The collection consists of field materials collected by Andreiv Choma, a master student in the Ukrainian Folklore program at the University of Alberta, during 2013-2015. The material was collected among Ukrainian communities in Brazil. It includes audio interviews with the members of Ukrainian Brazilian community, photographs (both historical and modern), copies of the wedding registry of Ukrainians in Mallet in 1907-1915, baptismal registry, handwritten papers of the Ukrainian Catholic Centre in Mallet, of the society "Ukrains'ka hromada", and other records. It also includes Andreiv's manuscript of the part of his master thesis (mostly in English, parts in Portuguese).

The collection consists of memoirs of Andrew Mazurenko, and his family photographs. Andrew wrote these in 1973 when he was 83. The memoirs tell about his roots, his life back in the Old country, his journey to Canada, and early years in Canada.

The photographs include images of him and his wife Maria, their house, homestead, and the old thatched roof house in the Old Country where Maria was born.

Andriy Nahachewsky travelled to Brazil for 6 months (Nov 2009 – May 2010), and worked intensively to document the traditional culture of the Ukrainian community there (some 400,000 people, rural and urban). He visited some 40 communities with a significant Ukrainian population in the states of Parana, Sao Paulo and Santa Catarina. He recorded over 250 interviews, took approximately 12,000 photographs and recorded 53 hours of video recordings. He collected a small number of artifacts of traditional life, and amassed a library of approximately 200 books (either hard copy or electronically as pdf). Research methods included audience/participation, unstructured, and semi-structured interviews, as well as work in personal and institutional archives.

Since this was the first substantial ethnographic/folkloristic documentation of this community, Andriy cast the project’s mandate quite broadly, collecting diachronic and synchronic information on material culture (farming practices, foodlore, traditional crafts, folk architecture, religious painting), as well as oral traditions (dialectal speech, songs, legends, personal experience narratives), customary lore (particularly weddings, Christmas, Easter and other calendar holidays), spiritual culture (formal religion as well as folk beliefs, folk medicine, etc), performing arts (music and dance) and local history. In all cases, he was interested in continuity from the European heritage, but also particularly in hybridity and change in the community’s traditions.

The main goal of the project was to collect materials to write a book comparing Ukrainian traditional culture on three continents. People from western Ukraine emigrated to both Canada and Brazil from the same villages (mostly from the province of Galicia in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), at the same time (largest wave of migration from 1891 until 1914), and for the same reasons (scarcity of farmland in Galicia, while Canada and Brazil were both hoping to settle newly opened agricultural territories quickly).

The traditions of the community in Brazil are rich and conceptually interesting. They are similar to Canadian traditions in many ways, but also quite different. The data raise numerous issues in ethnic symbolism, cultural continuity, and the relationship between traditions and their environment. Key strengths in the data relate to wedding traditions, personal history narratives, ethnic dance traditions, religious art, and calendar customs. There is good new information on regional diversity within the Ukrainian communities in Brazil.

The collection consists of various course assignments submitted by Andriy when he was a master and PhD student in the Ukrainian Folklore Program at the University of Alberta. The assignments cover different topics of Ukrainian and Ukrainian Canadian traditional culture and folklore, and include field recordings as well as final essays.

This collection includes wedding songs, winter cycle songs, and various other songs sung by Maria Mazuryk.

The collection consists of pillow covers and a wall hanging embroidered by Anna Drepko, Maria's mother, and memorial cards collected by her at various funerals in Winnipeg and area.

The collection consists of field materials collected by Anna-Marie Kryschuk as part of her assignments for the folklore courses she took at the University of Alberta. It includes collected folk remedies, and folk songs performed during vinkopletennia (wreath weaving ritual).

This collection consists of materials collected by Ashley Halko-Addley for her graduate research project, Waxing Away Illness, at the University of Alberta. In 2018, Ashley conducted interviews and observations of the wax ceremony in Saskatchewan and Alberta. This collection consists primarily of transcripts, audio recordings, and fieldnotes, with select supplementary materials.

