We have been asked to share the following information about the upcoming meetings of the Ukraine Genealogy Group – Edmonton & Area Society.
Ukrainian Settlement in Canada: The Role of Bukovynian Ukrainians”. On Wed., March 26, 2025, starting at 7 pm MST, our guest speaker is Dr. Taras Lupul, who is currently a co-researcher, Scholars at Risks Programme (Ukraine), College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department of History, Classics and Religion, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta as well as a visiting researcher in CIUS. This lecture will discuss different aspects of the history of Bukovynian-Ukrainian immigration to Canada, including the emigration process, arrival and settlement in Canada, and community development. Dr. Lupul will focus on emigration from the states of Austria-Hungary prior to World War I and from Romania in the interwar period of 1920-39. The role of Ukrainians from Bukovyna in the development of Orthodox churches in Canada will also be examined, including the founding of parishes such as the Holy Trinity Bukowinian Orthodox Cathedral in Ottawa and the Saint Sophie Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Montreal.
A Bukovynian native (born in Oshykhliby village, Kitsman raion, Chernivtsi oblast), Dr. Taras Lupul was an associate professor in the Department of International Relations, Chernivtsi Fedkovych National University. His candidate’s dissertation topic was on current immigration trends in Canada, and he has authored a book about the politicization of ethnicity as an institutional factor in the formation of the contemporary Canadian political nation (Chernivtsi National Univ. 2010) and many articles in Ukrainian and other Eastern European scholarly journals.
Zoom link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/6RTMJUgKSLCEQj-q3v33Uw
On Wed., April 16, 2025, starting at 7 pm MST, our guest speaker is Jars Balan. His presentation on “Ukrainian Settlement in Western Canada” looks at the evolution of Ukrainian communities in the Canadian Prairies beginning in the late 19th century. Seen as ideal immigrants to take on the challenges of transforming the Parkland region of the Canadian Prairies into productive farmland, thousands of Ukrainians came to Canada under the Canadian Government’s Prairie Settlement initiative. Mr. Balan will discuss the process of attracting Ukrainians to Canada, their long journey by trains and ocean vessels to homesteading lands on the prairies, and the difficulties they had to overcome in making their home in Canada. Many Albertans claim Ukrainian heritage, and have a contributed a rich, cultural element to the development of western Canada. Jars Balan is the Director of the Peter and Doris Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), University of Alberta.
JARS BALAN is the Director of the Peter and Doris Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), University of Alberta. He has authored numerous scholarly and popular articles on Ukrainian-Canadian history, literature, and theatre, and an illustrated history of Ukrainians in Canada. A lifelong activist in the Ukrainian community, he is the initiator and curator of the Kalyna Country Ecomuseum, a heritage district encompassing Canada’s oldest and largest Ukrainian bloc settlement in rural east Central Alberta. Jars has been involved with CIUS, in one capacity or another, for almost all of its nearly fifty-year history.
Zoom link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/bMhq0NLOS3C4nowLhCLouQ
Their March newsletter can be viewed here.
