Update on Ukrainian Christmas traditions blog

Please see the book blog for updates on my  

FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT   bestseller:

Ukrainian ChristmasTraditions Book

REMEMBERING TATO [FATHER] ON NOV. 1st

For Father's Day: recollections of Tato 

My father, Vasyl, died almost nine years ago. The day after my sister's wedding, he suffered a massive heart attack, spent two months in a coma, and died without regaining consciousness on November 1, I978. For some reason, Father's Day is the hardest day in the year for me, more painful than the day of his death, or his birthday. Tato lived a life similar to that of thousands of Ukrainian men of his generation (born right before and during the First World War). He was born and grew up in the Boyko region. His mother died when he was very young, and the stereotypical evil stepmother came into his life. He finished the schooling available under Polish rule to the children of the village (selo). The family was strongly aware of its national and cultural ideals, and participated in the organized life of the selo.

               

During World War II, my father was one of the 2.5 million young Ukrainians taken as forced laborers to Germany. He was lucky. instead of a munitions factory or a mine, which were prime targets for Allied bombs, my father wound up in a dairy. There he met my mother, who was a forced laborer on a nearby farm. I was told that there were even those who volunteered for work in Germany because ''Hitler promised us a free Ukraine...'' From what I remember of my parents' reminiscences, in the human turmoil during the middle and end of the war in Germany, the Ukrainian slave laborers did not just do their forced jobs for the Reich. A Ukrainian anti-Nazi underground was very active. The one incident I do remember my parents retelling, was when my mother stole (yes, stole) her brother and other Ukrainian political prisoners out of a jail carved into the rock of the Alps (that's another story). Without everyday clothes, identity papers, and a knowledge of the German language, they were as good as dead. The people in my father's underground group forged identification documents for the escapers, who could then move about the country, even go back home. I remember being told by Mama long ago, "If I had stopped to think what I was doing — and the danger involved - never would I have survived. " For most transgressions, it was execution on the spot, or the lager (concentration camp). I suppose in today's anti-Ukrainian climate the Ukrainian slave laborers in Germany are next on the list of our diligent Nazi hunters. After all, they did work for the Reich (what difference does it make whether it was voluntary or not?), then they even forged documents, stole and spied (what difference does it make if it was against the Nazis, a crime is a crime - even during war -- no?).

During that war, my parents suffered through the death of their first-born. Lesia, the older sister I never knew, died of pneumonia at 14 months. There was no medical care for the Untermenschen (subhumans, i.e., the Slavs). My mother was convinced it was the travel on cold military trains, their windows shattered, and her “cold” breast milk which contributed to the baby's death. Now, I'm afraid to ask for more details, because those memories may devastate an already fragile parent. After the war there was no going home. It's hard to imagine the inner turmoil of these idealistic young adults, torn between family and home, and the reality of the foreign political system now ruling that home. For the members of the nationalist underground, going home meant Siberia or immediate death. After what they saw of the forced repatriation in the DP camps, their choice was made for them. Those from western Ukraine could prove they were Polish citizens. The others, from eastern Ukraine (under Russian rule) lied. What irony - desperate people felt grateful for having been under the heel of one cruel foreigner instead of another! Once in the United States, my father worked. Hard. Not knowing the language, he had little choice of jobs. His first, in a mattress factory, left his hands cut and bleeding. Then, there was the truck manufacturing company, and the factory where they made the brass horses with clocks mounted into their stomachs. Along with his day job, and my mother's night job cleaning offices in Lower Manhattan, my parents were janitors of their building in Jersey City. Is there any DP family whose parents were not janitors of an apartment building in 1948­ - 1949-1950?

Despite of the drudgery and exhaustion of work, Ukrainian life was not forgotten, with the family participating in church and organizations. Soon I was receiving my own "Miy Pryiatel" (My Friend), a children's magazine published in Winnipeg and edited by Father Semen Izyk, a survivor of the death camps. After all these years, a scene from my childhood stands out. In our apartment on Grand Street, in Jersey City, my father is lying on the couch, quietly weeping, in his hands a letter written in purple ink on graph paper. Mama is pacing the rooms, also crying. The letter was from home. After Stalin's death in 1953, separated families could write to each other again. Only now did my parents learn of the deaths in their families right after the war — my father's father, and my mother's mother and brother.

