Composer and conductor Andrij Hnatyschyn (b. 1906, Chyzhykiv, Ukraine, d. 1995, Vienna, Austria) studied at the Ukrainian Academic Gymnasium in Lviv, the Lviv Theological Academy and the Lysenko Music Institute. He worked for the Prosvita educational society in villages near Lviv. Awarded a scholarship by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, he continued his music studies at the Neues Wiener Konservatorium and graduated in 1934. From 1931 until the Nazi occupation of Austria, Hnatyschyn directed the choir of St. Barbara’s Ukrainian Catholic church in Vienna. He spent part of the Second World War in Berlin, where he conducted the choir of the local Ukrainian Catholic parish. Following the war he returned to Vienna, and from 1954 until the end of his life he again directed the choir of St. Barbara’s, which was the center of Ukrainian cultural life in the city. Hnatyschyn used the choir as a platform for promoting Ukrainian music, particularly through recordings and performances on Austrian radio. Beginning in the 1990s he was able to travel once again to Ukraine, and in 1994 the Liatoshynsky Chamber Choir gave a concert of his works in Kyiv. At the time Hnatyschyn also began transferring his archive to the Vernadsky National Library.
Hnatyschyn was primarily a composer of sacred music, including numerous liturgies and cantatas. He also produced orchestral suites, an opera, chamber pieces for violin and piano, a piano trio and string quartet, and choral arrangements.
Elizabeth Holinaty was born on a farm three miles from Wakaw, Saskatchewan to parents who were born in Canada. Her grandparents immigrated from western Ukraine. Her maternal ancestors came from Horodenka. Her grandfather Gabriel Holinaty came from Zalishchyky and worked as a tanner (kushnir) for the landlord. He made a kozhukh for a lady in Wakaw. Her mother Mary Kotelko Holinaty embroidered a great deal, and also sewed, crocheted and knitted. She was a collector and organizer.
Elizabeth went to Zalishchyky school near Wakaw. She remembers not knowing to speak English when she started school, crying for several days. Elizabeth studied Home Economics and Education at the University of Saskatchewan. She was a grade 1-4 teacher for several decades, moving from Saskatchewan to Alberta in the 1970s. She has a post-graduate diploma from 1970-71, specializing in reading diagnosis and reading remedial work, but she missed classroom contact, and returned to regular teaching. Before and after she retired in 1991, she tried painting, drawing, pottery, pysanky. She loves to sing and also to bake breads, but found her true calling and inspiration in weaving. In the 1980s and later, she attended many bread making classes, embroidery classes, weaving classes, pysanky workshops, etc. She participated in the Ukrainian fashion activities in the Edmonton area.
Elizabeth’s first weaving lessons were from the Cyril Flour Mill Company, near Wakaw. She bought her first 1950s loom from the Burkhailo family near Wakaw in the 1980s. Elizabeth didn’t attend the first 2-3 weaving workshops in Banff, but went to nearly all of them thereafter. Chester and Luba Kuc asked her to make Hutsul fabric, requesting she reproduce it as accurately as possible. Elizabeth prefered natural fibres then, and still does. Calmar Zirka dancers ordered some costume pieces thereafter, and her work weaving Ukrainian dance costumes snowballed after that. She did this work on weekends as a teacher at first, and continued after she retired. Elizabeth has woven many Ukrainian dance costumes for groups in Saskatchewan, and other places. Many different organizations commission weavings, sometimes based on very traditional models, sometimes adapted and contemporized. She has also reproduced historical sashes for the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, etc.
Elizabeth has attended many textile and weaving conferences across North America. Her first weaving conference and first exhibition was at “Convergence 86” in Toronto. The Ukrainian community participated in the conference, and asked her for 5 pieces for display.
Elizabeth, Kay Chernyavsky and Pauline Lysak organized a number of projects to provide interesting towels and cloths with Ukrainian themes.
Elizabeth embroiders small towels for pallbearers in the Wakaw area, now mostly for family. Sometimes she embroiders seven, because the cross bearer also receives one. She also embroiders or weaves wedding rushnyky.
Elizabeth has donated numerous family records to the Ukrainian Catholic Museum in Saskatoon (including her father’s careful accounting books and planting records, mother’s records), and some materials to the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives.