18th November 2010, 00:03
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Join Date: Feb 2008
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Ukrainian Canadians
I found this information on another forum called anthrocivitas.net. I tried locating the source article but came up empty anyways its worth a read.
Quote:
Ukrainians are an important element in the White Canadian population. Many immigrated in the early 19th and 20th century. They came mostly as farmers and immigration offices encouraged their migration to Canada, because they were one of the best farmers. They settled mostly in the prairie provinces.
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The First Immigration (1891-1914)
Although eighty percent of the Ukraine’s land was part of the Russian empire, most Ukrainians that landed on Canada’s shores during this period were from the western portion, then under Austrian rule. The first immigration consisted almost entirely of land-hungry peasants from the provinces of Galicia and Bukovina.
Denied any opportunities to improve their lot in their homeland, they were attracted to Canada by its policy of granting virtually free lands or "homesteads" to settlers.
The Second Immigration (1922-1939)
The Second Immigration (1922-1939) was smaller than the first and numbered about 68,000 people. The immigrants began to arrive in numbers in 1923 after the Ukrainian Republic had fallen, and its partition between Poland, Roumania. Czecho-Slovakia and the Soviet Union was completed. Ukrainian immigration increased throughout the prosperous twenties and nearly half of it arrived in the three years from 1927 to 1929. With the coming of the "great" depression, Ukrainian immigration fell sharply, but rose again in the late thirties as the danger of war began to loom in Europe.
The main flow of immigrants continued to come from Bukovina and Galicia,then under Poland and Roumania. For the first time, immigrants began to arrive in numbers from Volynia, which also had fallen under Poland. Most of the immigrants were still farmers, the unskilled and semi-skilled who were being pushed out of their homeland by the bleak economic and political future which they faced. They still sought land in Canada, but the good homesteads were gone, and they had to choose between free land which was poor or too far from settlement, or better land at a price. The pull of non-farm jobs was increasing and more and more of the immigrants were drawn into Canadian cities and towns.
Some immigrants had taken part in unsuccessful wars for Ukrainian ndependence during 1917 to 1922, and brought with them a strong sense of nationalism and an old-country orientation, These attitudes complicated the emerging views of the first immigration which were becoming more and more orientated towards Canadian problems. Some skilled and professionally trained immigrants also came, adding to the small numbers already in Canada.
The depression of the thirties, damaging as it was in other ways, was a great economic and social leveller. But it was not enough to overcome differences, which had arisen among the Ukrainians. Controversy between the two churches and several lay organisations with different political orientations was using up too much of the creative energies of the Ukrainians and it was becoming obvious that more co-ordination of their efforts was essential if their development in Canada was to be unimpeded. The brief independence of Carpatho-Ukraine in 1939 and the strong patriotic sentiments, which it aroused also, showed the need to co-ordinate activities regarding their homeland.
The Third Immigration (1946-1961)
contributed the smallest number of people, some 37,000 in all. The majority had entered by the end of 1952, though appreciable numbers continued to come until 1960. The immigrants had one common feature -they were political refugees from behind the Iron Curtain -and many differences. Some were professionals from the sciences, humanities and the arts, others were craftsmen, and still others were labourers and farmers. For the first time they came from all regions of the Ukraine, so that in this sense the New World became representative of the old.
Although small in numbers, the third group of immigrants made a great impact on the Ukrainians already in Canada. Many of the newcomers accepted fairly quickly the existing institutions developed by the Ukrainians. This was to the benefit of both. It bolstered the institutions with much needed membership and gave moral support and fresh impetus to their efforts; at the same time it provided a haven from which the newly arrived could more quickly find a job and begin to integrate into Canadian life. There were, however, instances in which the third immigration participated too zealously in the work of these institutions, turning away some of the more loosely attached Canadian born Ukrainians.
The newcomers also made noteworthy contributions in the academic, professional, literary and artistic fields. They helped establish and staff Slavic Departments at universities, providing advanced training in Ukrainian subjects and enabling instruction in Ukrainian to develop from the elementary level. With a high proportion of professionals, they were able to increase Ukrainian participation in universities, government and business. They established new journals and newspapers and helped to put Ukrainian language newspapers in the forefront of Canada's ethnic press. Through Canadian branches of the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences and the Shevchenko Scientific Society, they contributed to Canadian literature by their prolific output of Ukrainiana.
Not all were able to make an easy adjustment to the new conditions. Some could not find jobs immediately or could not find jobs in line with their abilities, training or preferences; others had to take supplementary schooling, generally past school age, to bring their education in line with Canadian needs. Still others retained their strong beliefs on old country politics; they could not accept the generally Canadian orientation of the Ukrainian institutions and founded new organisations of their own more in line with their thinking. The Ukrainian Canadian Committee has, however, proven flexible enough to accommodate these organisations without losing its primarily Canadian orientation.
In some ways the first two immigrations contributed to the adjustment problems of the third. Considering themselves charter members, they did not always accept the new arrivals readily. Having established a niche for themselves in Canadian society they were sceptical of the views and motives of the new arrivals and were not ready to accept them fully until they had "proven" themselves sufficiently. The attitude of estrangement on both sides was an inevitable adjustment phase that is gradually dying, to themutual benefit of each.
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