Tato was a quiet man. He didn't express it to us much, be we knew he loved us and was devoted to his family. But I knew that above family, above everything, his whole being was devoted to his Ukraina. He longed for home, he prayed for Ukraine's freedom, he lived for his homeland. The only way he could practically express his devotion was to belong to the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine. Tato always attended meetings, served on the executive, went carolling to raise funds. I wonder if the top brass fully appreciated what the rank and file did. He was one of the foot soldiers, who worked because he believed in The Cause. A long time ago he had pledged himself to Ukraine, and had sworn to obey the organization. He believed, and obeyed. I hurt him deeply once when, during a discussion, I reminded him that during the war Ukrainians fought amongst themselves and, maybe, for the greater good, they shouldn't have. To him, his cause was right. It was for the good of the nation. No discussion. Ukraina and his family there were always in his thoughts. When the parish in Newark voted to change the calendar, and celebrate Christmas on December 25, Tato went along unwillingly. And on January 7 he quietly went to church again, because then he would be celebrating with everyone back home. The understanding pastor held services for the fiercely stubborn people like my father.

Tato was so anti-Communist that he even objected to the red color of my coat. When we talk about the immigrants after World WarII who still kept their emotional suitcases ready, my father was one of them. Rationally, he knew there wouldn't be a change soon in the Soviet political situation. But deep in his heart, he hoped against hope. He wanted so much to believe that one day he would go home. When Mama traveled back in the early 1970s to see her family after 30-some years, Tato would not go along. There was no way he was going to give 'them" (i.e., the Russians) any of his money. And yet I know how he longed to touch his Ukrainian soil. Tato was very proud of my defense of Ukraine in my writing. I didn't know this until after his death, when a friend of his told me how he always bragged about my latest letter to the editor. I knew then, that in spite of all my normal childish and teenage transgressions, I did OK in my father's eyes.

About those eyes. Tato was a handsome man with black bushy eyebrows over very large, very blue eyes. My sister and I inherited his big eyes, as did all our children. You can tell those Paszczak eyes a mile away. As most immigrants, Tato was a devoted American citizen. He always voted — Republican, of course - because they were anti-Communists. In a sad way, I'm relieved that he's not here today to endure what his friends and compatriots are going through. He would have felt betrayed, totally devastated by Ronald Reagan, the Republicans, and the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI). Tato knew what he worked for and against during the war. And now the country that welcomed him is betraying all Ukrainians because of a lie. His heart and soul could not have taken it. Maybe Tato died from happiness. At the wedding reception he told a friend that this was the happiest day of his life, because now both his daughters wеге married to good Ukrainians. To him that meant everything. He was surrounded by friends, including a wartime and DP camp buddy whom he hadn't seen in decades, who had come all the way from California.

After his collapse, there was hope at first that he would come out of the coma. Then slowly the realization sank in that he would not. We had the time to accept this. At least he was not in pain. To me, Tato's funeral was something I floated through. We were in a daze. I remember the funeral director asking if we wanted flowers from the family. Thinking that he meant another wreath, we decided instead to donate the money to the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) veterans. And so, through a misunderstanding, there were no flowers on his coffin, і still regret that. But Tato would have understood. I'm glad he's resting at St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook. At least there all our people are united, no matter what political stripe or religion. In our post-funeral thank-you announcement I wrote: ''Sleep peacefully, Tatu. May the hospitable American soil take the place of that Ukrainian earth, which you loved above all.''

THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 1987

FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT: UKRAINIAN CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

Finally!   Нарешті!

After about two years, the book is at the printer's!   Launch in early December (see below).  It will be a launch like no other!

Have a great team - editor, graphic designers, sponsors, family -- would not have come to fruition without them.

Now to promote, distribute, and all that.   New blog and website in the works.

If you're reading this, please pass it on.

http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/event-14601/Orysia-Tracz----Book-Launch/#.Vhj6xnpViko

UNDERGROUND SOLDIER by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch -- a review

UNDERGROUND SOLDIER by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

“The corpses around me provided an odd sort of comfort…”   The first sentence of this young people’s novel sets the scene.  This will not be a light easy story.

