Do any of you have Ukrainian ancestry?

Surely I can't be the ONLY one here?

Da, Taqk, im a third generation . half my ancestors are from the greater Lvov Metropolitan area.

I went arnd with a Ukranian man once (a total of two dates) Does that count ? Other than that I have been to Kyiv 3 times.

My ancestry is pretty boring - we have been pure blooded indians since forever....

My wife's father's family were from a town near the Urkraine, for awhile it was in Poland, then it wasn't, then it was, then it wasn't again. I can look it up.

J

Hey, wow, farmerman! We are almost related!

Yes, it counts, Gautam, sort of ..... Was he handsome, with dark soulful eyes & constantly contemplating the meaning of life & death?

Hey, pure blooded Indians aren't boring! Wow, that's exciting!

All very ironic--my sweetiepie works with a Ukranian woman, who had met an Indian gentleman there (Kiev, i believe, although i'm not certain). She got into Canadia, but his paperwork had been held up for some reason. She spent the last couple of years talking to him long distance while he tried to get things straightened out. He has now joined her in Canadia.

I understand the thing about it being Poland, then the Ukraine, followed by Poland ..... Poles & Ukrainians still get snitchy here in Oz about WHAT the place actually IS! Needless to say, Ukrainians are ADAMANT that it's Ukraine. Poles, likewise .... They get very fierce about it!

Setanta

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, I love a happy ending!
Canada, by the way, has a HUGE Ukrainian population.

farmerman

Do you by any chance speak Ukrainian? I do, sort of, but it's very crummy Ukrainian! Wouldn't even attempt to do it with anyone bar my mother or my aunt. Too embarrassing!

So does Pennsylvania. My brother's first wife was considered a "Hunky," but was in fact, not Hungarian, but Ukranian--on her father's side. Her mother was Irish. Altogether, a very dangerous combination.

oh my, yes!

Years ago, when I first saw The Deer Hunter, the town & the people reminded me very much of Ukrainians here in Oz.

I speak very little, only some phrases. My grandparents always made fun of my efforts and , as you know, depression is an artform over there. so, I decided to concentrate on German and Spanish . F* em. I can speak a little more Polish than Ukey dialect. apparently Lvov was one of those towns that, since Vladimir Leschinsky, was under frequent Polish claims
However, even when he got to the US ,my grandfather was rarely happy , he always told stories of wolves eating kids and the Potwori and Czarnowicka that ate kids too.Alsohe seemed to live for funerals of his friends. He drank heavily because, as he said, his education wasnt wanted inthe US
Its amazing that Im always so damn happy , I think I made a conscious effort not to emulate my jadek. Even my own father was kind of dour
he was career army and later a railroad executive for a dying industry) So I looked up to my uncle Stash who taught geology out in uNM and was a really happy guy , kind of like Gabby hayes with a phD.
A cultrural shortcoming among us with Ukey background is , we like to talk alot and tell sad stories . in that respect Im not unlike others on this line, that is , we have members who can answer "How ya doin?" in a fashion that requires a table of contents.

This is all very interesting, in that the Ukranians are one of the most mixed ethnic groups in Europe. The Zhaporozhky Cossacks and the Don Cossacks are very likely not descended from the same tribe. After the "Golden Horde" overran Russia, and then the Crimean Tatars invaded and imposed a tribute, the old Rus aristocracy instituted serfdom to assure the labor necessary to pay the tribute. Runaway serfs would head for the Ukraine, as the Cossacks would shelter anyone willing to work the land for them--they were then more or less free, certainly more so than on a Muscovite estate. When the schism occurred in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Patriarchy of Nikon, many of the Old Believers also sought refuge there. After Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst became the Empress Catherine, she imported a great many Germans into the area. Many, many different tribes have left their mark, and their seed, in the Ukraine.

When i worked at the University of Illinois, the head of the Slavic Languages and Literature Department there was Kurt Klein. He was a Ukrainian descended from Sophie's Germans. During the Second World War, when he was just an adolescent, the Germans there were much persecuted. The Russians and the "ethnic" Ukranians hunted them, on the grounds that they were likely to be fifth columnists. The Germans considered them little better than Slavs (a great insult to their minds) and persecuted them as well. He basically walked from the banks of the Don river to the English channel. Took him three and half years; he slept in the cellars of bombed out houses, or in barns when he could meet a sympathetic farmer. By the time he arrived in America, he spoke nearly every Slavic language spoken east of the Balkans, as well as German, French and English. He was a very interesting man indeed.

Oh, farmerman I KNOW about the DEEP MELANCHOLY! Boy, do I know about it!!! Seems to be a very Ukrainian thing, that. And church!!!!!! The most miserable moments of my childhood were spent in Ukrainian churches! (No wonder I gave up on religion!) My definition of depression is the Ukrainian Easter: No singing, dancing, enjoying one's self on Good Friday, because Christ died for our sins! This after endless evenings of stations of the cross. Then the Easter Sunday mass - hours & hours of it! All on a rumbling stomach from fasting from midnight. The only good thing about it all was that the boys got to kiss the girls, with the greeting of "Christ has arisen!" after mass. And, of course, breaking the fast with a lunch of the blessed food.

"Hunkeys" & "Ukeys": I like it!

Setanta

That's really interesting! How do you get to know all this stuff. I wonder? Makes me feel rather embarrassed about my patchy knowledge of the Ukraine & my ancestors.

oh, but msOlga - Ukrainian Orthodox weddings are so fantastic!
You're right about the enormous Ukrainian community here in Canada.
I've had a number of Ukrainian friends here in Toronto - love their festivals and dancing and food and oh, my - it's a lively bunch.

I would love to go to Kiev. The photos my colleague has been showing me over the past two years - what a gorgeous city!


errrr, a fine point. They prefer to have it called Ukraine, not "the Ukraine". I've been puzzling over that for some time, but am trying to adjust.

I guess we don't say the Australia, or the Canada, or the Germany.

We do say the United States of America, and used to say the Soviet Union, but that's a different kettle o' sardines.