Kobzar's Children
A Century of Untold Ukranian Stories
- Publisher
- Fitzhenry and Whiteside
- Initial publish date
- Jun 2006
- Category
- Europe, Emigration & Immigration
- Recommended Age
- 8 to 12
- Recommended Grade
- 3 to 7
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781550419979
- Publish Date
- Jun 2006
- List Price
- $14.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Due to more mature content, this book is recommended for children 14 and up.
The Kobzars were the blind minstrels of Ukraine, who memorized the epic poems and stories of 100 generations. Traveling around the country, they stopped in towns and villages along the way, where they told their tales and were welcomed by all. During the early years of Stalin's regime in the USSR, the Kobzars wove their traditional stories with contemporary warnings of soviet repression, famine, and terror. When Stalin heard of it, he called the first conference of Kobzars in Ukraine. Hundreds congregated. Then Stalin had them murdered. As the storytellers of Ukraine died, so too did their stories.
Kobzar's Children is an anthology of short historical fiction, memoirs, and poems written about the Ukrainian immigrant experience. The stories span a century of history from 1905 to 2004; and they contain the voices of people who lived through internment as enemy aliens, homesteading, famine, displacement, concentration camps, and this new century's Orange Revolution.
More than a collection, it is a social document that revives memories once deliberately forgotten.
- Century of untold stories
- Touches on all major points of Ukrainian history
- Supported by the Shevchenko Foundation
The collection contains historical fiction, memoirs and poems covering 100 years of Ukrainian history, written by Ukrainian-Canadian writers from Quebec, Ontario and Western Canada. The contributors are all part of a circle of writers that Skrypuch met or mentored through an internet-based writers' group that she set up. The group's members, both established authors and novices, read and critiqued each others' works.
All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association
About the author
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch est l’auteure d’une dizaine de livres dont Cher Journal : Prisonniers de la grande forêt, Enfant volée, Soldat clandestin et Faire des bombes pour Hitler. Elle a remporté de nombreux prix et est l’une des auteures canadiennes de romans historiques pour les jeunes les plus respectées. L’écriture de Marsha met en relief son héritage ukrainien. Elle a reçu l’Ordre de la princesse Olga de la part du président ukrainien. Elle vit à Brantford, en Ontario.
MARSHA FORCHUK SKRYPUCH is the author of more than a dozen books, including Dear Canada: Prisoners in the Promised Land, Stolen Child, Making Bombs for Hitler, Underground Soldier and Don’t Tell the Enemy. She has won many awards for her work and is one of Canada’s most respected authors of historical fiction for young people. Much of Marsha’s writing focuses on stories from her Ukrainian heritage, and she has been presented with the Order of Princess Olha by the President of Ukraine and named a Canadian Ukrainian Woman of Distinction. Marsha lives in Brantford, Ontario. Visit her online at www.calla.com.
Editorial Reviews
Marsha Skrypuch
is the author of many books for children, including Silver Threads, The Best Gifts, Enough, The Hunger and Hope's War. Among the numerous writing awards won her novel about the Armenian genocide, Nobody's Child, was nominated for the Red Maple Award, the Alberta Rocky Mountain Book Award, the B.C. Stellar Award; and it was listed by Resource Links as a Best Book.
Among the authors whose work appear in Kobzar's Children with Marsha Skrypuch are:
ul type=disc>Award-winning author Larry Warwaruk, whose contribution Bargain, set in Saskatchewan, is based on a true story, The Winnipeg-born and -based Brenda Hasiuk whose fiction has been published in leading literary journals. Her contribution to the collection, It's Me Tatia, is set in Western Canada in 1919, Paulette MacQuarrie, a freelance editor and producer of the English-language Ukrainian radio program, Nash Holos, in British Columbia,Poems by Linda Mikolayenko, from Ethelbert, Manitoba, and Sonja Dunn, who has worked in television for almost 30 years, and A high school student from Quebec, Kim Pawliw, who wrote a tribute to her Baba who, as a child was imprisoned with her family at the Spirit Lake Internment Camp.The Many Circles of Hell, by Stefan Petelycky, a Ukrainian survivor of Aushwitz who now lives in British Columbia, is undoubtedly the most horrific story in the collection. Petelycky vividly describe the barbaric treatment suffered by him and his fellow former prisoners, many of them Ukrainians.
"Social injustice and the mistreatment of Ukrainian people, both in Europe and in Canada, are brought to the fore in this moving book that not only will revive some memories but will also ensure that the truth is told and the stories will not be forgotten. A fitting tribute to the resilience of the Ukrainian people, this book is long overdue.
Dyakoyu, Ms. Skrypuch!"
Highly Recommended
— CM Magazine
"The anthology succeeds in providing a broad overview of a century of the Ukrainian immigrant experience."
— Winnipeg Free Press
