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A renown artist and photographer, David Goberman was born in 1912 in Minsk. He studies in the Leningrad Academy of Arts. He is especially famous for his photographs of Jewish tombstones and Hucul ceramics. In 1950s he travelled across Ukraine and Moldova and photographed material culture, cemeteries, everyday life, and people.

Composer, conductor and music critic Mykola Fomenko (b. 1894, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, d. 1961, New York, USA) was raised in a large family by a widowed father, who encouraged his son to pursue a “practical” profession. Fomenko began studying piano only at age 17. During the First World War he fought in the Caucasus. In 1929 he graduated from the Kharkiv Conservatory, where he studied composition and conducting. He was music director and conductor of the Kharkiv Music and Drama Theatre, until he was dismissed for refusing the join the Communist Party. Subsequently he worked at the Mystetstvo publishing house. Following the Second World War he was a displaced person in Europe until he immigrated to the United States in 1951. There he taught at the Ukrainian Music Institute of America in New York and worked for the Ukrainian section of Voice of America.

His output as a composer consists of more than 100 works, including two symphonies, a piano concerto, chamber works for strings, solo piano pieces, several operas, incidental music, choral works and art songs.

Author of the “Composers of the Ukrainian Diaspora” articles, Taras Filenko has degrees in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh (PhD, 1998) and Historical Musicology from the Ukrainian National Academy of Music (Kand. Nayk, 1989). From 1998 to the present, he has been on the faculty of the Duquesne University, City Music Center, Studio Piano, Core Musicianship. His publications include Світ Миколи Лисенка, UVAN, NY, 2009 (409 pp.), The World of Mykola Lysenko, Ukraine Millennium Foundation, Edmonton, 2001 (540 pp.), Yakiv Yatsenevych and His Time, in progress, UVAN, NY, (110pp.).

Composer George Fiala (b. 1922, Kyiv, Ukraine, d. 2017, Montreal, Canada) was born into a family of amateur musicians, and he enrolled in a preparatory school for the Kyiv Conservatory in 1934. He subsequently studied at the Kyiv Conservatory with Borys Liatoshynsky and Lev Revutsky, received his doctorate from the Akademische Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he studied with Wilhelm Furtwängler, and completed post-doctoral studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels. In 1949 he settled in Montreal.

As a composer, Fiala combined the traditions of Ukrainian music, German Neo-Romanticism and the twelve-tone techniques of the New French School. He produced more than 150 works, including symphonies, concertos for piano, violin and flute, quintets, quartets, trios and sonatas for strings and winds, solo piano works, choral pieces, art songs, an operetta, a ballet and a liturgy. His works have been performed by virtually every orchestra in Canada, and commissions on Ukrainian subjects constitute an important part of his output.

Danny Evanishen is a Canadian of Ukrainian descent, a world traveller and a writer. He was born on February 17, 1945 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Danny graduated from the Nutana Collegiate Institute, Saskatoon in 1962, and then attended the University of Saskatchewan between 1962 and 1968 where he received degrees in both drama and education, while also being a writer and poet for the university’s student newspaper The Sheaf along with membership in other student organizations. Danny was also a member of a variety of cultural groups during this time, including the Mohyla Ukrainian Institute, CYMK (of which he was a president in 1964-65), and the dance group Yevshan and Lusia Pavlychenko's group, Saskatoon (1964-68). With Yevshan he danced in a Saskatchewan Jubilee movie in 1965, at Expo 67 several times, at the Canadian National Exhibition and for Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa in 1967. With Mary Tkachuk's youth choir he sang and played guitar in Toronto, Ottawa and Montréal at Expo 67, all in 1967.

