CHORNOBYL, UKRAINE

The beginning of the end of the USSR was the cover-up of the Chornobyl explosion. The officials' families and children were being put on trains to get out of Kyiv. The Ukr. population was told to continue celebrating the Sunday with parades. Normal. But then, when the earthquake in Armenia happened a few months later, Gorbachev issued pleas for help. There were no pleas after Chornobyl.

I spoke with a Ukr. artist who came to Winnipeg with an exhibition a few years later. He spoke openly about Chornobyl and the system. "I am no longer afraid. When they put my elderly mother and my wife and young children in such danger, when they themselves were escaping the air itself, I cannot remain silent." There were many like him. The final straw.

During the "Spirit of Ukraine" art exhibit at the Wpg Art Gallery (from Ukraine) in the summer of 1991, one of the curators smiled bitterly at my comment -- I had said something about the summer rain -- "Yes, but at least you know what is coming down in that rain."

UKRAINIANS VOTING

So Ukrainians are voting today.  Except in the terrorist-occupied regions (it's amazing how a few terrorists can threaten so many people), the voting turnout is great.  More power to them!  The line-ups in European cities where Ukrainians are working are also long.  Nice to see the members of the present government lining up with everyone else.

One thing that stands out -- so many Ukrainians have turned out to vote wearing their vyshyvanka, the traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt.   This is something you wear for special occasions, for feasts, weddings, for Sviata.   I have written a few articles on the vyshyvanka and its symbolism.   The following is one of them.  It appeared in my column in The Ukrainian Weekly in September 2008.

 

 photo from Telekanal Ukraina

VYSHYVANKA ALWAYS

Orysia Paszczak Tracz

Oleh Skrypka sure got it right.  His Vyshyvanka [traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt] Parade in Kyiv in May was a huge success, as is his established festival Krayina Mriy [Land of Dreams]. In each, Ukrainians are encouraged to wear their embroidered/woven folk finery, creating an event of all-encompassing beauty.

To someone other than a Ukrainian, the embroidered sorochka [traditional folk shirt] is something pretty. To a Ukrainian, putting on that sorochka is special, emotional, and spiritual.  It means so much more than a piece of clothing.  It means everything – everything good.  It symbolizes love, well-being, health, family, decency, festivity, beauty, tradition – and patriotism.  And it is this last attribute that Skrypka and others want Ukrainians in Ukraine to regain.

The sorochka in its simplest form was the earliest piece of fabric clothing worn by our ancestors.  As linen and hempen cloth weaving developed among the agriculturalists (the Trypillians, in the case of Ukraine, approx. 7-6,000 to 3-2,000 B.C.), a long folded over piece of fabric with a cut-out for the head was the thing to wear.  Echoes of this tunic-style knee-length sorochka are seen in the hip- and knee-length men's shirts of certain regions of western Ukraine.  The tucked-in sorochka for men became common in central and eastern Ukraine.

In time, ornamentation with darkened and then dyed threads developed into the weaving and embroidery designs which make the sorochka such an amazing thing.  These designs and their placement were not random, but were there to protect the wearer from all the unclean and evil spirits and powers out there.  They also symbolized specific motifs of the earth, fertility, nature, the celestial bodies, and ancestors.  As with the motifs in pysanky, woodcarving, weaving, metalwork, and all the folk arts, the symbols are rarely realistic, but are quite stylized and even abstract.  This makes these designs so much more fascinating.  And, of course, the regional differences of cut, placement of ornament, color, and the designs of the ornaments vary so greatly, creating a wealth of beauty and meaning.

The  Scythians (at least the horsemen) were not our direct ancestors. Most probably some of the agricultural Scythians mentioned by Herodotus were.  That small gold figure of the dancing Scythian in a squatting position wearing his geometrically-ornamented shirt sure tells us he's one of us.

There is very much information out there on Ukrainian folk costume, and the embroidery and ornamentation of the sorochka. It helps if you read Ukrainian, but there is more and more material appearing in English.  The Ukrainian Museum Gift Shop inNew York [ http://www.ukrainianmuseum.org/shop/   ] carries books on Ukrainian folk costume, as well as their own fine exhibition catalogues.  Ukrains'kyi Narodnyi Odiah – Ukrainian Folk Costume   (Toronto-Philadelphia:  World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations, 1992), available at this shop, is a bi-lingual Ukrainian-English volume on the costume in all regions of Ukraine.