Caught in the middle of World War II, Luka is a young teenager in Kyiv. He is captured and shipped to Germany as an Ostarbeiter [eastern worker], a forced labourer in a munitions factory.  Luka escapes, under those corpses, and attempts to make his way back home to Kyiv to find his family.

 

The reader learns very much about survival, persistence, and a child’s determination to reach family and home.  Luka’s experiences are so detailed that one stops breathing along with him when he is again and again in danger of being discovered by this guard or that soldier.  He must make decisions that an adult would have difficulty with.  Luka grows up the hard way.  He is on a mission to find his parents and a friend, Lida, in the maelstrom of war, and risks everything to do so.

The reader learns so much through Luka’s experiences about history, warfare, medicine, pharmacology, and human relations.  Skrypuch is a meticulous researcher, and the reader learns about everything from dressing your wounds with fresh cow’s milk to knowing how to walk in the woods in another’s footprints to avoid detection.  The horrific history of Ukraine during the war and the battles against both the Nazis and the Soviets – and the unbelievable inhuman cruelty of both – are shown on a personal level.  The friendships are also there – of Luka and David, his Jewish friend in Kyiv, and of Luka and his escaped Czech trek-mate Martina.  Luka’s life in the UPA – the Ukrainian Insurgent Army is related in detail, and demonstrates the international make-up of this underground army fighting on two fronts with no external support other than the local population. 

A map of Central and Eastern Europe would have helped the reader envision the regions and distances Luka travels.   Even though this is a work of fiction, it is based on and inspired by the real experiences of Dr. Peter J. Potichnyj, a retired professor of political science.  History is not just what is in a textbook.  History is the accumulation of the lives of individual  people living through a particular time.

There is an Author's Note at the back which provides short information on several key historical events such as the Bykivnia massacre (an event, of so many in Ukraine, about which even most Ukrainians do not know).  

I found it difficult to read this book, and the other two in this series, but not because of the writing, which is excellent.  I wanted to keep reading each of the books, but could only do so in short segments.  The writer recreates the atmosphere and the situations of war so realistically that my heart and nerves could not take much at once.  All I could envision was the experience of my parents, young adults at the time, as forced labourers in Germany during the war.  Possibly someone with no connection to the war would find it less stressful to read.

Most of the children’s and young people’s books about World War II in Europe published so far have been about experiences of The Holocaust.   The Diary of Anne Frank is well-known, and is on most reading lists and in curricula.   The three companion books on World War II by Marsha Skrypuch should be required reading in schools along with Frank’s Diary.

Even though this is classified as "juvenile fiction", I recommend that adults read all three companion books.  Underground Soldier is the final book in the author's trilogy on young Ukrainians in World War II.  The first two are Stolen Child and Making Bombs for Hitler.  These do not necessarily have to be read in the order published, but the lives of the characters in the three books are intertwined.  Skrypuch has written 19 books, many award-winning, on topics that other authors have not approached.  Not only is she a fine writer, Skrypuch is a determined and dogged champion for the underdog and the topics avoided by the mainstream.

Regrettably, while the author’s other books are available in the USA, this and the companion books are not.  

Skrypuch’s deeply moving books in this series take us into the horrible world of war and its effect on ordinary people.  Regrettably, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine right now, there is no end to the eternal Ukrainian struggle for independence and peace -- and how this affects the nation and individuals.

UNDERGROUND SOLDIER by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.  Toronto:  Scholastic Canada, 2014.   ISBN 978-1-4431-2437-9  (pbk.)    ISBN 978-1-4431-2898-8 (html)

For more about Marsha Skrypuch:

http://www.calla2.com/wordpress/?page_id=22

Dr. Peter J. Potichnyj’s life is covered in  My Journey, parts 1 – 2, published in book 4 of Litopys UPA [Chronicle of the UPA].  Series “Events and People”, 2008.

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL

That's yours truly.   Have been away from blogging for a while.....   life interferes.   But will try to keep up from now on.  Thanks for your support, dear readers.

Almost done with the Rusalka 50th Anniversary book.   So many wonderful stories!