Shortly after graduation, Danny began teaching English and art in Australia and New Zealand, but returned to Canada in 1971 to work as a Forest Officer in Yukon and British Columbia until 1978. During this time he briefly worked as an editor and publisher at a newspaper in Ross River, Yukon. In 1978, he became an owner and operator of a movie theatre and the manager of a freight co-operative in Salt Spring Island, BC. He also began pursuing freelance writing, which he continues to this day. From 1991 to 1993 Danny worked as a freelance forest fire suppression in BC. Since 1991, he has worked as a writer/publisher. Danny also worked at a mine in the Australian desert, fixed yachts on the Spanish island of Ibiza, repaired Volkswagens in Nigeria, tended bar in Canada, Spain and New Zealand, played guitar in a restaurant in Australia, drove a van in England, and crossed the Sahara in an old army truck.

Danny Evanishen's father stimulated his interest by translating some stories he found in an old Ukrainian book handed down by his father; his mother provided one story and encouraged him; and his niece and sister did the artwork. When Evanishen started to investigate, he discovered thousands of Ukrainian folktales. Danny started collecting stories in 1991. In 1994, he started going to Ukrainian and multiethnic festivals to collect stories there. He was interested in collecting stories of two types: Ukrainian folk tales and funny Ukrainian pioneer stories. With time, he started collected stories from descendants of pioneers. Danny would record verbal stories and would also invite people to send them to him by email, on paper, floppy disk, cassette, audio reel, fax, video, 8mm film. In 1994, he sent an announcement about collecting stories to many newspapers. If at the beginning of 1990s he would collect 2-3 stories per year, in 1999 he collected near to 40.

In 1993 he founded “Ethnic Enterprises, Publishing Division” to publish these stories, and his own writings around the character Vuiko Yurko which had received an award in a writers’ contest shortly after being published. Since then Ethnic Enterprises has published over twenty books containing stories of Danny’s own creation, and of Ukrainian folk tales he has collected and translated.

Anne Elias was born in 1921 in a Ukrainian family on a farm near Two Hills, Alberta.

Anna Drepko was born in 1925 in Novosilka, a small village in Ternopil, Ukraine. Her life as she knew it was disrupted when the second world war started and she was forcibly taken to Germany to work as a labourer. When the war ended, Anna immigrated to Scotland. There she lived in a hostel with young Ukrainian women, all of whom worked in a thread factory. In 1949, Anna met and married her husband, who was residing in Oldham, England, at the time and who coincidentally was also from Novosilka. They settled in Oldham for the next several years. Shortly after the birth of their first child, Maria, the family immigrated to Winnipeg, Manitoba where, four years later their second child, Myron, was born. Anna has resided in Winnipeg ever since.

Life in Winnipeg centered around the Ukrainian community, primarily the Ukrainian Canadian Institute Prosvita and the church. It was very important for Anna and her husband to raise their children according to Ukrainian culture and traditions: They enrolled them in the Ukrainian youth organization SUM, Ukrainian dance classes and ridna shkola.
Anna's passion was embroidery. i assume her interest may have been sparked while living and working in Scotland. Upon arriving in Canada, Anna spent a great deal of her spare time embroidering. As life in Winnipeg unfolded, Anna's time eventually became devoted elsewhere, but she did continue to embroider on a lesser scale until the early 1990s.

Anna passed away in Winnipeg on September 8, 2018. The following information is the obituary from the Korban Funeral Home website: Retrieved from https://www.korbanchapel.com/notices/Anna-Drepko on 2019-01-09.

"Peacefully, on September 8, 2018, after a lengthy debilitating illness, Anna entered into God’s Kingdom. Anna was born in Novosilka, Ternopil, Western Ukraine, to parents Antin and Kateryna. At the age of 17, she was taken from her home and family by the German army, to work forced labour on a farm in Germany. She was liberated by the American army when the Second World War ended, and spent time in a DP camp in Germany. From there she immigrated to Paisley, Scotland, where she lived in a hostel with other young Ukrainian women, all of whom worked in a thread factory. When Anna married her husband Hryhorij, they settled in Oldham, England, where their daughter Maria was born. In 1952, Anna and her family crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled in Winnipeg, where their son, Myron was born. Beginning a new life in Canada posed many challenges, but Anna and Hryhorij worked tirelessly to provide a good life for their young family.

