Association of United Ukrainian Canadians

The Association of United Ukrainian Canadians (AUUC) is a national cultural-educational non-profit organization established for Ukrainians in Canada

Ukrainian Canadian

A Ukrainian Canadian is a person of Ukrainian descent or origin who was born in or immigrated to Canada. In 2006, there were an estimated 1,209,085 persons residing in Canada of Ukrainian origin, making them Canada's ninth largest ethnic group; and giving Canada the world's third-largest...

. With branches throughout Canada it sponsors such cultural activities as dance groups

Ukrainian dance

Ukrainian dance refers to the traditional folk dances of the peoples of Ukraine.Today, Ukrainian dance is primarily represented by what ethnographers, folklorists and dance historians refer to as "Ukrainian Folk-Stage Dances" , which are stylized representations of traditional dances and their...

, orchestras, choirs and children's activities within the Association.

It was established in Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

in 1918

1918 in Canada

-Events:*March 1 - Harlan Brewster, premier of British Columbia, dies in office*March 6 - John Oliver becomes premier of British Columbia*March 30 - C Squadron of Lord Strathcona's Horse conducts a cavalry charge against the Germans at Moreuil Wood...

as an association of left-leaning cultural societies and community halls and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party of Canada (USDPC), called the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA). By 1928 it had 167 branches across Canada. Labour Temples and other associated halls existed in cities like Winnipeg

Winnipeg

, Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

, and Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

(1921)http://www.tgmag.ca/magic/mt54.html, as well as in rural communities in the Ukrainian Block Settlement

Block Settlement

A block settlement is particular type of land distribution which allows settlers with the same ethnicity to form small colonies.This settlement type was used throughout western Canada between the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

s. The group maintained a firmly Marxist orientation and pro-Soviet stance, and was affiliated with the Communist Party of Canada

Communist Party of Canada

The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...

(CPC). These Labour Temples competed directly with nationalist-related halls called narodny dim
Narodny dim
A narodni dim is a community hall, with a related organization, in the Ukrainian Canadian community. Nardoni dim literally means "people's home" or "national hall"....

(national homes) to provide services and attract patrons, and the UFLTA competed against a plethora of nationalist and Church-backed cultural groups for the loyalty of Ukrainian Canadians. It was funded, in part, by Moscow, and assumed an uncritical pro-Stalinist position, even as word got out of the USSR about the genocidal Great Famine of 1932-33 in Soviet Ukraine (the Holodomor). A small group of UFLTA dissidents (Lobay movement) would break away from the main body and join the Ukrainian Canadian Committee.

As no form of public medicare was available at the time, ULFTA founded the Workers Benevolent Association (WBA) in Winnipeg in 1922, with branches and membership rapidly spreading throughout Canada; it even extended its membership to all workers, irrespective of ethnic origin. It was also a front organization for the ULFTA, supporting it financially.

In 1940, the ULFTA was banned under the wartime Defence of Canada Regulations

Defence of Canada Regulations

The Defence of Canada Regulations were a set of emergency measures implemented under the War Measures Act a week before Canada's entry into World War II in the fall of 1939....

, because of its support for Stalinism and the Soviet-Nazi pact, a few of its leaders and journalists were justifiably interned along with the leadership of the Communist party. Several Labour Temples were confiscated by the federal government as "enemy property" with several being sold off.

In 1942, as a result of the entry of the Soviet Union now becoming an ally of Canada in the war against the Nazis, the group changed faced and its name http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1SEC829439. During the Cold War the AUUC went into steep decline as the crimes of Stalin were exposed increasingly and its pro-Soviet apologists found themselves unable to justify their ideological position. This trend was further exacerbated following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Few contemporary immigrants from Ukraine joined the AUUC and the post-WWII immigration of political refugees was almost unanimously hostile to its pro-Communist, pro-Stalinist line. Today very few of the original Temples still exist.

However, the AUUC has a legacy of senior's homes, children's camps, monuments and museums to Ukrainian literary giants, most notably the monument to the great Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka

Lesya Ukrainka

Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka better known under her literary pseudonym Lesya Ukrainka , was one of Ukraine's best-known poets and writers and the foremost woman writer in Ukrainian literature. She also was a political, civil, and female activist....

, a gift from Soviet Ukraine, on the grounds of the University of Saskatchewan

University of Saskatchewan

The University of Saskatchewan is a Canadian public research university, founded in 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. An "Act to establish and incorporate a University for the Province of Saskatchewan" was passed by the...

in 1976. In addition, the AUUC still runs programs such as Edmonton's Trembita dance ensemble.

The AUUC gained controversy in April 1988 when it published a positive review of Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard, a controversial book by Douglas Tottle

Douglas Tottle

Douglas Tottle is a Canadian trade union activist and the author of a book about the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933 entitled Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard...

in which he asserted that claims the Holodomor

Holodomor

The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...

was an intentional genocide are "fraudulent", and "a creation of Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

propagandists".(The Ukrainian Canadian, April 1988, p. 24). Tottle's work has been since discredited by archival evidence drawn from Soviet archives, which confirm that many millions were starved to death during the Holodomor; the latter was described by the "father of the genocide convention," Raphael Lemkin

Raphael Lemkin

Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent. He is best known for his work against genocide, a word he coined in 1943 from the root words genos and -cide...

, as a genocidal act

Genocide

Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

External links

AUUC article at The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan
AUUC Edmonton Ukrainian Centre website
AUUC Vancouver website

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

See also

External links