Folk Furniture of Canada's Doukhobors, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Ukrainians

Jaroslaw Zurowsky is a translator and editor in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

This book presents handcrafted Canadian pioneer furniture created by
four different groups with Eastern Europe roots: the Hutterites and the
Ukrainians, who arrived from regions controlled by the Austrian Empire,
and the Russian Doukhobors and German Mennonites, who left the Russian
Empire.

Folk Furniture of Canada’s Doukhobors, Hutterites, Mennonites, and
Ukrainians could have provided some interesting insights into the
cultural development of Western Canadian pioneer life. Unfortunately,
the book is poorly researched. There are no explanations for, among
other things, the predominance of red and yellow paint on Mennonite
furniture and the root of the Mennonite obsession with clocks. There are
factual errors, too, even in the bibliography (for example, Paul Magocsi
is not the editor of The Encyclopedia of Ukraine published by the
University of Toronto). The book’s one redeeming feature are the many
fine photographs by James Chambers.