Composer, arranger, conductor, ethnographer and educator Alexander Koshetz (b. 1875, Romashky, Ukraine, d. 1944, Winnipeg, Canada) was born into a priestly family and studied at the Kyiv Academy and the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute. Koshetz began conducting choirs while still a student and directed the choirs of the Lysenko Institute, Kyiv University and the Kyiv Conservatory. He also worked at Mykola Sadovky’s Ukrainian Theatre and the Kyiv Opera House. In 1919, at the directive of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, he became co-founder and chief conductor of the Ukrainian Republican Cappella, which toured Europe and the Americas with the aim of introducing the world to Ukraine. Kozhetz produced large numbers of a cappella choral arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs. He also introduced American audiences to Mykola Leontovych’s “Shchedryk.” Following the fall of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Koshetz settled in the United States. While living in the diaspora, he composed most of his liturgical music. From 1941 to 1944 he led annual choral conducting courses in Winnipeg. He also began developing a music curriculum for the Ukrainian diaspora, writing a history of Ukrainian choral music and produced a recording project on the Ukrainian choral tradition.
Nadia Korpus was born in Regina, Saskatchewan on the 18th of August 1929. Her father, Peter Korpus (Korpesio) was born in Malniv, Ukraine in 1897 and followed his older brother, John Korpesio to Canada in the early 1920s. Nadia’s mother, Olga Wawruck, was born in Hubbard, Saskatchewan in 1903. Her parents had arrived in Canada in 1899 from Koshlyakeh, Ternopil Oblast, Halychyna, Ukraine. Peter and Olga were married in Hubbard in 1926, and settled in Regina where they soon started a family. Their oldest son, Roman (Raymond), was born in 1927 followed by Nadia in ’29. Nadia’s younger brother Donald (Donny) was born in 1930, and her younger sister Patricia (Pat Sembaliuk) was born later in 1935.
She was active in the Ukrainian National Federation and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada. Her passion for Ukrainian Culture was further encouraged through participation in the summer school “Kursy” which she attended in 1946-48. Nadia is noted for establishing the Rusalka Dance Ensemble in Calgary (1961-67), and having inspired many Ukrainian dancers, both male and female, to continue dancing and teaching across the prairies.
Natalie Kononenko was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1946. She came to the United States in 1951. She grew up in New Jersey and attended University at Cornell, moving on to Radcliffe College and then on to Harvard University for graduate work. She received her PhD from Harvard University in Slavic and Near Eastern Languages, Literatures, and Folklore. She performed her PhD research in Eastern Turkey. She taught Russian Language and Slavic Folklore, and served as Assistant Dean and Chair of the Slavic Department at the University of Virginia. She led some of the first student groups to the USSR in the 1970-1980s. In 1987 she was one of the first US scholars to be allowed outside of Moscow. She lived three months in a hotel room in Kyiv doing archival research at the University and at the Academy of Sciences. This research lead to the publication of "Ukrainian Minstrels: And the Blind Shall Sing," Armonk, New York and London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. After the break-up of the USSR Natalie started to do folklore research in rural Ukraine. From 1998 she visited many villages in Central Ukraine and recorded over 200 hours of interviews. This research lead to a soundfile database (see http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/UkraineAudio/). It has also produced many articles and will be used in a book on Ukrainian ritual.
In 2004 she was recruited as Professor and Kule Chair in Ukrainian Ethnography, Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. In 2007 she published "Slavic Folklore: A Handbook," Westport and London: Greenwood Press. She served as editor of Folklorica, the Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association for 5 years. This journal was internationally recognized and was instrumental in re-establishing the dialogue between folklore scholars in the former Soviet Union and their colleagues in the West.
Dr. Kononenko teaches folklore and applied folklore classes at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, for example, Folklore and Internet, Folklore and Film, Folklore and Animation, as well as research seminar where advanced students work in their communities to produce big documentation projects such as videos of important festivals. She is involved in two big research projects. The Sanctuary project, where Natalie works together with John-Paul Himka and Frances Swyripa, documents Byzantine rite sacral heritage on the Canadian prairies. The second project is broadly based on the use of technology in education.
Dr. Robert Bohdan Klymasz was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1936. In 1957, he obtained a B.A. from the University of Toronto, and later studied at Charles University, Prague (1952), University of Manitoba (M.A., 1960), Harvard University (1960-1962), and Indiana University (Ph.D., 1971). He married Shirley Zaporozan in 1963, and they have two daughters, Andrea and Lara. In 1967, he joined the Canadian Museum of Civilization and served as its first programme director for Slavic and East European Studies. Throughout his career, he has held several prestigious positions, including the executive director of the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre (Oseredok) in Winnipeg, visiting associate professor in Folklore for Memorial University's Department of Folklore, visiting professor in Folklore and Slavic Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, and visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School.
