Exhibit Explores Ukrainian Christmas Traditions

By Olena Wawryshyn

Around the world, the celebration of the Birth of Christ unites families.  An exhibit currently on display at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada, Ontario Branch, demonstrates that since the era of the first wave of Ukrainian immigration until today, the traditions associated with Christmas - Rizdvo have played a role in uniting those with a Ukrainian heritage living in North America and Ukraine.  Christmas Traditions and Toys opened officially on December 13, 2009 and remains on display in the Museum, based in St. Vladimir Institute in Toronto, until the end of February 2010.

Christmas Traditions and Toys presents Christmas-themed printed materials dating  from 1902 to the present, including greeting cards from Ukraine, Europe and North America; children’s books and journals; books on traditions and folklore; books of carols; scripts of plays, cookbooks as well as displays of traditional gifts for adults and children. 

The exhibit also features numerous dolls from the Museum’s collection including those commissioned by the Strong family in remembrance of Nadia Strong. The dolls are clothed in costumes, hand-made and hand-loomed by Alla Hrynkiw of Lviv, representing different regions of Ukraine.

At the entrance, visitors are greeted with a crche hand-carved in Lviv from linden wood by A. Suchorsky. Anchoring the exhibit is a scene capturing the moment of the appearance of the first star in a Hutsul household at the turn of the last century. The table, laid out for the Christmas Eve Holy Supper (Sviata Vecheria), demonstrates many of the traditions typical of rural Ukraine during this period. Another focal point is the large mobile (or pavuk) made out of straw by artist Nataliya Valenyuk and Maria Antoniv. It hangs in the icon corner of the room, reminding visitors of the legend in which a spider spun a web at the entrance of a cave where the infant Jesus was hidden from Herod’s soldiers by Mary and Joseph during their escape to Egypt.

During the opening ceremony, Yvonne Ivanochko, Museum president, welcomed guests and informed them that the Ontario Branch is celebrating its 65^th anniversary. “This new exhibit is an appropriate way to honour founders and members of the Museum,” she said. 

Ivanochko then introduced Paul Strathdee, President of the Board of Directors of St. Vladimir Institute. Strathdee underlined the appropriateness of the exhibit’s theme for the season.

Next, Daria Diakowsky, who co-curated the exhibit with Sonia Holiad, explained that Christmas Traditions and Toys “explores ways in which Ukrainian Canadians were able to maintain their identity though effectively cut off from their homeland during times of war and the Soviet period and celebrates the re-establishment of direct links with Ukraine.”

Some of the artefacts on display through which such links were forged include scripts for St. Nicholas plays, collections of carols and books on ethnography tracing traditions. Many of these are from the UNF Toronto Branch Resource Centre and the St. Vladimir Institute Library.  For example, there is a collection of carols published in Zhovkva, Ukraine, which was reprinted in Toronto in 1965.  A script for a St. Nicholas play dating from the 1910s, brought by immigrants from Ukraine, was reprinted in New Jersey and then adapted in 1917 to appeal to a Ukrainian-American audience.  Also interesting is the largest compendium of Ukrainian Christmas choral music published in New York in 1967, which was intended for use by church choirs and parishioners.  At a time when religion could not be freely practised in Ukraine, a similar, though somewhat smaller version was published in Kyiv in 1965 as a collection of past folk traditions. 

Among the most interesting artefacts are the Christmas greeting cards from the collection of Borys Zayachivsky and includes cards by: artist Yaroslav Petrak published in Kolomaya and Lviv between 1902 and 1914; by Osyp Kurylas, from the 1930s and Antin Manastersky, from 1909 to1933, both published in Lviv. One card dating back to 1917 was produced in the United States with Ukrainian Cyrillic script.  A gem of the collection is a card by artist Sviatoslav Hordynsky addressed to Reverend Father Joseph Slipyj in 1936.

The exhibit also includes a case devoted to traditional Ukrainian toys for boys and one for girls.

Says Diakowsky: “When conceiving the exhibit, we wanted to capture the spirit of Rizdo in a tangible way that was accessible to adults and children and would hold special meaning to the community. The theme, Christmas Traditions and Toys, allowed us to do this.”