional calendar customs and rites of passage were much richer in the old country
than in the New World. In North America, only Christmas (known for its meatless meal
on the eve of the holiday and the mumming and caroling activities that go on almost to
Epiphany) and Easter (preceded by ritual whipping on Palm Sunday and the decorating of
special Easter eggs that make up part of the food basket blessed at the church service) are
celebrated by the majority of the Ukrainian American population. Some communities
visit with the dead and have their graves blessed either on the Sunday after Easter or on
Whitsunday.
Parish feast days and weddings are occasions for commu-nity celebrations, as are the
newer festivals that bring in visitors from several states or Canadian provinces. Ukrainian
social dances performed in the old countiy on Sundays and at weddings to regional folk
tunes survived to some degree in North America. A uniquely North American kolomyika
or hopak evolved in the 1960s, combining the spontaneity of social dance with the
spectacle of rehearsed acrobatic moves from a staged dance. Ukrainian dance on stage
has become an extremely productive and visible symbol of Ukrainian culture in North
America.
The once popular one-act plays have either disappeared or made room for more
professional performances. Some common folk gestures used by Ukrainians include the
figa z makom, performed with the thumb sticking out between the index and long finger
signifying a big “nothing” for the recipient; the flipping of the long finger against one’s
throat signals a “drink” or “drinking.” A gesture for a stupid act or stupidity is often made
by slapping one’s forehead or by pointing one’s index finger to one’s temple and rotating
it back and forth. Hide-and-seek and other chasing games have been popular among
children, and various traditional card games, such as troyka and kaiser among Ukrainian
adults.
When Ukrainians moved into unsettled or uncultivated parts of North America, they
tended to construct the traditional thatched-roof buildings with clay ovens or other
structures they had possessed in eastern Europe. In some cases, temporary dugouts were
constructed before a pioneer family could move into more comfortable housing. But
Ukrainians soon adapted to mainstream framed-lumber construction, although the inside
of the dwelling would often be decorated with religious icons or other important cultural
symbols, such as portraits of the poets Shevchenko, Franko, or Lesia Ukrainka. Such
decorations can also be found in modern city houses or apartments. Many Ukrainian
churches were built in the first half of the 20th century, undergoing several unique
architectural stages and producing many unmistakable rural and urban landmarks across
the continent.
Folk arts and crafts have been maintained more than oral folklore expressions since
the command of one’s ancestral language is not necessary to produce these items. The
best-known examples are the batik-decorated Easter eggs called pysanky, which are sold
throughout the calendar year. The embroidery of shirts and other forms of clothing as
well as ritual towels is another tradition retained in North America. Folk costumes are
especially valued by members of Ukrainian dancing ensembles. The more ambitious a
repertoire of an ensemble, the greater the likelihood of its members possessing a variety
of folk costumes. In some families, during the main religious or community celebrations,
the wearing of embroidered items of folk costumes is encouraged. Folk-medicine rituals
persist, notably for healing victims of the evil eye.
Ritual foods were mentioned above as part of calendar customs. The meals prepared
for Christmas (with twelve meatless dishes) and Easter (including sausage, eggs, butter,
cheese, and paska, or Easter bread) tend to emphasize the Lenten and post-Lenten periods
respectively. Odier folk foods for which the Ukrainian kitchen is known include holubtsi
(stuffed cabbage rolls), kapusniak (sauerkraut soup), pyrohyvarenyky (dumplings),
studenets (headcheese), kovbasa (garlic sausage), oseledtsi (herring), and in some cases
salo (pork fat). Ukrainians in general do not shy away from alcoholic drinks. A well
known Ukrainian proverb is: De kovbasa i charka, mynet’sia i svarka (When you have
garlic sausage and a drinking cup, even an argument will cease). The lifestyle of
Ukrainian settlers of east central Alberta from 1892 to the 1930s is represented at an
outdoor museum named the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, east of Edmonton,
Alberta. Bohdan Medwidsky
References
Canadian Museum of Civilization. 1989. The Ukrainians in Canada, 1891–1991. Material History
Bulletin (Special Issue) 29.
——. 1991. Art and Ethnicity: The Ukrainian Tradition in Canada. Hull: Canadian Museum of
Civilization.
Klymasz, Robert Bogdan. 1980. Ukrainian Folklore in Canada. New York: Arno.
Plaviuk, Volodymyr S. 1949. Prypovidky, abo ukrains’konarodnia filosofiia [Proverbs or Ukrainian
Folk Philosophy]. Edmonton: Privately published.
Rudnyc’kyj, J.B. 1956. Ukrainian-Canadian Folklore and Dialectological Texts. Vol. 1. Winnipeg:
Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences.
Subtelny, Orest. 1991. Ukrainians in North America: An Illustrated History. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press.