Kobzar's Children: A Century of Untold Ukrainian Stories

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

In a preface, editor Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch explains that,
historically, kobzars were blind, wandering minstrels in the Ukraine who
shared long epic poems they had memorized with the general populace.
During the 1930s, Stalin, believing these storytellers were creating new
stories that were anti-Soviet, had most of kobzars executed. Skrypuch,
herself of Ukrainian heritage, recalls growing up in Canada without
encountering English-language literature that presented Ukrainians in a
positive light.

This most readable collection of 20 stories, poems, and memoir
extracts, contributed by 12 different authors and organized
chronologically by time setting, is Skrypuch’s way of providing a
vehicle for a new generation of kobzars to present fresh stories of
Ukrainian life. The collection spans the period from approximately 1912
to the Ukrainian-Canadian response to the 2004 Orange Revolution in
Ukraine. The contributions, which are frequently accompanied by candid
black-and-white photos, range in content from those situated in specific
historical events, such as World War II and the concentration camps
(“Auschwitz: Many Circles of Hell)” to those, like the
collection’s opening “A Home of Her Own,” which reveal what life
and social conditions were like during a particular historical period,
in this case early 20th-century Canada. While Canada (especially the
Prairies) provides the settings for most pieces, a number, like “The
Rings,” which revolves around the 1932–33 famine/genocide, are
located in Ukraine. A closing “About the Authors” section includes
brief biographical information and a black-and-white photo for each
contributor. Recommended.