Something that dropped into my lap most unexpectedly was the Taras Shevchenko 200th Anniversary of his birth project of a traveling exhibition across Manitoba on the poet and artist.  Write it!   And include as much information about him as possible, but keep it short and concise because people don't read any more!  [that's what happens when you miss a meeting - upon return, you find out you're the one doing it!]  After a few months of research, stress, and much editing (thank you, Ostap and Myrosya), the exhibition was completed.  Launched at the Manitoba Legislature, then traveled to Canada's National Ukrainian Festival in Dauphin, Manitoba, was exhibited at the Kyiv Pavilion at Folklorama in Winnipeg, and will be going around Manitoba until March 2015.  Thanks also to Alice Bass of Graphics Girl, for her talent in graphic arts.

Then there's my major project that is on its way.  I finally decided that I will compile my many articles on Ukrainian Christmas traditions into a book.  Over the last four decades I have written quite a few.  The first ones were in the New Leisure Magazine of the WInnipeg Free Press four decades ago, and since then the two or three a year in The Ukrainian Weekly.  No matter where in North America -- and Australia -- I have gone to speak, people have been asking "when are you going to compile your articles?  I'm tired of taping your columns back together -- I've used them so often."

After meeting with my graphic designer, we agreed that a launch this fall is unrealistic, to put it kindly.   The text will be ready, but not everything else. So it's the fall of 2015!    Grants are still being applied for, others received, editor awaiting the texts, and on and on.    If there are any philanthropists out there interested in supporting a worthwhile cultural project, please contact me!

That's my update.  Now back to the writing.......      So much for retirement, eh?




 


 

THE FEAST OF KUPALO - UKRAINIAN SUMMER SOLSTICE

With the Summer Solstice arrived, this is my article on Kupalo http://www.artsoflife.ca/documents/IvanaKupala-KupaloDescription.pdf

 

This is the original:
No. 29 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, JULY 16, 1995


Kupalo: fire, water, flowers, nature, and love

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

There is something about the feast of
Ivan Kupalo that fascinates young people.
Most probably, it has to do with the
unfamiliar, the unattainable, the mythical,
because somewhere, somehow, they
have heard that this particular Ukrainian
celebration has to do with love, passion,
even something about naked orgies!
Since, for most of us, such events are
far-removed from our everyday life, this
makes the feast of Kupalo that much
more fascinating. While we experience
the special rituals of Christmas, Easter
and Ukrainian weddings, this particular
holiday has eluded us.

Ukrainian traditions and customs are
with us throughout the year and on special
family occasions. We are blessed with the
most extraordinary, fascinating and meaningful
customs - ones that have their origins
in human prehistory (we're talking
about the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, the
Upper and Lower Stone Ages).
For most of us, our Christmas, Easter
and wedding traditions are so much a
part of our life that we could not be
without them. However, there are two
other major feast days of the calendar
year - the more non-family oriented
Kupalo and Obzhynky (the harvest
thanksgiving feast), which could not be
that easily adapted to an urban setting,
and for this reason are not as common
here in North America.

Some of us have fond memories of
summer camp, with young men leaping
over a bonfire, young women casting
fresh flower wreaths with lit candles
upon a river or lake. But the symbolism
probably wasn't explained to us in
depth, and we were too young at the
time to understand anyway.
Midsummer's Night, celebrated all
over Europe, is the longest day, and the
shortest night of the year. It is the height
of summer, the turning point, the day
when the sun is at its longest, highest
power. Nature also has reached its peak,
with plants at the pinnacle of their
growth. From here, no more farm work
is needed, and all growth just continues
until harvest. In fact, Kupalo heralds the
harvest to come.

Wild plants, especially herbs and medicinal
plants are at the height of their curative
powers, and are gathered that day for
use throughout the year. The basic elements
of each Ukrainian feast, and their
symbolism, are present here also: fire,
water, holy Mother Earth and nature,
ancestors, and love/fertility/procreation.
Fire symbolizes and reinforces the
power of the sun, and is present in the enormous
bonfires (often a few per village) and
in the burning big wheels of straw careening
down hillsides towards the water.
Water symbolizes life and purification,
and the companion to fire. Fire evaporates
water, water puts out fire. Water
from heaven - the dew - is very powerful
in the early morning of the feast, and people
wash and roll in the dew in order to
be healthy for the rest of the year.
All villagers are expected to attend
the Kupalo festivities, and there are
even songs mocking and shaming those
who do not.

