Anyone here first- or second-generation Ukrainian?

I don't know if you'd call me second generation or third generation Ukrainian. My father was certainly raised in a Ukrainian family, but he was born in Germany and grew up part of his life in Argentina. He also never taught me the language, so I can't help you with that.

Foods and holidays: Christmas Eve was pretty big in my father's tradition, and there was a special menu that went with it. I remember especially the Christmas borsht---it had ushki, or little mushroom dumplings, in it. Technically, it's supposed to be a meatless meal, which in the Uniate tradition means you get fish. (Uniates are sort-of-Catholic; basically, they're attached to Rome but have a special dispensation allowing married clergy and all the Russian Orthodox trappings that you might expect. My grandfather was a Uniate priest.) In practice, my mother had a fish allergy and passed it along to me and my sister, so we fudged on that bit. Dessert was medunek, a sort of honey cake, or kutya, which is raisins and nuts and things with honey. I have no idea if either of those are spelled right---they probably aren't---but spelling Ukrainian words in English is kind of an adventure anyway. Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, just like Russian.

Oh, and speaking of Ukrainians versus Russians---it's not Baba Ludmilla, at least not in my grandparents' area of the Ukraine. It's pronounced "Babcha," and heaven only knows how it's spelled. Grandpa is "Dedo." You can understand Russian if you speak Ukrainian, and Ukrainian if you speak Russian, at least if the other person is willing to speak slowly and occasionally point at things, but they do not think of themselves as the same people. Russians call the Ukrainians "little Russians" sometimes. The Ukrainians are not amused.

Diminutives generally follow Russian rules, though, and a grandmother would probably use a diminutive in talking to her granddaughter---"Katherine" becomes "Katya," and so forth. And "Isabel" becomes "Izunya"---just in case anyone was wondering where I got my net-name from.

(No, that's not a traditional nickname, because Isabel isn't a traditional Ukrainian name. I think my father made it up on the fly. But it is a very Ukrainian-style nickname, and if your main character has some American-sounding name, I can see Babtsia Ludmilla doing something similar.)

By the way, the Ukraine hasn't had a very easy century, and depending on when your story is set, Babtsia Ludmilla might not just have emigrated, but escaped from the Ukraine. My Dedo (Volodymyr, in case you need a nice common Ukrainian male name) got his family out ahead of the Russian Army, which was transporting priests to Siberia, and ran into Germany---in the middle of World War II. Fortunately, it was the tail end of the war, or he might have escaped into something really ugly. You see, the Nazis had Slavs of all kinds catagorized as Untermenschen, but were willing to let them live so long as they took jobs that the Germans didn't want. For some Ukrainians, at least, one of those jobs was concentration camp guard. There were already really bad feelings between Jews and Ukrainians---the Polish lords generally used Jewish tax collectors when the Ukraine was under their rule---and WWII must have made it twice as nasty. When I was four or five, I remember a neighborhood woman deciding that I was an evil, unstable little brat and persuading her daughter Sarah to act pretty hatefully toward me. I didn't figure out until much later that it might have been because I was half Ukrainian and she was Jewish. So that's an ethnic vendetta you might want to know about. Whether it impacts your main character or not depends on how you want your story to go.

Hmm . . . can't think of anything else at the moment, and this post is pretty long already. If there's anything else you need to know, feel free to ask---with the caveat that I'm not very Ukrainian, so there's a good chance I won't know.

Izunya

Hi Cathy C - I'm not Ukrainian but I worked with Jewish emigrants from the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union after Gorbachev finally opened up the doors. One of the things that stands out in my mind about the Ukrainians (and many of the others from different areas) is fear. They told me stories of listening to the heavy boots walking on the streets at night and the fear that the boots would stop at their door. Even after they were finally given permission to leave, they were still afraid - with every train stop as they headed west, the fear diminshed slightly but did not go away until they were finally airborne and on their way out of Europe.

The people I worked with enjoyed their food. Napoleon was a treat for special occasions. Kvass is a drink made from a slice of bread, a little sugar, and water and allowed to ferment a bit and then given to the children to drink. They made sauces for fish (served whole) and pancake like breakfast foods that I never could figure out what the sauces were made of. They (at least some of them) ate ham. When I asked one of them about it she said - "We eat what we can get - lots of pork."

They brought with them gifts to give to people who helped them establish their new lives - the nesting dolls, beautifully painted wooden plates and bowls and spoons. Once in a while embroidered linens.

Most of the men smoked. They were familiar with western culture and music ("I really like Elton John"). They were all excited at the prospect of having a car and learning to drive (scary proposition). Some of them brought very little with them to start their new lives because "In America the streets are paved in gold and you can buy a blouse for a dollar."

