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Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation pp 131–147Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Political Narratives of Victimisation in the Ukrainian-Canadian Diaspora

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Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

Abstract

This chapter analyses how the idea of common trauma becomes a part of the narrative for a diaspora group as a source for mobilisation, coherence, and organisation. It examines specifically the shared memories and experiences of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada with a focus on the political influence of the personal stories of survivors; those who lived through the Holodomor Famine of Soviet Ukraine between 1932 and 1933. It considers how these experiences became part of the main discourse for the Ukrainian diaspora in the twentieth century and in turn supported their major mobilisation initiatives, as echoed in recent dramatic events in Ukraine.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From the 1932 harvest, Soviet authorities were able to procure only 4.3 million tons, as compared with 7.2 million tons obtained from the 1931 harvest.

  2. 2.

    The fourth wave began in the late 1980s and continues to this day. The majority of fourth-wave emigrants are labour migrants, although some refugees can also be found within this wave. “This means that the Ukrainian diaspora is made up of elements of first-generation migrants who first formed a combination of labour and victim diasporas, and people who are separated by as many as four or five generations from their immigrant ancestors and who tend to display more of the features of a cultural diaspora.” The new impulse was given to Ukrainian-Canadians after the end of World War II (Satzewich 2002:23).

  3. 3.

    As noted, Ukrainian history of the twentieth century contains some tragic episodes with extreme numbers of population deaths caused by lack of food.

  4. 4.

    Canadian provinces with a high concentration of Ukrainians.

  5. 5.

    J. P. Humphrey is a Canadian legal scholar, well known for his work on a first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and his investigation of genocides. According to Kasyanov (2010: 24), Humphrey proved with arguments that the Holodomor had all the evidences of genocide against Ukrainian people.

  6. 6.

    See the recent controversy with the Canadian Museum of Human Rights and Victims of Communism Memoria (Butler 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Milana Nikolko

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  1. Milana Nikolko
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Correspondence to Milana Nikolko .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norman Paterson School, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    David Carment

  2. European Ethnology, University of Vienna, Wien, Austria

    Ariane Sadjed

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Nikolko, M. (2017). Political Narratives of Victimisation in the Ukrainian-Canadian Diaspora. In: Carment, D., Sadjed, A. (eds) Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32892-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32892-8_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32891-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32892-8

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