A
Fitting Tribute: Remembering Anthony Hlynka
Reviewed by Andrij Makuch
From 1940 to 1949
Anthony Hlynka served as the Social Credit Member of Parliament for the
constituency of Vegreville, which encompassed much of the Ukrainian bloc
settlement area east of
All
this happened many, many years ago, and the editors of The Honourable Member
for Vegreville—Oleh Gerus, a professor of history at the
The
Honourable Member for Vegreville is
divided into four sections. The first consists of memoirs taken from Antin
Hlynka: Posol Federalnoho Parliamentu Kanady (Anthony Hlynka: Member of
Canada’s Federal Parliament), a compilation of materials Hlynka was
preparing for publication prior to his premature death (they finally came out
in 1982); the second is Hlynka’s diary account of a fact-finding tour of Europe
he undertook from November 1946 to February 1947 to ascertain the conditions in
which Ukrainian displaced persons (DPs) lived as well as their future status;
the third provides the text of about a dozen speeches made by Hlynka, most of
them in the House of Commons; and the fourth looks at how Hlynka was portrayed
in the Canadian press. An appendix adds a few pieces by Hlynka (which were
included in Posol Federalnoho Parliamentu) regarding Ukrainians in
There
is some truly fascinating reading to be found here. Hlynka’s account of
obtaining the Socred nomination in September 1939 (“How I Became a Politician”)
and his subsequent description of “The 1940 Election” underline the
difficulties once faced by “ethnic” politicians in “English”
What
also emerges from the pages of The Honourable Member for Vegreville is a
portrait of Hlynka as a hard-working MP strongly dedicated to Ukrainian
concerns. The product of a relatively poor but patriotic immigrant Ukrainian
family, Hlynka embraced Ukrainian integral nationalism after coming into
contact with interwar Ukrainian immigrants to Canada (presumably while
conducting English classes for them in Edmonton) as well as reading the
nationalist literature of the day, including Rozbudova natsii (Nation Building)
and Surma (The Bugle).
Moreover,
until the mid-1930s he was actively involved with the Ukrainian National
Federation and its newspaper, Novyi Shliakh (The New Pathway). It is hardly
surprising then that, as an MP, he was willing to raise the question of
Ukrainian independence even at a time when the matter was decidedly incorrect
politically (see pp. 53–54 in Hlynka’s section regarding “The Ukrainian
Liberation Struggle” in this regard as well as The Toronto Star’s strongly
negative reaction to what it regarded as “A Peculiar Speech” [pp. 268–69]).
Furthermore, his view that “a Ukrainian MP has a moral responsibility to assist
Ukrainian Canadians from all parts of the country” (p. 47) added substantially
to Hlynka’s workload, particularly since in 1940–45 he was the only Canadian MP
of Ukrainian origin. More than once Hlynka notes the voluminous nature of his
correspondence and, to his credit, he acknowledges more than once that his
ability to cope with it was “directly” attributable to the constant and
invaluable assistance of his wife Stephanie.
The
majority of the material in The Honourable Member for Vegreville has
been translated from its original Ukrainian in a fairly solid manner (i.e., not
absolutely literal, but usually faithful to the original and quite readable).
As such, the book will make a wide range of source materials regarding Hlynka
more accessible to a broad audience. It
will, without a doubt, help reassess the dedicated MP’s place in history.
The
book’s editors are forthright in admitting that The Honourable Member for
Vegreville is not and was not intended to be a full study of the life and
political times of Anthony Hlynka. In view of this finite scope, I will set
aside some criticisms and quibbles with one exception, namely, the manner in
which the 1942 Canadian conscription crisis is dealt with. The book notes that
a substantial number of Ukrainians voted against the proposal and carries an
article regarding Hlynka’s intention to vote “Yes” as well as the
aforementioned Free Press editorial regarding the
Ultimately,
The Honourable Member for Vegreville is an interesting and useful source
of information about an important Ukrainian-Canadian political and community
figure. I recommend it to those wishing to learn more about the history of
Ukrainians in
The Honourable
Member for Vegreville: The Memoirs and Diary of Anthony Hlynka, M.P.,
Translated and edited by Oleh Gerus; Project Coordination for the Centre for
Ukrainian Canadian Studies by Denis Hlynka
364 pages,
$34.95