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Ukrainian Folklore Centre Holds Successful Graduate Lunch and Lecture Series

 

The Ukrainian Folklore Centre at the University of Alberta and the Kuryliw Family Endowment this year initiated a new non-credit lunch time seminar which proved enormously popular. Every Thursday a graduate student, former student, or faculty member would speak about his or her research. The topics ranged widely and covered material culture, music and dance, the pioneer experience, and contemporary ritual. All lectures were well-attended and followed by lively discussion and debate.

 

Among the many presentations were talks about Ukrainian life in Alberta such as Vita Holoborodko’s discussion of Ukrainian museums, Katherine Bily’s description of rural churches, Vince Rees’s analysis of dance costume, and Andriy Chernevych’s comparison of rural Malanka celebrations to urban ones. Monica Jensen presented her study of the recollections of ritual celebrations which she collected from her aunts and Maureen Stefaniuk discussed her grandmother’s home in Saskatchewan as a microcosm of Ukrainian prairie life. Weddings were a popular topic and Nadya Foty spoke about the mock weddings which follow the serious and solemn church ceremony while Svitlana Kukharenko analyzed magic elements in contemporary marriage practices. Sogu Hong looked at Ukrainian-Canadian weddings as expressions of identity. His presentation included a full-length video which he himself created and which has since been used in teaching. Other video presentations included a premier of a video produced in Ukraine about an interesting and unusual Christmas custom which involves leading a horse into the home. This video was presented by Mariya Lesiw. Several talks were based on published sources. Roman Shiyan discussed prose stories about Cossacks while Greg Borowetz presented folklore elements in Ukrainian Canadian calendars. These sources of folklore data have been neglected in the past.

 

Students who have already completed their degrees returned both to attend the seminars and to give talks. Brian Cherwick spoke about Ukrainian-Canadian popular music. He focused on the duo Mickey and Bunny and their understanding of tradition. Faculty and retired faculty also spoke. Andrij Hronjatkevych talked about traditional musical instruments, specifically the kobza and the bandura, and the relationship between them. Andriy Nahachewsky and Natalie Kononenko spoke mostly about practical matters, specifically archiving principles and techniques and their impressions of professional conferences that they had attended. Both hope to have a chance to present their research in the future. Gregory Forth of the Anthropology Department spoke about the Wildman on the Island of Flores in Indonesia, probing the relationship between narratives told by the island inhabitants of today and recent archeological discoveries. The grand finale was Jars Balan of the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies speaking about the Kalyna Country Ecomuseum, a project in which he played a pivotal role.

 

The Graduate Lunch and Lecture Series will be back next year by popular demand. Student and community interest has been high. Students want to present their latest work and the community wants to find out about the interests of the next generation of scholars and to offer their own ideas through formal presentations and through discussion of the topics presented by others. Everyone is welcome to attend the lunch and lecture series and we will be happy to receive suggestions both for future guest speakers and for future topics.

 

Natalie Kononenko

University of Alberta