In my experience the languages were interchangeable and understandable - Ukrainian, Russian, Moldavian, Uzbekistanese, etc. - this may be because there had been emphasis on Russian as the one language during the Soviet regime.

Don't know how much that will help you. Puma

I am first generation 100% Ukrainian or as my husband likes to call us "the know it all race".

My parents immigrated here in 1951 as DPs after the war. I was born here, in Chicago and grew up in a very ethnic neighborhood. I didn't speak English until I went to school at age 5 and I went to Ukrainian school every Saturday to learn to read and write etc. in Ukrainian and we belonged to the Ukrainian American Youth Association, where we learned all the cultural stuff like dancing, woodcarving, easteregg making and bandura playing. We weren't allowed to date Americans, so we had to do it on the sneak. I was a rebel and busted out of the hood and married "an American".

I still have a crapload of relatives there, and as a matter of fact, my 85 year old mom is going there for a month in September. By the way, Baba is correct - my kids call my mom Baba. Babtsya is a diminuative form, but kids wouldn't use that, they would call their grandma Baba.

funidream said:

By the way, Baba is correct - my kids call my mom Baba. Babtsya is a diminuative form, but kids wouldn't use that, they would call their grandma Baba.

Click to expand...

I bow to superior knowledge. Calling my grandma Babtsya may have been a family idiosyncracy or a regional thing.

Oh, and Cathy C, you might want to google and get a quick look at some pysanky---those are the easter eggs funidream mentioned. The singular form is pysanka. IMO they cross the boundary from arts and crafts into pure art; they have no conceivable use, but they can be breathtakingly gorgeous. They're also one of the first things a lot of people think about when hearing the word "Ukrainian," so they're probably worth a look-see.

Although I have little talent for the art, I have tried my hand at making pysanky. It's a time-consuming process. Basically, you make the designs with hot beeswax, dipping the egg in progressively darker colors as you go on and waxing over the bits that you want to stay that color. The thing that you use to apply the hot wax is a kistka. And if you're traditional, or just a hobbiest who can't afford an electric kistka, you hold it over a candle flame to heat it up. And it is possible for an overheated kistka to catch on fire.

When this happens, it is a good idea not to panic. Panic leads to wax burns and Kleenex fires. Er---not that such a thing happened to me, of course.

Perhaps I would have been better served trying to get in touch with my roots by learning how to cross-stitch. Or maybe not. Pointy things, y'know.

Izunya

I have been making pysanky since I was a little kid (I'm fifty now). It is not an easy or common skill. Most Ukrainians buy their pysanky (plural) from a skilled producer. There are varying levels of complexity, but I was into it and I got to be quite proficient using the non-electric kistka and candle method and I produced some very very intricate eggs. When I was putting myself through design school, I would make several dozen pysanky around Easter time and earned a good buck selling them to Americans, who would pay three and four times as much as the people in the Ukrainian community.

Pysanky are holdover from the original pagan religion, whose followers worshiped the sun as their main diety. His name was Dazhboh. The eggs were made as part of a welcome to spring ritual and given as gifts. The egg itself is a symbol of new life, and the abstract designs on the on the eggs are symbolic as well. Eight pointed stars were a sun symbol (Dazhboh) Roosters were a fertility symbol. Zig-zags or lines encircling the eggs symbolised infinity or the circle of life and death. Most designs were derived from nature wheat, flowers, hearts, pussy willow, wavy lines for water - the list is endless.

When Ukraine was Christianised the tradition became part of the Easter festivities, but a lot of the old pagan still remains. The shell from broken pysanky are said to ward off evil spirits - people would bury them in the ground when they built a new house, for luck. Christian symbols - crosses, fish - are now also included in the designs. My mom's village was right next to a river, and she remembers a tradition of throwing broken pysanky shells into the river for luck.

Pysanky are part of the basket Ukrainian women prepare and bring to church on Holy Saturday to be blessed. Wicker baskets are lined with embroidered cloths and each basket must have a paska (special bread) meat (usually smoked) horseradish, salt, butter, boiled eggs both peeled and unpeeled, and pysanky.

You know that a traditional, true pysanka (singular) is not boiled. The raw egg is left intact. Over time it dries, and they seem hollow. My mom has some very old pysanky that if you give them a shake you can hear and feel the hard yolk bouncing around inside. People now blow out the raw egg - but that is a pretty recent innovation.

Another thing to keep in mind, just like with the embroidery designs, there can be regional differences in traditions and design style. My parents and most of the people in the Ukrainian community where I grew up are from the Carpathian mountains in the western part of Ukraine.

