The Ukrainian Culture, Language & Literature Program at the University of Alberta: a History
The first Ukrainian-language courses at the University of Alberta were introduced in the 1960s on the initiative of Orest Starchuk, Head of the then Division of Slavic Languages, a constituent part of the former Department of Modern Languages. Professor Starchuk invited the poet Yar Slavutych (pen-name of Hryhorii Zhuchenko), a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, to teach Ukrainian at the University of Alberta. Yar Slavutych taught from 1960 to 1983.
In 1964 an independent Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures was created. Two years later the poet and translator Oleh Zujewskyj (PhD, University of Pennsylvania), joined the staff to teach various Slavic courses, including Ukrainian literature. Dr. Zujewskyj taught until 1990. In the 1970s three linguists joined the Ukrainianists of the department: Terence Carleton (PhD, University of Saskatchewan), who taught from 1965 to 1999 and whose main interests were historical linguistics and dialectology; Bohdan Medwisky (PhD, University of Toronto), who taught from 1971 to 2002 and was instrumental in developing a full-fledged Ukrainian folklore program; and Andrij HornjatkevyДЌ (PhD, University of California, Berkeley), who taught from 1973 to 2004, while also engaged as a research associate of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
In 1982 the Department of Slavic and East European Studies was created on the basis of a merger of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Division of East European Studies. Besides offering three levels of Ukrainian, this department taught two survey courses of Ukrainian literature, which were devoted to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as special courses on Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko and Lesia Ukrainka. In 1983, Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj (PhD, Harvard University), a specialist of Modernist and Avant-Garde literatures (both Ukrainian and Russian), joined the department. In 1992 the department hired Natalia Pylypiuk (PhD, Harvard University), a Comparative Literature scholar, trained in the Early-Modern cultures of Ukraine, Poland and the Spanish-speaking world.
In 1995 the Department of Slavic and East European Studies became part of a newly amalgamated department: “Modern Languages and Comparative Studies: Germanic, Romance and Slavic,” which in 1998 was transformed into the current Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies.
Throughout the late eighties and nineties, the Ukrainian program radically reformulated Ukrainian literature offerings, introducing new courses that cover a broad historical spectrum from Kyivan Rus’, through early modernity, to post-colonial Ukraine. Among the innovations were courses devoted to women writers, children’s literature, and the literature of dissent and the diaspora. In 2000, Alla Nedashkivska (PhD, University of Pittsburgh), an applied linguist with training in both Ukrainian and Russian, joined the program and all offerings in language and linguistics were significantly updated. Courses devoted to the language of business, as well as popular culture (i.e., film and television, the media and the internet) were introduced.
In 2007, Irene Sywenky (PhD, University of Alberta), a Comparative Literature scholar specializing in Polish, Russian and Ukrainian post-modernisms joined the team.
Although the Ukrainian Culture, Language and Literature Program is not a large program within MLCS, our staff and graduate students have an enviable record of research achievement and innovation in teaching. In 2001 R. Gary Kachanoski, the then Vice-President of Research, called us "Canada's leader in Ukrainian literature and language studies."
Since 1991 faculty members of the Ukrainian Culture, Language and Literature Program have held major grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). They have also won "Best Book" and "Best Article" awards from the American Association for Ukrainian Studies. Faculty and graduate students have been recognized for their teaching, with two individuals winning Faculty of Arts awards. Since 1997 two of our graduate students won Post-Doctoral Fellowships from the SSHRC. And, in the year 2009-11 alone, our students have been recipients of some of the university's most prestigious awards: the Killam Doctoral Award (1), the F.S. Chia Doctoral scholarship (3), and the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship (1).
