Compilation of Ukrainian language resources in Canadian archives

Довідник (Archival Ucrainica in Canada: A Guide) is a recently-published Ukrainian-language reference work on Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Canadian holdings in Canadian archival repositories.

The book was co-published by the State Committee on Archives of Ukraine (SCAU, Kyiv), the Ukrainian Research Institute of Archival Affairs and Record Keeping URIAARK, Kyiv), and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta.

At 884 pages, it's the most comprehensive compilation of its kind, and is unlikely to be superseded for a long time.

The guide offers a detailed survey of a wide range of collections, both large and small, throughout Canada. Among these are the holdings of:

• Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa (the largest public collection of materials)
• the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre, Oseredok, in Winnipeg (the country’s largest community archive)
• the provincial archives of central Canada and the Prairies
• the archives of the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches of Canada
• various university archives, and etc.

The holdings are described thoroughly. They include accession numbers, size, dates of acquisition, and detailed content listings. The guide covers most, if not all, Canadian depositories containing archival information about Ukrainians.

The driving force behind this project was Dr. Iryna Matiash, deputy director of SCAU (and previously head of URIAARK). She began her research on archival Ucrainica in Canada while visiting here in 2006 as a Kolasky Fellow under the auspices of CIUS. She subsequently oversaw the preparation of the guide by a team of colleagues in Kyiv, who were assisted by several Ukrainian-Canadian specialists.

The compilers serving under the direction of Dr. Matiash were Maryna Kovtun, Anzhela Maistrenko, Liudmyla Prykhodko, Rostyslav Romanovsky, and Khrystyna Vintoniv. Rostyslav Romanovsky and Svitlana Artomanova served as bibliographic editors. All the compilers and bibliographic editors are staff members of URIAARK in Kyiv. Myron Momryk (Library and Archives Canada, retired), Andrij Makuch (CIUS), Orest Martynowych (independent scholar, Winnipeg), and Radomir Bilash (Historic Sites and Museums, Province of Alberta) served as academic consultants for the guide.

Dr. Matiash had earlier prepared a shorter (150-page) work on Ukrainian archival holdings in Canada, published in 2008 (described in the CIUS Newsletter 2009), which focused on the transfer of private archives to public institutions, their typology, and general descriptions of holdings.

Book launches for Архівна україніка в Канаді: довідник (Archival Ucrainica in Canada: A Guide), published earlier this year in Kyiv were held recently in five Canadian cities. They followed its inaugural launch earlier this year at the Canadian embassy in Kyiv on April 19 .

At the Kyiv launch, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine, His Excellency G. Daniel Caron, stressed that the publication of the guide was a notable achievement involving Ukrainian and Canadian scholars. The final launch of the guide is to take place in Lviv this fall.

Canadian launches took place in Toronto on 1 June at the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre (UCRDC), in Ottawa on 3 June at the Ukrainian embassy, in Winnipeg on 6 June at the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre (Oseredok), in Edmonton on 8 June at the Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA), and in Calgary on 9 June at St. Vladimir’s Cultural Centre.

The guide (ISBN 966-8225-39-0) is priced at $49.95 in Canada and is available from the CIUS Edmonton office. Call Iryna at 780/492.2973 or send an email.

At Dr. Iryna Matiash’s presentation in Edmonton (L‒R): Irene Jendziowskyj, Zenon Kohut, Iryna Matiash, Bohdan Klid, Radomir Bilash, Andriy Nahachewsky, Bohdan Medwidsky, and Nadia Cyncar.

Photos courtesy CIUS.

Trying to convince Microsoft to modernize its Ukrainian keyboard

Mirko Petriw, fellow author and occasional contributor to Nash Holos recently related to me that for the past couple of months, his website has been visited by IPs originating at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington (just outside of Seattle).

This started happening shortly after Ukrainian Day celebrations in Vancouver on September 12, which apparently attracted several visitors from Seattle's Ukrainian community. He speculates that at least one of them may work at Microsoft Corp (or knows someone who does).

Exactly why this sudden interest in his website is unclear, but he thought he'd take advantage of the situation.

As diaspora Ukrainians know all too well, the letter Ґ came under attack as part of the russification policy during the soviet times. This was a not-too-subtle attempt to demoralize Ukrainians and gradually destroy the language. The Ukrainian language has both a sound and a letter for Ґ (sounds like the English hard G) as well as for Г (sounds like the English H). The Russian language has only the Г which sounds like the English hard G.

Confusing, eh? As it was designed to be. And out of the confusion will emerge order, and according to Stalin's plan, Ukrainian would become more like Russian and eventually indistinguishable.

Of course, such a ridiculous plan was doomed to failure, and fail it did. The Ukrainian people adapted, they just used the letter Г for both sounds! Which is fine if you know both languages, and know the context when speaking Ukrainian.

But it leads to total silliness when translating into English, because you can get such gems as Al Hore (Gore) and Bill Hates (Gates). Mirko discusses this in his book Yaroslaw's Treasure so check it out for a good laugh.

During soviet times, then, the Ukrainian alphabet did not include the letter Ґ (since the soviets banned it) although of course diaspora Ukrainians hung on to it for dear life. For them, it remains a symbol of the Cold War, one the West was totally clueless about (and still is).

It really aggravates diaspora Ukrainians that this practice of interchanging the Ґ and the Г is still commonplace amongst Ukrainians in Ukraine (and recent immigrants). However, closer to home one of the more mundane annoyances is the Microsoft keyboard. It does allow one to type the letter Ґ in Ukrainian ... but provided you first tie your arms in a knot and do a backwards somersault mid-air (just about, anyway).

There is a very old font that has a nice phonetic keyboard containng the letter Ґ (where the English G resides) but unfortunately it's not being upgraded to keep up with the changes at Microsoft.

Which brings me back to Mirko. He decided to deal with this aggravation head on. He put up a message on his website to his anonymous visitors from Microsoft, asking them point blank to add the letter Ґ to Microsoft's Ukrainian keyboard layout!

Well, what the hey. No point beating around the bush when you have someone's attention.

You can see the message on the About page at his website. Time will tell if the Ukrainian brainiacs at Microsoft will comply, but it certainly was worth a try.

Tip of the hat to Mirko!