Whew! I will write more later about food and Christmas.

Let me know if you have any questions.

PS - Keep in mind - old babas can wield a lot of power in the family. I would say Ukrainians are kind of matriarcal. The word for witch is babayaga.

Check out the Ukrainian Cultural Center

Hello,
My mother's parents are of Ukrainian descent, while her father's is Russian. One of her cousins runs the Ukrainian Cultural Institute in North Dakota. They have an annual festival in July. You can check out the web site for more information at http://www.ukrainianculturalinstitute.org/

I hope this helps. Her name is Agnes Palanuk. She would be very helpful.
Pam

Hi Cathy C - I've done pysanky too with the kitska heated over a candle. And, I had my Girl Scout troop do eggs one year. The hazards of using a candle were very obvious with the girls (a few burned fingers) and the hazards of eggs were also obvious - one drop and that's it. And when you're using a candle there's a smoky, sort of mystic atmosphere especially when there's a little beeswax on the outside of the kitska. The girls also had problems with the kitskas not going exactly where they wanted them - you have to have very steady hands. We melted the wax off over the candles which was a very nervous time for the Girl Scout Leader. Puma

My stepfather is Ukranian (first generation American). I don't know a lot about the culture but I know when he was growing up his Mom was very active in her church, and he had to take Ukranian dance classes and language classes and all kinds of stuff. I've been to a recital of Ukranian dance with him and his Mom (and my Mom) and it was really cool. A lot of the dances are based on folk tales.

Might be something to add interest to a character's childhood, anyway.

She gave me pysanky once, in a glass bowl. She sent a lot of money when Stepdad was a kid back to Ukraine for various charities and stuff. She's twice insisted on bringing a girl over from there to be a live-in housekeeper (it didn't work out either time and the girls left, but she still insists that's the way it's done.)

Some of that may be personality quirks, but still...the concept of handling and paying for someone's immigration in order to have essentially an indentured servant really interested me.

Hi Cathy - a couple of things about making pysanky - if you hold the kistka in the candle too long, it catches fire, and you have to blow it out. The trick is to only hold the copper tip of the instrument in the flame.

I always use the dyes fromthe Uky-stuff store, but the lady who taught us told us about the homemade dies. I remember yellow was made from onionskins.

The store bought dyes are not your typical dyes. They do require vinigar to be added. Great smell, that, steaming jars of easter egg dye. And they last a long time, once in a while you might have to add some viniger to strengthen the color. I kept my dye in quart mason jars.

Choosing your eggs is a crucial step. It's best to purchase eggs from a farm where the eggs havn't been washed and sprayed with chemicals. But store bought eggs are okay. You want examine the eggs very carefully for small cracks bumps and imperfections. People think I am quite odd at the grocery when they see me holding each egg up to check its shape and condition. Usually I go through 6 dozen eggs to come up with a dozen that are pysanka-worthy. I use both white and brown eggs.

My favorite part of the whole process is wiping off the wax. You know that during the process of adding wax to the egg, when it is finally complete, the egg looks pretty ugly. And the more intricate the design, the uglier it is - completely covered in blobby black beeswax.

There are two ways to remove the wax and expose the design. The first is the simple way - put the egg in an oven, (on low temperature) and when the wax gets gooey, you wipe it off with a paper towel.

But the old way is trickier, and riskier - holding the egg to the heat of the flame, and then wiping the wax as it softens. The trick is you can't hold the egg too close, or you will scorch your fingers. But if you don't hold it close enough, the wax only gets gummy and not melty. You can't hold the egg near the flame for too long, or the egg gets scorched with carbon and it is ruined. The egg can also get hot and slippery. I've dropped quite a few finished eggs while doing this, so I know. It is maddening to spend hours on a single egg, only to drop it or scorch it in the end.

The woman who taught me was very dextrous in using the candle technique. It requires a lot of patience. Most people (including me) use the oven. But I have to say with either technique, the moment when I wipe the black wax away and reveal the brilliant color and design is always a breathtaking moment for me - because as I work the egg, it is all in my imagination. It's when you wipe the wax that the imagined design is truly realised.

Boy, writing about this makes me want to whip out my kistkas.

Um, not Ukrainian, my mum was Polish, but she had Ukrainian friends, and you might want to double check the dates if your story runs from Christmas to New Year's. I believe the Ukrainian Orthodox Church still holds to the 'old' (Julian?)calendar , which puts Christmas Day on January 6th, when we were kids the school would let you off for 'Ukranian Christmas' if you had a note. Which might matter in a ceremonial way if certain things have to be done at certain times. (Like crossing the international date line to get an extra day.)