Walter Kish

In several weeks, my son and the youngest of my three children, will leave home to begin his studies at the University of Toronto. Over the course of the summer, I have been assisting him with the administrative red tape of registering, finding residence accommodation and selecting his courses. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, among his choices, he has decided to take a course in the Ukrainian language.

I should note that I have never imposed upon any of my children the obligation that they must be “good and patriotic Ukrainians”. When they were young, we did send them to Ukrainian school, though once they approached their teens and were in our judgement responsible enough to make their own decisions, we did not force the issue when they opted not to continue. Because of my activities in the Ukrainian community and this paper, they have continued to be exposed to Ukrainian news and culture, and have always had at least a casual interest in things Ukrainian, though I have never consciously forced it upon them.

My priorities frankly, have always been that they first be honest, moral and ethical human beings and good Canadian citizens. I have always felt that an interest in culture, history and tradition is not something that you can impose on someone in any case, but is something acquired through experience and intellectual maturity.

It was thus gratifying to note over the past year, some signs that my son’s cultural heritage was starting to make some impact on his consciousness. For one of his last major assignments in high school earlier this year, he chose to research and make a class presentation on the great famine imposed by Stalin on Ukraine in the thirties.

This summer during the visit of several cousins from Ukraine, it was also obvious that my son felt somewhat awkward and a bit embarrassed at his limited Ukrainian language skills and his consequent inability to communicate with them. Whatever the motives or reasons, he has come to the conclusion that learning Ukrainian is something worthwhile and I am pleased that he has come to that determination.

Keeping Ukrainian language and culture alive in Canada beyond the first immigrant generation has been the greatest challenge for the Ukrainian community in this country for the past hundred years. Experience has shown that trying to force, impose or guilt-trip our children into being “Ukrainian” does not work. Within a liberal, progressive, democratic country like Canada where freedom of choice and self-determination are key values, the simple use of such tactics almost guarantees failure.

Within the young especially, the sense of identity or belonging is particularly important. If we want them to be “Ukrainian”, then we must persuade them that being so is a positive and worthwhile thing. For too long, the predominant perception that most people including Ukrainians have had, is that being Ukrainian equals being a victim – a victim of Communism, a victim of the Russian and Polish empires, a victim of prejudice, and a victim of history. This may have been an inevitable by-product of Ukraine’s history and the political struggle for independence, but it is certainly not a motivator for engendering pride and interest in younger generations of Canadian-born Ukrainians.

My own interest in being and “becoming” a better Ukrainian resulted from an intellectually inspired explo-ration of both the broader history of Ukraine, its culture and its people, as well as my own individual curiosity in tracing my family roots. This gave me a good appreciation of the richness of my cultural heritage as well as a more personal appreciation of my links with the past. The experience has been both spiritually and intellectually rewarding and I can only hope that all of my children will eventually experience this same type of personal growth.

It is something however, that I can’t force upon them. This they will have to discover and decide on for themselves. For my part, I will encourage and help them in whatever way I can. Part of that involves making sure that resources such as this paper, Ukrainian courses at Canadian Universities, good English language books on Ukrainian themes, and opportunities for travel and cultural interchange with the Ukraine are readily available. To borrow a well known saying – “If you build it, they will come!”.