In 1993, as a curator with the Museum of Civilization, Dr. Klymasz began a comprehensive study on community life in Gimli, Manitoba. Fieldwork on this project began in 1993 and continued on an annual basis every summer until the summer of 2001. The project, which became known as the Gimli Community Research Project (G.C.R.P.), was meant to offer insight on what makes the Town of Gimli a safe and prosperous town in which to live. The early work was low-key in nature, focusing on the town's life and culture, for example, attending meetings of the town's council, various public forums, proceedings of the local public law court, and meetings of the Board for the New Iceland Heritage Museum. Gradually, the fieldwork shifted to monitoring phenomena that gave Gimli its "dreamtown" quality. The final report was completed in 2002 and was entitled ""Dream Town": Art and the Celebration of Place in Gimli, Manitoba."
Upon his retirement in 2000, he was named Curator Emeritus with the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Dr. Klymasz is a renowned expert on Ukrainian Canadian folklore, having extensively written, published, and lectured on this subject. His publications include An Introduction to the Ukrainian-Canadian Folksong Cycle (1970), Ukrainian Folklore in Canada (1980), '??Svieto': Celebrating Ukrainian-Canadian Ritual in East Central Alberta Through the Generations (1992), and The Icon in Canada (1996). Dr. Klymasz also published many reviews of books and exhibitions in Canada's Ukrainian and Icelandic ethnic press. He continues to pursue his recent interests with grants from the University of Alberta (CIUS) and the University of Manitoba (CUCS).
In 2004, he delivered a paper at the Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences in Winnipeg. Dr. Klymasz was awarded the Marius-Barbeau Prize by the Folklore Studies Association of Canada (Laval University) for his studies in Ukrainian Canadian Folklore. In 2005, he completed the Archival Research Project on Walter Klymkiw, the conductor of Koshetz Choir, titled "Playing around with Choir": the Correspondence and Papers of Walter P. Klymkiw. The manuscript is held at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections. Between 2006 and 2008, he completed several archival research projects including A priest, a maestro, a community: epistolary insights into the music culture of Winnipeg's Ukrainian community, 1936-1944 (2006-2007), Winnipeg Papers on Ukrainian Music (2008), Nuggets from the past: quotations on the Ukrainian experience in Canada (2007), Winnipeg Papers on Ukrainian Book Culture (2009), and Winnipeg Papers on Ukrainians and Aboriginals. In 2013 a Ukrainian translation of Klymasz's 1971 Indiana University PhD dissertation was published in Ukrainian, under the title, 'Ukrains'ka narodna kul'tura v kanads'kykh preriiakh' (Kyiv: Duliby, 2013) .
Halyna Kild was born on July 17th, 1955, in Ukraine (in the Yunashky village in the Prohrebyshche district of the Vinnytsia region). She is a journalist, editor, translator, and a freelance radio correspondent at Radio Canada International (1992-1998). She came to Canada in 1998. She is a specialist in the field of graphic communications, advertising, and publishing affairs (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, 1999). She worked at the private technology company of Yotta Yotta Inc. which was in charge of globally distributing and transmitting large volumes of email information and security of electronic networks (2000-2002).
From 1992 to 1997, she prepared and recorded around 200 reports and radio interviews for RCI (Radio Canada International) about political and public events, news of Ukrainian studies in Alberta, and innovative approaches in science and agriculture.
In 1994, she covered the visit to Alberta of the former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma. She has written over 50 publications in Ukrainian and in English in the North American and Ukrainian press. Among them: an article on the status of women in Canada and Ukraine “Sexual harassment: reality or fiction” (“Modernity”, June 1995).
Many of her articles are devoted to the work of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, where she is currently working as a Communication & Research Assistant.
Composer and pianist Wadym Kipa (b. 1912, Kuchmisterska Slobodka, Ukraine, d. 1968, New York, USA) was born into the family of a railway inspector, who encouraged his son’s interest in music. Kipa trained at the Kharkiv Music School, Kharkiv Conservatory and Kyiv Conservatory, from which he graduated as a piano major in 1937 and joined its faculty. Until 1941 he performed as a concert pianist. When the Second World War interrupted his post-doctoral studies at the Kyiv Conservatory, he turned to composing. During the war he found himself in Berlin, where he taught at the Klindwort-Scharwenk Conservatory. In 1951 he settled in New York, where he engaged in composing and teaching. His compositions in a Neo-Romantic style consist primarily of solo piano pieces, art songs and incidental music.
Ivan Keywan was born on September 16, 1907 in the village of Karliv (now called Prutivka) in Western Ukraine. He began his art studies at the O. Novakivsky Art School in Lviv, and continued at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, from which he graduated in 1937. He also studied art history at the University of Warsaw and qualified as a teacher of art and art history. After his studies, he taught painting and drawing in Kolomea at the Ukrainian high school and technical school, while also pursuing an artistic career. As a member of several artists' associations, he exhibited his works, starting in 1933, in Warsaw, Lviv, different cities in Germany, Paris and Amsterdam. In 1943, he married Maria Adriana Krupska, a physican, in Kolomea (Kolomyia).
