To Ivan_Mazepa

[Burrbee]

Dear Mr Mazepa (wasn't Ivan Mazepa a famous poet or warrior or something??) Anyways, yes I am curious and I can't find the answers that I am looking for! I just spent two days reading the chronicles of WWI written in 1933 by Winston Churchill and I still didn't get the information I was looking for.

I wish to go to the Ukraine/Bukovyna and see if I can drum up some answers but I fear that the Soviet culture has distorted much of the history of that area. (I am assuming this I maybe wrong). Alot of the information I need is written in Ukrainian or German, neither of which I speak. I live in a very small,remote location and don't have access to translators or big libraries.

I feel that Bukovynian Ukrainians who came to Canada are different in some ways than the Galcian Ukrainians who came to Canada. (Not just religion but other ways as well) I don't know why I feel this, I just do. Sometimes I feel that todays idea of Ukraine has lumped all of the different areas into one collective Ukraine, not taking into account the uniqueness of each of the areas. I don't mean to sound divisive I just think each area has its own story.

Maybe I am trying to find information that can't be found, that has been lost forever and that makes me kind of sad. That these peoples lived and now their culture and uniqueness is gone, made into an homogenized Ukraine by the Soviets. Maybe no one even cares, and maybe I shouldn't either. But for some reason unknown to me I do care about knowing.

I want to know what would drive a people from their homeland, a beautiful land that they loved, to another country. I want to know why they chose to leave instead of transform their country.

I always get the usual economic answers, and maybe that is it. Maybe it is that simple. But I don't think so. So I keep asking questions hoping that someone will have the answers.

Thank you for answering my questions, I like to hear each insight it helps me to better understand.

[Ivan_Mazepa]

Dear Barbie,
Ukrainian culture hasn't been homogenized by the Soviets. Russified cities, Ukrainian villages, , kolomyjky(western ukr. dances) and hopaky (central Ukr. Cossack dances), Dynamo Kyiv (soccer club) versus Shaxtar Donetsk, Carpathian hutsuly vs. steppe Cossacks, Lviv beer (pyvo) versus Kyiv beer, and so on.
Same thing with Bukovyna and there are books on krayeznavtsvo (regional sciences- history, culture). The reasons for that early migration are economical- overpopulation. Even after the serfdom was abolished the peasant would have a 1 square meter farm (i'm exaggerating, but it was a low number) on 7 kids. What type of changes they could've made? Land requisition from rich people? I'm sure rich people would love it. Intensify agriculturally? This would require serious investments but the region was one of the poorest in Europe.

But once in Canada and US, the Ukrainian diaspora performed admirably during the Soviet times as it provided a Ukrainian voice to the west.