Anna was very proud of her rich Ukrainian heritage, culture and language. She spent any spare moment embroidering traditional Ukrainian designs. Some of her vyshyvky are at the University of Alberta at the Kule Folklore Centre. She also ensured that her children attended Ukrainian School (Ridna Shkola), Ukrainian dancing, CYM (Ukrainian Youth Organization), and the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Anna was a member of the Ukrainian Canadian Institute Prosvita, the League of Ukrainian Canadian Women, and Sts. Volodymyr & Olha Cathedral. In later years, she became a member of the Senior’s Club of Prosvita, where she loved to sing, dance and socialize. She also sang in the Dumka Choir.

She always yearned to return to Ukraine. In 1985, she was able to fulfill her dream. She reunited with her family in Ukraine for the first time after being apart for 50 years.

Anna was predeceased by her husband Hryhorij. She leaves to mourn her daughter Maria Stolarskyj, son Myron (Tania), grandchildren Laryssa, Teresa (Tim), Oleh, Kathryn (Jay), Alexa (Shane), great grandchildren, Luke, Sofia and Mia. Anna loved her grandchildren and great grandchildren. They were her pride and joy.

The family thanks Drs. Terry and Andrea Babick for their wonderful care. Thank you to St. Joseph’s Residence for the exceptionally kind and compassionate care of our mom for the past 10 years.

Funeral Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 13, 2018, at St. Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic Church, 250 Jefferson Ave., followed by interment at All Saints Cemetery.

Pallbearers will be Oleh Stolarskyj, Myron Pawlowsky, Shane Yanke, Tim Stokes, Jay Comeault, and Andrew Leskiw."

Wadym Dobrolige was born on December 7, 1913 in Nizhyn, Chernihiv region of the present day Ukraine. He was an artist and decorator. He graduated from the Kyiv Art Institute in 1935, and also studied at the Leningrad Institute of Sculpture and Architecture (1936). After coming back to Kyiv, he worked as a book illustrator. He was arrested, sent to Kolyma in Khabarovsk region of Russia, and was released in 1938. He worked as a film decorator under the supervision of Oleksandr Dovzhenko. During WWII he was captured by the Germans. In 1942 he fled the concentration camp and returned to Kyiv where he worked as a mechanic. However, Wadym Dobrolige was taken by the Germans to Germany and ended up at a DP camp Heidenau near Hamburg where he organized an art studio. There he created over 20 portraits, three icons for the camp church, peisages, still lifes, and decorated most of the camp plays for the Ukrainian theatre.

In 1948, Dobrolige moved to Canada. He painted many icons and Iconostasis. He created the iconostasis for the St. John's Cathedral in Edmonton in baroque style. A lot of Orthodox churches mainly in Alberta, but also in Saskatchewan and Quebec have Dobrolige’s Iconostasis, icons and church paintings. He decorated multiple theatre performances, created numerous portraits and still lifes, posters, external and internal decorations. Wadym Dobrolige was responsible for creating the portrait of Princess Elizabeth and different decorations for the procession to honour her visit to Edmonton in 1951. He died on October 4, 1973 in Edmonton, Alberta.

Composer, arranger, conductor and bandurist Peter Deriashnyj (b. 1946, Calden, Germany) emigrated to Australia with his family in 1950 and completed an engineering degree from the Sydney Institute of Technology. He began studying the bandura with his father at age 10 and in childhood was exposed to Ukrainian church music at his local parish. Initially self-taught, he later pursued private studies in music theory and composition, as well as the playing of Kharkiv-style bandura in Sydney. He has conducted several Ukrainian choirs and ensembles in Australia. His works include numerous arrangements for chorus with bandura accompaniment and original choral compositions for liturgical use. He has also produced standardized vocal scores of liturgical music for use in Ukrainian Orthodox parishes in Australia.