The Other World or Ethnicity in Action: Canadian Ukrainianness at the End of the 20th Century by Natalia Khanenko-Friesen (review)

Natalia Khanenko-Friesen invites readers into the world of a small Ukrainian community in western Canada. Mundare, Alberta, located in the east-central part of that province, is a town of approximately 570 people, where ethnic Ukrainians form a majority of the population. The author also occasionally transports her readers across the Atlantic to the village of Hrytsevolia in western Ukraine. It was from this village that the majority of Ukrainian immigrants who settled near Mundare originated. The largest number arrived at the beginning of the twentieth century, while some came only recently, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Khanenko-Friesen explores multiple manifestations of Ukrainianness in this small community. Folklorists and anthropologists will appreciate her thorough ethnographic documentation of the community’s everyday life. The author is equally interested in both the official discourses of the public sphere and the more intimate “off-stage” practices of the community and its particular individuals. While the author’s voice is distinct and she is in control of the relevant background, she lets her consultants speak for themselves, providing a balance to the overall academic style of the book.

The author adeptly positions her study within the broader context of late modernity and accompanying transnational processes, focusing on the way these global dynamics affect the different, and often conflicting, views of Ukrainian identity in Mundare. The recurring theme that she explores concerns the future of this community and, in particular, whether Ukrainianness will continue to be a vital component of everyday life or be relegated exclusively to a symbolic representation of the past.

The structure of the book is sound and allows the reader to follow the community from its past into its future. The first part, “Historical Processes, Social Dimensions,” places Mundare in the context of those major historic and social processes that have shaped its present-day character. For example, a crucial change in people’s view of their heritage took place in the 1970s, when economic and technological development affected traditional farming practices. This resulted in an ongoing feeling of nostalgia for the disappearing world and a fear of its loss. With the help of various projects directed toward the preservation of Ukrainian heritage, the descendants of the first settlers strove to promote the continuity of Ukrainian culture. Another important milestone in the history of Mundare is associated with the last decades of the twentieth century when transnational exchanges between Ukrainians in Canada and those in Ukraine were revived.

The second part, “Representations,” focuses on the public representations of Ukrainianness in Mundare. These include the local history “Memories of Mundare,” the Basilian Fathers Museum, and various published family chronicles. The author concentrates on the main principles of such representations and their selected symbols. This discussion is closely connected to the subsequent section entitled “Mundare Ukrainianness in Action,” where the author explores Ukrainians’ everyday activities and ethnicity as it is lived rather than as it is represented. The two parts illustrate that Ukrainian ethnicity as perceived in Mundare is multilayered and multi-dimensional.

The situation becomes even more complex with the arrival of recent immigrants from Ukraine. The last part of the book, titled “Transnational Challenges,” focuses on intriguing socio-cultural dynamics that take place when the Ukrainian community in Mundare, with its own pre-existing complex understandings of ethnicity, comes into contact with yet one more view of Ukrainianness that is brought from Ukraine. Khanenko-Friesen discusses the disconnection between the established Ukrainian community and those Ukrainians who arrived in the post-Soviet era. While some of the visual symbols of Ukrainianness employed by the newcomers are recognizable to the established community, this community often cannot relate to many of the newcomers’ other activities aimed at honoring and preserving their heritage. At the same time, the newcomers are disappointed to find that Mundare’s pre...