Ukrainian Folklore Seminar Series in Alberta

In 2005/2006, the Ukrainian Folklore lunch-and-seminar series at the University of Alberta had another successful year. Established in 2004/05 at the initiative of Natalie Kononenko, the Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography, the popular series, presented by the graduate student program in Ukrainian Folklore, allows students and faculty to share their research.

This year, numerous presentations were given. Vincent Rees spoke about his Masters thesis research on Ukrainian dance.  He is examining dance groups in Ukraine and how they modified folklore for the stage and researching the influence of staged folklore on Ukrainian-Canadians. Mariya Lesiv also spoke about her Masters research. She discussed pysanka-writing in Canada and classified pysanka art into categories. Katherine Bily spoke about pregnancy beliefs and Svitlana Kukharenko spoke about animal magic.  In the summer of 2005, Kukharenko researched beliefs about animals and the taboos associated with their care.

Roman Shiyan gave a presentation on Ukrainian Cossacks and the stories about them collected by historians, folklorists, philologists and others. 

Andriy Chernevych has been working with the Local Culture Project on a large-scale interview project being conducted by the Ukrainian Folklore Centre and its French, German, and English partners.  He spoke about his plans to use narratives from this project for his dissertation. Another event connected to the Local Culture Project was the debut of a film based on the project. Andriy Nahachewsky, the project's principal investigator, explained the work that went into making the film.  Natalie Kononenko gave a presentation on the religious stories she collected in Ukraine, showing how their narratives both reflect the growing interest in religion and help resolve changes in social roles since Ukraine’s independence. 

Technological issues are important to folklore documentation and preservation, so several sessions were dedicated to equipment.  The group learned how to use a video camera and enjoyed Peter Holloway’s discussion of modeling techniques for creating three-dimensional virtual replicas of folk houses and village churches.  Holloway also demonstrated the new sound-file database, which is available on the Ukrainian Traditional Folklore website, http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/uvp/.  

The seminar series also had a number of visitors from abroad.  Sogu Hong, who received his PhD last year, returned to talk about the Ukrainian Studies program that he is launching in Korea. Oleksandra Britsyna, of the Folklore Institute in Kyiv, spoke about her research on Ukrainian narrative.  Oksana Lutsko, from Lviv, who conducted research at the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives in Alberta, offered the group a Ukrainian perspective on Ukrainian-Canadian songs.

Mykhailo Koval, a kobzar from Ukraine, performed and answered questions about his efforts to preserve Ukrainian traditions.  Another bandura-related event was Andrij Horniatke-vych’s presentation to the Archives of Zinovyi Shtokalko’s recordings.  Horniatkevych provided biographical information on Shtokalko, whom he knew personally.