Tag: Ukrainian Canadians

Family Research Leads to Writing Ravenscraig

On By Sandi Krawchenko AltnerIn Family history, Ravenscraig the novel, Ukrainians in Canada, Winnipeg2 Comments
Mary Krawchenko and her mother Tillie Bachynsky with
Mary’s daughters, Sandi and Margaret, 1958

I have a real fascination with old black and white pictures.  I am especially interested in photos of people I know, but can spend days looking into any antique photo collection to learn about how people lived their lives generations ago.

I expect this is a familiar feeling for anyone who has looked through old family pictures and wished that there was someone still around to explain who was in the picture and what was happening on that day. Was it a birthday?  A visit to a relative?  Or just a walk in a park to share good news?  The black and white photos tucked away in shoe boxes so quickly become anonymous faces staring out at us from another century with stories that are rooted in imagination instead of fact.

If I had to settle on a single reason why I wrote Ravenscraig, it would have to be this interest in old pictures.

Ravenscraig is a novel that tells the story of some of the major events in Winnipeg during the height of the immigration boom that began in the 1890s.  Two families– one Jewish, poor and struggling to put down roots in the New World; the other rich and resistant to the foreigners among them–together provide a view of what life was like in a booming frontier city in Canada at the turn of the 20th century.

The research for the story was a most gratifying journey that included wide ranging resources from scholarly works and rare books to archived collections of rare documents, private letters and microfilmed court testimony.  Online sources included such favourite websites as the Manitoba Historical Society, the City of Winnipeg Department of Planning, Canada Census Records and the online newspaper archives like the Manitoba Free Press.

Nikola Strumbicky and Aksana Shmigelsky Strumbicky, 1958, Winnipeg

The inspiration for my desire to learn about the early days of Winnipeg grew out of a fascination with my own family roots.  My family came to Manitoba in 1896  from Zalischiky, Galicia, which is now part of the Ukraine.  They were “Stalwart Peasants in Sheepskin Coats” as Clifford Sifton the minister responsible for immigration had called them.   They came to Canada to farm, answering the invitation for free land in Canada’s determination to populate the prairies.

It is a most gratifying journey to learn about one’s past.  What pictures are in your shoebox?

Manitoba Publisher Buys Ravenscraig

On By Sandi Krawchenko AltnerIn Books, Canadian Writers, Ravenscraig the novel, Winnipeg, Writing3 Comments

Heartland and Associates, a Manitoba publishing house, has purchased the Canadian rights to Ravenscraig by Sandi Krawchenko Altner.

The book will be launched in Winnipeg on November 29, 2011, at the McNally Robinson store at Grant Park.

A sweeping epic set at the turn of the 20th century, Ravenscraig reveals the secrets and lies that tie two families together.  Rupert Willows has hidden away his past to manipulate his way to wealth and power.  Zev Zigman, a devout Jew, mounts a desperate struggle to bring his family out of Russia and put down roots in Winnipeg’s North End.

Tragedies, triumphs, and the Titanic shape the lives of these two families as their futures entwine to illuminate a dark corner of Winnipeg’s past when it was the fastest growing city in the Dominion.

About the Author:

Sandi Krawchenko Altner

Sandi Krawchenko Altner enjoyed an award-winning career in television and radio news in Calgary, Winnipeg and Montreal, before she left to follow her passion for writing fiction.  She is a fifth generation descendent of the first colony of Ukrainian immigrants to settle in Stuartburn, Manitoba in 1896. Sandi grew up with a keen interest in her roots and a deep love of history.  A Jew by choice, Sandi celebrated conversion in 2005.  She lives, writes and blogs in Florida where she is active in her synagogue. Sandi and her husband have two daughters and two happy dogs.  Ravenscraig is her first novel.

Click on the image below to see the book trailer for Ravenscraig.

Stalwart Peasants in Sheepskin Coats

On By Sandi Krawchenko AltnerIn Books, Family history, Ukrainians in Canada, Uncategorized, Writing6 Comments
Nykola Strumbicky and Aksana (Shmigelsky) Strumbicky, 1958

Ukrainian-speaking peasants from Eastern Europe were not anywhere near the preferred list of immigrants wanted by Canada in the early 1890s. English, French and American farmers were the top choice. But, the government had a huge problem.  Not enough of these “acceptable” people were interested in breaking the land in the Canadian West, and the Americans were expressing a keen interest in annexing the vast open land.

The government decided it had no choice but to look to less attractive immigrants to solve the problem of populating the prairies.

When I speak of quality I have in mind something that is quite different from what is in the mind of the average writer or speaker upon the question of immigration. I think that a stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, born on the soil, whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half-dozen children, is good quality.

~ Clifford Sifton

One man, Clifford Sifton, Canada’s Minister of the Interior and charged with the responsibility of immigration (1896-1905), drove the campaign to open Canada’s doors to Central and Eastern Europe.  The country needed to establish farming on the prairies, and they needed people who could survive on their own to do it.