Kupalski pisni, the Kupalo ritual
songs, are about love, nature, and
Marena and Kupalo, symbolic of this
feast. Marena is the goddess of spring,
and Kupalo is one personification of
the god of winter. From evidence in the
songs and rituals, some scholars believe
that Kupalo (a "he") was originally
Kupala or Kupaila (a "she").
Two scarecrow-type figures made
from tree branches or saplings are
dressed as a male and a female, then carried
around by the young people singing
ritual songs. At the height of the night's
festivities, Marena and Kupalo are either
burned in the bonfire, drowned in the
river, torn apart, or buried - symbolizing
the end of winter and spring, and the
Illustration of a Kupalo tradition from a Ukrainian-language brochure by
Lidia Orel, titled "Ivana Kupala" (Kyyiv: Pamiatky Ukrainy, 1992).
decline of the earth's fertility, leading
towards autumn and harvest. Often a
separate young tree is decorated with ribbons,
flowers and other ornaments by the
young women, and is carried as Marena.
Because there are variations from region
to region, and even between villages,
there is no one set pattern of rituals,
although the basic elements are there.
The power of plant life on this night
is reinforced by the fragrant herbs braided
into the vinky, the garlands or
wreaths of wildflowers worn by the
young women. These wreaths, with candles
in them, foretell the maiden's
romantic future as they are gently cast
into the flowing water. Depending if the
vinok floats, sinks, gets caught in an
undertow or tangles on the bank - this
symbolizes if, when, and whom she will
marry, or even if she and/or he will die.
It is believed that all plant life in the
forest comes alive during this night, and
trees walk and talk. The elusive "tsvit
paporoti" - the fern flower that is considered
the flower of good fortune - blooms
at midnight. Whoever finds it, picks it
and manages to bring it home, will be the
richest, wisest, most loved and most
blissful person on earth. But this is a lesson
in the folly of greed and foolishness,
an example of elusivity - because we
know that the fern does not procreate this
way. It never blooms, there is no flower
at midnight and, sadly, maybe there is no
ultimate bliss after all.

Love plays an integral part in these rituals.
Couples who are in love and want
to marry jump over the bonfire holding
hands to seal their fate. Couples frolic in
the water together (one of the ancient
symbols of marriage). In some regions,
the ideal was to jump over the bonfire
directly into the water. In early times
(and maybe not that early), this was done
after disrobing, because certain rituals
were more powerful if carried out in the
"natural state." There is much erotic
symbolism in the songs and rituals, and
much wandering off into the woods. If
anyone ever thought that Ukrainians are
straight-laced and prudish, this is one
feast that would blow that theory out of
the water.

Why is this holiday sometimes called
the feast of Ivan Kupala? As with all our
traditions, it is an example of dualism, of
the combination of pre-Christian and
Christian religions. For centuries, the
Church tried to forbid the pre-Christian
rituals, but the population would not give
up what had been part of its life and
belief for millennia. In time, beginning in
the 16th and 17th centuries, Church
authorities conceded, and began combining
the pre-Christian feasts with Christian
ones. The celebration of Kupalo fell
around the time of the Feast of St. John
the Baptist, Ivan Khrestytel, so the name
of the feast became that of Ivan Kupalo,
and the feast was moved from the June
summer solstice to July. The earliest ritual
songs do not mention any Ivan.

Ukrainian tradition, with its abundance
of ritual and symbolism, is a testament to
the richness, antiquity and power of our
culture. We are fortunate that our ancestors
lived in such a naturally beautiful and
bountiful place, that they valued their
way of life and beliefs, and passed them
down so many generations. It is remarkable
that they did so in spite of the invasions,
persecution, dangers and lack of
freedom over the centuries.

On this night, we can go back in
time to the enchanted world of magic,
nature, and love. And if some of you do
wander off into the woods, the organizers
of the festivities and the vatra take
no responsibility for the consequences!

www.artsoflife.ca

www.artsoflife.ca

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.