There are more and more fine books on folk costume being published in Ukraine.  Zinaida Vasina is the author of the two-volume Ukrains'kyi Litopys Vbrannia (Kyiv:  Mystetsvo, 2003-2007).  These are very large volumes extensively and beautifully illustrated.  There has been some controversy about the author's depiction of the clothing of the prehistoric peoples on theterritory of Ukraine.  How could she be so sure this is what they wore, some reviewers wrote.  Vasina discusses the sorochka and its ornamentation in detail.

Another very richly illustrated book on folk costume is Ukrains'kyi Striy by Maia Bilan and Halyna Stel'mashchuk (Lviv:  Feniks, 2000).  It covers the history of the costume from the earliest times, as well as detailed information about each piece of clothing and accessory, as well as regional costumes.  The book is practically overflowing with photographs and illustrations. One very interesting photograph shows a man's sorochka from the Borshchiv region from the turn of the last century.  The trident, the present symbol and seal of Ukraine which originated with the kings (kniazi) of Ukraine in the 10^th century, is embroidered in gold thread within the traditional multicolored floral design both on the front panels (three times) and on the cuffs.  This is certainly a most patriotic gesture of the embroiderer, and of the wearer of the sorochka.  That the sorochka survived Soviet times is also remarkable. 

Reverend Oleksander Harkavy of Winnipeg first arrived in the city in early August 1991 to perform at the Folklorama Festival. At the time, he was a Narodnyi Artyst Ukrainy, an honored nationally-awarded artist-performer, and only years later moved toWinnipeg to study theology.  We met on the Saturday before the putsch of August 19, 1991.  At one point, conversation turned to the sorochka, and O. Harkavy remembered how in Ukraine in the 1970s a student could be expelled, or persecuted for wearing a vyshyvanka publicly.  It was a dangerous piece of clothing. 

An image that remains in my mind from childhood is something I saw in a history book, The Black Deeds of the Kremlin:  a white book, I think.  The chapter on the Soviet massacre of Ukrainians in Vinnytsia in 1937-38 includes many photographs. The one I remember shows a victim wearing his vyshyvanka.  The pamphlet Crime of Moscow in Vynnytsia (Edinburgh: Scottish League for European Freedom, 1952) states:  "Naturally, being buried for years [uncovered in 1943], the features of victims had very much changed, but they were recognized by the clothes, y the Ukrainian shirts embroidered with love by the mothers and wives of the victims, and by the documents found in their pockets."

"Sorochku maty vyshyla meni….. "   My mother embroidered me a sorochka….  I wonder if someone other than a Ukrainian would, first of all, compose a song about the sorochka, and then have that song known and sung around the world decades later. 

The vyshyvanka is worn for the most important personal and national occasions, whether a private event, or one of Skrypka's festivals.  The late Bill Hanischuk, a descendant of pioneers of the Vita/Gardenton area of south-eastern Manitoba, told me how he wore his sorochka for his party upon retiring from the University of Manitoba.  The sorochka had been embroidered by his mother and wife, and this was the best and most important thing he could wear.

There was a human interest article by Gordon Sinclair in the Winnipeg Free Press about the late George Dmytriw ofWinnipeg (Nov. 15, 2007).  His wife Debbie wrote in to thank the policemen who assisted Dmytriw when he died at work.  The accompanying photo shows Mr. and Mrs. Dmytriw at some special event, and he is wearing his vyshyvanka. 

When a woman from one of my tours finally met a distant relative in Staryi Kosiv, he and his family later traveled to Kolomyia to spend more time with her.  The whole family dressed up for this event, and the elderly gentleman came in his vyshyvanka – he was honoring his Canadian distant cousin.

A poignant symbol of how important the vyshyvanka is happened at the funeral of Dr. Alexandra (Lesia) Pawlowsky inWinnipeg earlier this year.  In planning her funeral, one of her requests was for the pall bearers and honorary pall bearers to wear their sorochky.  Lesia, who passed away much too early at 55, knew and believed in the symbolism of the vyshyvanka.

Ukrainian Weekly.    Sept. 2008.

UKRAINE'S NEVERENDING STORY

I submitted this OpEd to a few publications.....   no luck.   So, I hope this gets out.  You may share.  I am appalled at the pundits and "experts" spouting the Russian and Soviet lines.  For them, Ukrainians are not worth the attention, and the nation doesn't count.  Disgusting.  And the media still invite them on to comment.   Check out https://www.facebook.com/emaidanua  and other reputable Ukrainian sites.

