With the terrible and tragic events unfolding in Ukraine at the moment, it seems particularly timely to consider the ties between our two countries, which are commemorated every two years with the Kobzar Literary Award. The $25,000 award recognizes outstanding contributions to Canadian literary arts by authors who develop a Ukrainian Canadian theme with literary merit in one of several genres: literary non-fiction, fiction, poetry, young readers' literature, plays, screenplays and musicals. The prize is awarded by The Canadian Ukrainian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko, which is a national, chartered philanthropic institution that provides leadership by developing permanent endowment funds for the promotion of Ukrainian Canadian cultural heritage in Canada’s diverse landscape.
The 2014 Kobzar Literary Award nominees are:
Luba, Simply Luba by Diane Flacks with Andrew Tarasiuk and Luba Goy
Luba Goy, an original member of Canada’s popular comedy troupe, Royal Canadian Air Farce, is one of this country’s most beloved comedic actors. In Luba, Simply Luba, we are invited into her colourful and astonishing life. From her Ukrainian childhood to high honours at Rideau Hall, Luba Goy’s journey has been filled with both comedy and tragedy. This one-woman show features glimpses of Luba at various ages along with forty-plus other characters—including her family and friends, Canadian prime ministers and other famous personalities, and even a few animals.
The Unmemntioable by Erin Mouré
The Unmemntioable joins letters that should not be joined. There is, in this word, an act of force. Of devastation. The unmentionable is love, of course. But in Moure's poems, love is bound to a duty: to comprehend what it was that the immigrants would not speak of. Now they are dead; their children and grandchildren know but an anecdotal pastiche of Ukrainian history. On Saskatoon Mountain in Alberta where they settled, only the chatter of the leaves remains of their presence. What was not spoken is sealed over, unmemntioable. There is no one left to contact in the Old Country. Can the unmemntioable retain its silence, yet be eased into words? Can experience still be spoken?
Baba's Kitchen Medicines by Michael Mucz
Michael Mucz's prolonged primary research into Ukrainian-Canadian folk history culminates in Baba's Kitchen Medicines. This book bursts with the cultural memory of pioneering folk from Canada's prairieland. From fever to frostbite, this incomparable compendium of tinctures, poultices, salves, decoctions, infusions, plasters, and tonics will fascinate and often mortify readers from all walks of life. The comprehensiveness of Mucz's research and interviews framed with deftly painted historical, cultural, and botanical backgrounds guarantee that this chapter of the Canadian story will continue to be told for generations to come. It is a deep, charming, and often moving work of intricate anthropology that will stir scholar and non-specialist alike.
Blood and Salt by Barbara Sapergia
The time is World War I, and Canadian soldiers are proving their worth in the trenches of Europe. But on the home front, Ukrainian Canadians are being sent to internment camps, Canada's Gulag. Blood and Salt is about this forgotten part of Canadian history. They had committed the crime of being unemployed in bad times. Or simply of having come from lands ruled by the Austrian empire. They became "enemy aliens." Taras Kalyna, a young man who deserted the Austrian army to search for his lost love, Halya, becomes one of these men. Imprisoned with hundreds of others in Banff National Park, he helps build a highway from Banff to Lake Louise. Conditions are brutal, the food poor. His time in camp isn't completely lost. He forges strong friendships and begins to learn about the wider world. Myro, an idealistic schoolteacher, tells him stories about the life of the great Ukrainian patriot and poet, Taras Shevchenko. Yuri, a farmer, teaches him optimism. And Tymko, a fierce socialist, helps him ask questions about his new country. Taras has no way of knowing when, or even if, he'll be free again. But even imprisoned, he never stops thinking of Halya. Their stories develop in separate strands until the war ends. And then he'll be free to look for her. Blood and Salt is a work of fiction, grounded in actual details about the Banff-Castle Mountain internment camp. It explores the search for a new life and the search for love, all the while asking what it is to be Ukrainian.
Making Bombs for Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
In Stolen Child, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch introduced readers to Larissa, a victim of Hitler's largely unknown Lebensborn program. In this companion novel, readers will learn the fate of Lida, her sister, who was also kidnapped by the Germans and forced into slave labour—an Ostarbeiter. In addition to her other tasks, Lida's small hands make her the perfect candidate to handle delicate munitions work, so she is sent to a factory that makes bombs. The gruelling work and conditions leave her severely malnourished and emotionally traumatized, but overriding all of this is her concern and determination to find out what happened to her vulnerable younger sister. With rumours of the Allies turning the tide in the war, Lida and her friends conspire to sabotage the bombs to help block the Nazis' war effort. When her work camp is finally liberated, she is able to begin her search to learn the fate of her sister. In this exceptional novelm Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch delivers a powerful story of hope and courage in the face of incredible odds.
Interested in more Ukrainian-Canadian lit? Coteau Books has assembled a great list of books with Ukrainian Themes. And we've got an interview with 2012 Kozbar Nominee Larissa Andrususyshn, author of Mammoth.