A supplementary website was created by Ashley Halko-Addley. The website highlights some of the participants and important selections from their interviews. The website can be accessed here: https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/waxingawayillness/

This fonds contains materials compiled by Dr. Bohdan Medwidsky over the course of his academic career. Materials include personal documents, correspondence, professional documents, academic research and documentation, political and community involvement, and financial documents. In addition to records generated by Dr. Medwidsky himself, many files also include writings from students and colleagues.

The collection consists of folk songs recorded during December 1979 for the UKR-422 Ukrainian Folklore course at the University of Alberta. It includes texts of 21 songs collected by Boris Radio from Mrs. T. Gural, Mrs. N. Radio, and Mrs. Hulewich, their biographical information. In addition to transcripts of the songs, Boris translated them. The audio cassette contains recording of the songs and histories of interviewees.

The collection consists of 31 issues of the monthly humorous magazine Beztaktnist self-published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, edited mainly by David Marples; an obituary to Havrylo Ciusovych Harmatenko; and an interview with Andrij Hornjatkevyc about these publications recorded by Kateryna Kod at the time of donation.

Beztaktnist was self-published monthly magazine by CUIS for several years. It started when the CIUS was located in Athabasca Hall and the office of the PhD candidate David Marples who is now the Professor at the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta was behind the wall from the office of the CUIS director Manoly Lupul. When David Marples would hear some slips of the tongue or jokes from the office, he would later publish them and circulate calling it Beztaktnist. This publication served the role of a buffoon, like in older days buffoons were able to tell not only jokes but the truth or voice their opinions to the kings without being punished for that, Beztaktnist was that buffoon in CIUS. Different topics were published without censorship about CUIS life, everybody included their stories but the main editor was David Marples.

Havrylo story: there was a copier in Athabasca building that was used by all the departments located in the building. Each department had a small page counter that was inserted in the copier in order to count the pages so at the end of the month to pay for copying. The amount of the copies done by each department should coincide with the amount that would be on the inner page counter in the copier itself. It came up that the CIUS page counter was named Havrylo and it was discovered that if Havrylo is
not inserted into the copier completely it will not count pages. So many copies were done, including the periodical Beztaktnist free of charge. Later it was discovered that the amount of the copies on the inner and external counters did not coincide, so the new program was installed on the copier and Havrylo came out of use, “became unemployed”. When it was known some people together with Andrij Hornjatkevyc wrote an obituary for Havrylo Ciusovych Harmatenko (the copier was Canon) and asked to announce it on the radio. Roman Brytan announced it on the radio and even chose a song by Seniors Choir that sang “Oi iz-za hory kam’ianoi”. The original text of the obituary is added to this collection.

With time Marples was leaving CIUS and going to Munich to work at Radio Svoboda and he asked for the copies of this periodical from Andrij Hornjatkevych, who was not willing to share. Another joke that CIUS had was the theory that there should as many Free Universities as there are not free Universities in Ukraine, the Free University in Munich was not enough. The Decree was pronounced to establish Free Universities parallel to those that were in Ukraine. There was also a diploma sample and some people were awarded various doctoral degrees. At the farewell party for Marples that was in the house of Bohdan Krawchenko the collection of Beztaktnist, bound in yellow binder (yellow colour symbolizing yellow journalism), was awarded to Marples to the loud applause by Krawchenko dressed in his Oxford gown.

Jars Balan interviewed several people who were crucial for the development of Ukrainian studies in Canada. Oleksandr Pankieiev recorded the interview. Jars Balan on behalf of CIUS deposited a copy of the interviews to the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives.

Oral History Project was implemented by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies in 1982-1984. During that period of time two researchers -- Lubomyr Luciuk and Zenon Zwarycz -- interviewed more than 135 members of the Ukrainian community all over Canada, both immigrants and those already born in Canada. The interviews were digitized in 2014-2016 producing a database of over 400 sound files. The interviews focus on the Ukrainian organizational life both in the Old Country and Canada, as well as political and/or social activities of the interviewees. They also encompass childhood and formative years of each interviewee, their education, family stories, participation in the Ukrainian War of Independence, WWI, routes of emigration to Canada, patterns of settlement within Canada, relations with a broader Canadian society; WWII, DPs, Ukrainian-Canadian institutions, prominent personalities, as well as the religious and political mosaic inside the Ukrainian community in Canada.