Diaspora

On Sunday May 14, 2017 the Orpheus Choir of Toronto will host their season finale, Identities, featuring renowned soloists Andriana Chuchman, soprano, and James Westman, bass-baritone, together with the Vesnivka Choir and Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber Choir (Kvitka Kondracki, Artistic Director) and the Orpheus Concert Orchestra at 3:30 PM at Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. West. Under the artistic direction of Robert Cooper, this gala concert features the Ontario premiere of Canadian composer Larysa Kuzmenko’s The Golden Harvest. Based on a libretto by Talia Zajac, this trilingual oratorio (Ukrainian, French, English) tells the...

Outgoing UCRDC President Prof. Jurij Darewych announced that as of the New Year 2017, Prof. Nicholas Derzko now heads the UCRDC as its new President in a planned succession of leadership approved at the last UCRDC Annual General Meeting in June 2016. Prof. Darewych remains on the UCRDC Board as Past President. “Mykola” Derzko was UCRDC Vice President and has been a member for many years. Prof. Derzko is Associate Professor Emeritus in Mathematics at the University of Toronto where he lectures in mathematics with applications to management science and law. He is also a practising barrister and solicitor, and a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada...

At the year-end UCRDC Board Meeting on December 5, 2016 in a festive holiday spirit, members shared their joy in congratulating long-time member Oksana Zakydalsky, who on November 22 at a UCC Toronto meeting was presented theUkrainian Canadian Congress Leadership Award of Excellence for her significant contribution to the broader Ukrainian community and the betterment of Canada. Oksana Zakydalsky is a valued UCRDC Board Member who has contributed since 1988, collecting and archiving documents, developing educational materials and writing numerous press releases and...

My godmother, Nina, told me the truth. When I shared it with my history teacher, he said she was mistaken, or had lied. I was upset. I asked my parents who was right. They gave me a book, Russian Oppression in Ukraine, which included firsthand accounts about the Great Famine of 1932-33 in Soviet Ukraine. I still have that very same green-covered volume. My first encounter with it was brief. I slammed it shut, shuddering at the black-and-white photographs inside – the remains of famine victims being heaved into a cart, the bodies of raped-then-murdered women jumbled on a bed, a massacred community’s corpses...

Dr. Oleh Antonyshyn is the 2017 recipient of the Ochrymovych Humanitarian Award, also known as the “Helping Hands” Award from Ukrainian Canadian Social Services – Toronto (UCSS-T). Dr. Antonyshyn was presented with the award at a gala banquet in his honour on April 30, 2017 at the Old Mill. Victor Malarek, an award-winning journalist, who was the first recipient of the award in 2010 was a guest speaker. Dr. Antonyshyn, an internationally renowned plastic surgeon, is being recognized for his extraordinary humanitarian efforts in providing medical care and treatment to those ravaged by war in eastern Ukraine. He has...

Ukrainian Americans of Michigan sent a strong delegation to Washington, D.C. on March 8-9, 2017 to participate in the first of several “Ukraine Days” planned for 2017. Ukraine Days is a long standing national initiative of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America/Ukrainian National Information Service (UCCA)/(UNIS) that provides for Ukrainian communities to collectively converge on Washington, D.C., to simultaneously conduct meetings with their members of Congress and to hold a number of joint events during two day of planned advocacy...

The scene is set in 9th century Kyiv (the capital of present day Ukraine) and some of its outlying environs inhabited or occupied through invasion by Slavs or Vikings. The focus is on Constantinople, (in present day Turkey), the second Rome and the seat of Eastern Christianity. The strategy involves a military excursion down the Dnipro River and traversing the Black sea with all its perils to Constantinople in search of vengeance. Slav traders had been slaughtered by the rulers of Constantinople. Along the journey numerous characters are developed and many places are visited including Khersones in Crimea particularly notable a century later where Kyivan Prince Volodymyr adopted...

Based on one of the most overlooked tragedies of the 20th century, Bitter Harvest is a powerful story of love, honor, rebellion and survival as seen through the eyes of two young lovers caught in the ravages of Joseph Stalin’s genocidal policies against Ukraine in the 1930s. As Stalin advances the ambitions of communists in the Kremlin, a young artist named Yuri (Max Irons) battles to survive famine, imprisonment and torture to save his childhood sweetheart Natalka (Samantha Barks) from the “Holodomor,” the death-by-starvation program that ultimately killed millions of Ukrainians. Against this tragic backdrop, Yuri escapes from a Soviet prison and joins the anti-Bolshevik resistance movement as he battles to reunite with Natalka and continue the fight for a free Ukraine. Filmed on location in Ukraine, this epic love story brings to...

Dear Member of the Ukrainian Canadian Community, We encourage you to reach out to your local MP and express your opinion as to what the priorities in Canada-Ukraine relations should be. Please find below a copy of the latest press release issued by the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC), outlining priorities for the Government of Canada in Canada-Ukraine relations...

In light of recent elections in the United States and the deteriorating security situation in Eastern Europe and other volatile regions of the world, the National Executive of the League of Ukrainian Canadians would like to outline our vision of key priorities in Canada – Ukraine relations in 2017 and beyond. The current unstable global climate requires principled and resolute leadership on behalf of the West and its allies. After the popular Maidan uprising in Kyiv three years ago, Russia seized and illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine and launched a war in the Donbas, Ukraine's eastern region. In response, Canada, the US, and the EU sanctioned Russia and provided significant assistance to Ukraine. Therefore, now is the time for Canada and its allies to increase support to Ukraine given its progress in implementing important reforms and the continuous existential threat to Ukraine from Russia...