In 1944, he fled Western Ukraine in advance of the Soviet occupation. After the end of the war, he lived with his family in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Mittenwald, Bavaria, Germany. There he taught art and art history in the camp high school and at the People's University and produced many landscape paintings of the Alps. In 1949, Ivan Keywan, with his wife and two children, Orest and Zonia, immigrated to Canada and settled in Edmonton, Alberta.
In Canada, Keywan continued his artistic work. A co-founder of the Ukrainian Artists Association of Canada (USOM = Українська спілка образотворчих мистців Канади), he participated in the association's exhibitions, as well as other exhibitions in Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Detroit and New York. Increasingly turning his attention to art history and criticism, he authored countless articles for the Ukrainian press and published four monographs on Ukrainian artists, including Taras Shevchenko, the Artist (1964). For this work, he was awarded the Shevchenko Medal, the highest form of recognition granted by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (KUK). He researched and wrote a two-volume history of Ukrainian art, of which only one section has been published in 1996 in Edmonton by Clio Editions titled Українські мистці поза Батьківщиною (Ukrainian Artists outside Ukraine). In 1967, Keywan received an honorary appointment as professor of art history at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome. Ivan Keywan died in Edmonton on September 18, 1992.
Lawrence was a dancer in Cheremosh Ukrainian Dance Ensemble from the group’s inception in 1969 to 1984. He served as President of Ukrainian Cheremosh Society from 1979 to 1980 and was awarded the distinction of Honourary Lifetime Member of our Society. His contributions included choreography, dance instruction, and organization of productions and tours; he served as Assistant Director of Cheremosh during the early 1980s. Lawrence was a brilliant and gifted educator, artist, dancer, director, horticulturist, gourmet cook and mentor to countless individuals at home and abroad.
Olha was a student at the University of Alberta.
Monica Kindraka Jensen holds graduate degrees in Art History, Comparative Literature, and a PhD in Folklore. She was a graduate student in the Ukrainian Folklore program at the University of Alberta in 1999-2005. Monica defended her doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Andriy Nahachewsky.
Monica worked as a curator in a succession of Contemporary Art museums, Laguna Gloria Art Museum in Austin, Texas, the last among them. In 1984, she moved to Berkeley where she met her future husband. They now live in Bloomington, Indiana, where Monica continues scholarly pursuits as a Visiting Associate Professor. She volunteers as a docent at the university's Eskenazi Museum of Art and she loves sewing.
Jaroslaw Iwanusiw (July 24, 1905, currently non-existent Ukrainian village of Lopinka, territory of contemporary Poland - April 26, 1998, Edmonton) was born to the family of Mykola and Maria (Shyh) Iwanusiw. He was the third of five children. He completed his schooling as well as one year of theology in Peremyshl and then earned a degree in forestry engineering at the University of Vienna.
In 1931, he married Iwanna Oksana Smolynsky and began work in Stanislaviv. Following the outbreak of the war in 1939, the family moved several times within Europe, meeting up with American soldiers in Bavaria on Easter Sunday, 1945. They stayed in Pfarkirchen and Karsfeld and then Camp "Orlyk" Berchtesgaden. Their family then had four children: Motria, Oleh, Orysia, and Bohodara.
The family immigrated to Canada in 1948 to work out a sugar beet contract in the Lethbridge area. With the contract fulfilled, the family moved to Lethbridge and then, in 1950, to Edmonton where Jerry worked as a carpenter until 1956 when he obtained a position of an Alberta Land Surveyor at the Government of Alberta in the Surveys Branch of the Department of Highways. He continued his career with the government until compulsory retirement at age 65 in 1970. In that period, his survey work was primarily in the Peace River region of rights-of-ways for highways and local roads.
Following retirement from the government, Jerry chose to continue in the surveying and mapping field in the capacity of a technologist, working for the Canadian Engineering & Surveys Inc. until 1987, and then for the Challenger Surveys and Services Ltd. until 1995. He was an active member of Plast (since 1921 in Peremyshl), a founding member of the Association of Foresters and Woodmen, a member of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada, a founder of the Shevchenko Foundation in Canada, a representative of the "Encyclopedia of Ukraine" dissemination in Alberta, and a treasurer of the Patronage NTSh-EY-2 in Edmonton.
For his years of dedicated service, he was cited with both the silver and gold awards of the highest merit. In his 90th year of life, Yaroslaw and Iwanna moved to St. Michael's Lodge and then a nursing home.
Sources:
Compiled By C.W. Youngs with assistance from Motria, Oleh, Orysia, and Bohodara (http://albertalandsurveyhistory.ca/index.php?title=Yaroslaw_(Jerry)_Iwanusiw)
Materials of the Jaroslaw Iwanusiw collection. UF2020.028.