Edmonton Shevchenko Event 2013

Can you imagine telling your child, or any child for that matter, to stop being artistic? To stop drawing, to stop painting, to stop versifying?  Can you imagine your child being held in serfdom for years - picking up after the "boss" and polishing shoes, folding undergarments for a grown man?  

This was the experience of the little boy who was Taras Hryhorievych Shevchenko.  Born in 1814, and left an orphan by the early passing of his parents, he was caught in the spiral of serfdom.  He was a slave.  A little boy, a slave.  

In today's terms, his childhood was stolen by a system of serfdom he had no hope of escaping.  But he did.  Moments of benevolent care made it possible for him to draw, to paint, to rhyme - and somehow his brilliance caught the attention of a person who could rescue him from a life of servitude.  

He was bought out of serfdom while a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art - a serf under the Russian Empire - freed by friends and patrons who saw the huge potential of his genius.  He was a romantic, reveling in the history and folklore of his ancestry, caught in nostalgia, but urged by contemporary events to a more somber portrayal of Ukrainian History.  For this he was forced into exile and compulsory military service.  His crime?  To write the true stories of his people, he wrote about the relationship of the ruling empire and oppression of the land and people of his ancestry.  

Forbidden to write, what is an artist to do?  Trapped by circumstances, his creative juices treated historical and moral issues which resonate in the Ukrainian world today.  They resonate as human rights issues the world over.  The resonate for women, for children and for politicians.   

The Ukrainian Music Society of Alberta and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress-Edmonton Branch invite you to the Shevchenko Concert on Sunday, March 10 at 2:30 PM at the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex, 9615-153 Ave. Edmonton. 

Tickets may be purchased at Ukrainian Social Services - 11717-97 Street or 780-471-4477

Meest - 10834-97 Street - or 780-424-1777

Orbit - 10219-97 Street or 780-422-5693

The Spirits of our Ancestors

Driving Alberta's prairie roads you can see how summer's sun is giving everything a lovely toasted hue.  You-pick gardens everywhere are hosting families looking for a healthy, fresh and sometimes organic harvest bounty.  And you cannot miss that some of the fields are beginning to turn color and will soon be ripe.
Just thinking how long these fields and farms have been planted is sometimes a surprise.  Many fields have been farmed for possibly up to 120 years, but this is not long compared with the many years of stewardship by Canada's aboriginal people.  Though Alberta's First Nations do not have an ancestral tradition of farming, or gardening, still their medicines, their rituals, their folk wisdom is rooted in nature.  The ancestral memory of a relationship between the land and mankind is in every cultural community.

The Iroquois wisdom rings true for me. And seven generations ago, much of what is Ukraine was stuck in serfdom.  Serfdom is like white slavery.  In a time long past, some Ukrainian ancestors were bound by duty and debt to a landlord who owned all of one's waking hours, labour, and any product produced.  That type of "human slavery" was abolished over a century and a half ago - seven generations ago! Americans of African ancestry who experienced slavery suffered a debilitating psychological damage, a sense of less worth than others.  Many Canadians of immigrant origins also know the stories, because of similar experiences in their historic ancestry. That may be one of the factors in Canadian's being so involved in advocacy for human rights!

So seven generations ago Ukraine's Great Bard - Taras Shevchenko was "purchased", rescued from a life of serfdom, and wrote the most empowering literature full of folkwisdom, dreams and possibilities!  Eventually serfdom was abolished, and people resolved to heal and thrive, in freedom. That may in part explain why the Ukrainian nation has such a scattered diaspora - it makes me think of the farmer of old times, broadcasting seeds onto the fertile soil by hand.......

So when you are driving on the prairie roads late this summer, look at the farmers fields and consider that the August sunshine will ripen the wheat, and make it ready for harvest. It is probably time to gather a sheaf of wheat! 

In the ancestral teachings, the Spirit of our Grandfathers lives in the kernels. Each seed sacrifices itself to give life to the next generation.  It is so, from time immemorial.

Remember to ask permission of some generous farmer before you harvest the wheat. Take long stalks and make a tightly bound bundle.  Bind it well, as it is said the tigher the bind, the closer the family.  The souls of the family (past, present and future) are thought to be in the sheaf, and it represents both the Christian belief in an afterlife and the bountiful fertility of the land. Display the Didukh in a place of honor and celebrate its wisdom!