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UKRAINE’S NEVERENDING STORY 

Orysia Tracz

He waited until after the Olympics, as was expected.  Then he struck.  Putin proved what Ukrainians have been trying to tell the world for years, but no one would listen.  Finally now, with such disastrous results, Ukrainians are saying “we told you so.”

One thing the world finally realized after the Maidan revolution is that Ukraine really is not Russia, and Russia is not Ukraine.  These are two separate nations.  But throughout Ukraine’s history, it has been a poor rich nation -- rich in geographical location, natural resources, and people, and poor because of greedy neighbours on all sides who wanted those riches, human and natural.   Ukraine’s history has been one of invasion, occupation, persecution, and subjugation.  The few bright lights were wars of independence, some successful for short periods of time until the invasions began anew.  There were no wars of invasion by Ukraine towards any other nation, just defensive ones.  

The occupiers, from the north, west, or southwest, treated the native Ukrainian population as inferior, banning the language (“it never was and never will be”), and yet appropriating the best of Ukrainian culture and science under their own umbrellas.  Whether in tsarist or Soviet times, the people were not free, and were not free to be themselves, to be Ukrainian.  With all the international political agreements and treaties, and with the Soviets/Russians being Allies at the time, Ukraine lost ethnographic territory after World War II.  Ukrainians, living on their ancestral lands for ages and, not moving a step, now became Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Rumanian, and Slovak citizens.  The political powers never bothered to ask them.  As for the Crimea, it was not Khrushchev’s to “give” to Ukraine.  When you steal something, is it yours to give?  Tsarina Catherine II invaded Ukraine, including the Crimea.  The majority of the population was Crimean Tatars whom, after World War II, Stalin deported to Central Asia.  They have been returning to their ancestral home, and support Ukraine.  The Russians began arriving there under Soviet times, to a place warmer than Russia.  

Why is there a Russian-speaking part of Ukraine?  It was not always so – Ukraine was Ukrainian.  But Russians moved into eastern and southern Ukraine with Soviet industrialization, Stalin’s great project in the 1920s-1930s.  Then most Russians moved into Ukraine for the prime real estate when empty Ukrainian villages conveniently became available.  This was after millions upon millions of Ukrainians were forcibly starved to death during the Holodomor of 1932-33 as grain was being exported by the USSR from the breadbasket of Europe.  

The pretext for the Russian invasion of the Crimea is a crock.  It is the Sudeten issue all over again.  Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine have not been persecuted, and do not need “protection.”  Their language was never in danger.  But they did not respect the foreign country in which they were and are living to learn Ukrainian.  Whether during Soviet times or in independent Ukraine, Russian was a common and even dominant language in many areas.  Russians strongly “implied” over the years that Russian is a “prestigious” language, and Ukrainian is “just a peasant language”.  

The Soviet/Russian thing was and is such a misnomer.  In theory, Russia was one of the fifteen equal Soviet Socialist Republics. But, as Orwell wrote, one was so much more equal than others.  In fact, Orwell’s Animal Farm was based on collectivization and the Holodomor.  When it benefited the Russians, Soviet equaled Russian.  For them, the two terms were synonymous.  But they should not have been.  For example, it was not 20 million Russians who perished in World War II.  It was approximately 20 million Soviets.   Of those, about 10 million were Ukrainians, who perished between 1939-1945, killed by both the Nazis and the Soviets.  Twenty percent of those who perished during the war were Ukrainian, the largest number of all the dead lost by a nation in the war.

In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the referendum on Ukraine had 90.3% of Ukrainians (in the whole country, incl. Crimea) voting for independence.

Pro-Russian propaganda has worked wonders in the world, especially in the media.  For many “experts” and commentators, Ukraine still does not exist and has no right to exist.  In the social media, the trolls are doing their job.  Ukrainians still have to fight to get the truth out.  It seems that in this doublespeak world, other peoples can fight wars of independence, but not when it comes to the Ukrainians.  Maybe with this latest hellish action by Putin, the truth has come out and the world will understand.  But it will not do much.

As a daughter of parents who survived World War II, and who lost a baby daughter to the Nazis and many family members to the Russians, I cannot be silent.

Orysia Tracz is a Winnipeg writer, translator, speaker, and interpreter. 

The following two articles are germane:  

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/20/fascism-russia-and-ukraine/?utm_content=buffer3c3b4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/27/anne-applebaum-in-ukraine-the-pressure-mounts/