Among the first to respond to Canada’s invitation for free land were peasants from Galicia and Bukovinia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  They were poor farmers who were being crowded off of their meager farms.   As their families expanded, the land they had available to share with their children was being divided down to nothing.  Facing a bleak future and deep poverty, the idea of being given 160 acres of land they would own, with bush that would provide wood for fuel and animals for food, became a powerful force in motivating them to strike out for the new opportunity.

Mary Hawrylyshyn, Tillie Bachynsky and their mother Aksana Strumbicky, 1955

In the summer of 1896, the first Ukrainian-speaking settlers arrived in Manitoba.  They were a group of 27 families from Galicia, who had sailed on the SS Sicilia from Hamburg to Quebec City.  From there they took the train to Winnipeg, before making their way to their allotted lands, 75 miles southeast of Winnipeg at Stuartburn.  Among this group of immigrants were Petr Strumbicky and his wife Irena Goyman, and their five children from Zalischiky, Galicia.  They sold everything they had, and brought only what they could carry. Their worldly goods, upon arrival at Winnipeg, amounted to little more than some seeds in a handkerchief and the equivalent of seven dollars.

The eldest child, Nikola, would marry Aksana Shmigelsky, a girl  he knew from the old country who arrived with her family some years later.  Aksana’s family was from the village of Blyschanka.  Aksana and Nykola were exactly the kind of people Sifton spoke about.  They would raise six children and live out their lives on their land at Vita.

The following story is an excerpt from my novel, Ravenscraig.  This chapter tells the story of Nykola and Aksana, and is inspired by family stories and other accounts that I have read about the experiences of the these early pioneers.  I am humbled by their resilience and their success.


I am posting this chapter in honour of the 80th birthday of my mother, Mary Krawchenko.  Aksana and Nykola were her grandparents, and my mother’s childhood was spent on their farm at Vita.














MNOHAYA LITA – МНОГАЯ ЛІТА

On By Sandi Krawchenko AltnerIn Family history, History, Ukrainians in Canada, Winnipeg8 Comments

(Click here or on the movie window at the bottom of this page to hear the Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton sing Mnohaya Lita.)

When I was  a little girl on Gallagher Avenue in Winnipeg, every wedding, shower and birthday celebration involved people standing and singing Mnohaya Lita.  Generally it was sung in a sad way, with a slow tempo, and occasional harmonies. Women wept and hankies appeared to wipe their tears and blow their noses. Someone was always blowing their nose at these affairs.  It seemed odd to me, to have such a sad song at such joyous occasions, but it was very clear this was a tradition that was not to be questioned, so I didn’t ask.

Though Ukrainian was the mother tongue of my parents, and who knows how many generations before them, my brothers and sisters and I did not grow up speaking Ukrainian.  This, despite the fact that our home was rich with Ukrainian culture, food and celebrations.  We attended church, sporadically, at St. Mary’s the Protectress, a Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Winnipeg’s North End.  My parents, Carl and Mary Krawchenko, were married there.  They brought five “boomers” into the world to be Christened at “Sobor”.   You could always count on hearing Mnohaya Lita at the Church.  I loved it, and as I grew older, I started to weep, too, when I sang it.

Because the five of us children were born after the Second World War, Carl and Mary had limitless dreams for our success, and by their choice, we were not taught Ukrainian. It would not serve us.  We were fifth generation Canadians and we were to be assimilated for the sake of opportunity.  We were taught that we were as good as anybody else, including “The English”.

Years later, visiting at my Mom’s kitchen table, I asked what the words of Mnohaya Lita meant. When she told me, I was genuinely surprised that this was a happy song.

My Mom will turn 80 in a couple of weeks, so I went in search of Mnohaya Lita to be able to practice singing it.  To my utter joy, I found this version from the Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton.  Now this is the way to do a choir rehearsal.  You will find the transliteration and translation of the words at the bottom of this posting.

Not a hankie in the bunch. How wonderful that these men have a passion for Ukrainian music and a heritage that runs deep in my blood.  My thanks to the Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton for sharing their joy. Click on the window below to see the video of them singing.

In the photo at the top of this post: My mom, Mary Krawchenko (nee Bachynsky), and Baba, Tillie Bachynsky (nee Strumbicky).  The children are me and my sister Margaret and the photo was taken at our home on Gallagher Avenue.  I believe this picture was taken on the occasion of my grandmother’s 50th birthday party.  Mnohaya Lita was most certainly sung that day. Baba was born on March 24th, 1909.  I was born March 24th, 1956.

I miss saying:  “Happy Birthday to you, too, Baba!”

Update on March 21, 2011

My friend Chris Mota in Montreal sent me a link to this wonderful choir singing the version that is more familiar to me.  The information posted on youtube with this item is as follows:

МНОГАЯ ЛІТА, Державний академічний Волинський народний хор, 2009 рік, Луцьк, українська народна пісня, колядка, щедрівка, фольклор,http://proridne.com

Thanks, Chris!

Mnohaya Lita (transliteration)

Mnohaya lita.

Mnohaya lita.

Mnohaya lita.

Vo zdroviye,

vo spaseniye.

Mnohaya Lita!

Translation:

God grant you many years.

Many happy years.

God grant you many years.

Many happy years.

May you be blessed

with health,

wealth,

and happiness.

And many,

many happy years.