Svitlana Ostash, Press Secretary of the UWCC

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At the end of the last year we observed the 120th anniversary of the resettlement of Ukrainians to the Far East. This and our desire to get closer acquainted with the Ukrainian diaspora made an occasion for one more travel of the Ukrainian World Coordination Council (UWCC). We went via the island of Sakhalin, Khabarovsk and Primorsk Krai to Kamchatka Peninsula. The delegation was headed by UWCC chairman Mykhailo Horyn.

This anniversary, certainly, is a relative event (the Ukrainian diaspora began forming here in the mid-19th century); it is connected with a concrete event-seeing out two steamships with over 1,500 of resettlers in Odesa in March, 1883. During following years-mainly at public expense-dozens of thousands of Ukrainians attracted by free allotments went to the Far East via Constantinople, Singapore and Nagasaki. 275 acres were allotted per family; any body could buy more for a song. The first resettlers using the privileges of the tsarist government for the new land developers came from the Left-Bank Ukraine (Chernihiv Province, Poltava Province); in due course they were joined by people from Yekaterinoslav and Kherson Provinces etc. The Ukrainians founded settlements with the habitual

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names of Pereyaslavka, Higher Monomakh, Chernihivka, Rokytne etc. which exist up to now.

On the eve of the WWI Ukrainians there were more Ukrainians, than Russians. According to the last official census, there are more than 500,000 settlers from Ukraine in the Far East now. Informal figure is much higher. According to the Ostrova News Agency, Ukrainians and Chinese, occupying the fourth and the third place on the minorities list, migrate to the RF in quantities of 100,000 annually. The majority is granted civic rights there.

"Are we different?"

Such was the official answer at many meetings when we asked about the possibility to open Ukrainian classes or the right of national minority to receive the information in its native language. As an argument for the sufficiency of one language they quoted official and informal data on the mixed marriages. "We cannot differentiate any more the roots and branches, " said Valeriy Zhuromskiy, Minister of Culture of the Khabarovsk Krai. "By the way, I am from the Zhytomyr Oblast." Nevertheless Ukrainians represent a separate branch of Slavs, and can resist assimilation, historians maintain.

The top level meetings (Krai and Oblast) were held everywhere along the route of delegation according to the same scenario. At first our hosts described in glowing terms their impressions from fairy and warm climes named Ukraine. However, when we touched upon vital issues of Ukrainian diaspora, the officials became angry and scorned ruiners of the FSU, who built customs houses and split one nation into two.

How does local authority treat Ukrainian diaspora? In 2002, having taken advantage of the Year of Ukraine in Russia, the Chairman of the Council of Sakhalin Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of Ukrainians "Kyivan Rus" Mykola Zasenko suggested the regional authorities to organize festival marking this event. Instead of it the management of culture offered to conduct the Day of Ukraine on Sakhalin. Mykola Zasenko insisted to make it at least a decade. The authorities assented, but officially answered, that they had no money to spend for it. The Ukrainians found money and organized the event, but they failed to find themselves on invitations and posters as the main organizers and sponsors. As the holiday was held in May the year before last, the oblast mass media shifted the key points and transformed the festival into the May Day celebrations.

Still several years ago there was a Ukrainian broadcast in the city of Dolinsk. On the basis of the quantity of Ukrainian Community (46,000 out of almost 700,000 population of Sakhalin) and the federal law "About the national and cultural autonomies" (#74-FZ from June 17, 1996), Mykola Zasenko made a request to renew it.

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The Vice-Governor V. Gomilevskiy explained Ukrainian diaspora in writing, that, in conformity with the law, the federal and local administrations of the Russian Federation should help national and cultural autonomies to publish books, periodicals, organize TV and radio broadcasting, creation of mass media in Russian, and in national (native) languages, as well as provide time for on-air broadcasting. The periodicity and duration of broadcasting as well as the language of broadcasts are determined by the agreements with the founders and editorial boards of TV and radio programs. "Today there is no such agreement between the Council of Sakhalin Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of Ukrainians "Kyivan Rus" and administration of the Sakhalin Oblast (co-founder of the radio "Sakhalin" and television "Sakhalin")," reads the document of Mister Gomilevskiy. "Moreover, according to the Law of Russian Federation "About mass media", the editorial board of a media starts its activity after the registration only. The certificates of registration issued to the radio "Sakhalin" and television "Sakhalin" determine the following languages of broadcasting: Russian, English, Japanese, and Korean. Ukrainian is not listed as a language of broadcasting of the public television and radio companies. Hence, there is no sufficient legal basis for Ukrainian broadcasting." That is the federal law is not the sufficient legal basis for the local authority to permit one of the most numerous national minorities of the island to receive information in its native language.

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The deformed national consciousness

In the 1920s in the south of the Russian Far East Ukrainians had possibilities for the relatively free national-cultural development; this made public active. There was developed the whole structure of national self-government in the Zelioniy Klin: 24 Ukrainian regions got consolidated into territorially large Zielionaya Ukraina (which was also called the New Ukraine), the Ukrainian press appeared (more than 10 newspapers and magazines) and a publishing house, national cooperation, and military formations. There were more than 700 Ukrainian schools; Ukrainian language was used by administrators. All of it was stopped in 1923 with the establishment of the Soviet regime, which condemned Ukrainian patriots for their attempt to hold Far East away from Russia.

"The national and cultural life declined for decades, " says the chairman of the national-cultural autonomy, historian Vyacheslav Chornomaz. "The Soviet authorities cast prudence to the winds to make Ukrainians of the Zelioniy Klin loose their identity; now these people have the deformed national consciousness, which it is very difficult to revive."

The Sakhalin regional national-cultural autonomy of Ukrainians "Kyivan Rus" (since 1987-the cultural and educational society) was created early in 2002, but it is not registered until now. The Sunday school opened in the nineties is not working now. The autonomy owns no mass media and cannot receive and disseminate information. There is still a number of ensembles: "Dolynonka", "Slaviya", "Volia" and children's "Zerniatko". The great contribution into their development was made by the artistic instructor Liudmyla Zasenko.

In Khabarovsk Krai there are two associations of Ukrainians: public organization "Association of Ukrainian Culture of the Khabarovsk Krai Zeleny Klyn" headed by Marko Prokopovych and the Khabarovsk Krai Center of Ukrainian culture "Krynytsia". They are engaged in cultural activity only; they have neither premises, nor mass media. There live almost 100,000 Ukrainians in the krai, but there is not a single Ukrainian class.

In Primorye Krai there is more Ukrainians: over 180,000. But they also have no possibilities and-even more so-desire to maintain their originality. There are only two public Ukrainian organizations: the national-cultural autonomy "Prosvita" (Vladivostok) and the Spassk national-cultural autonomy "Dzherela Ukrayiny" (Spassk-Dalniy City). Both these communities have artistic ensembles: the Primorskiy Ukrainian chorus "Horlytsia" and "Chysta krynytsia". Besides, in different areas of the krai more than a dozen amateur artistic collectives work without any remuneration. The most popular of them are "Sviy Styl" (Fokin City) and "Veselka" (Bolshoi Kamen Town) .

Ukrainians living here can listen to only one half-hour monthly broadcast in Spassk- Dalniy City; the Ukrainian language is not taught. By the way, at the Dalnievostochniy University they study cultures and languages of many peoples of the world. "In the first place, they teach languages of neighboring peoples: Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and now they are beginning to train experts in such exotic languages and cultures, as Thai,

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Vietnamese, Hindi etc.," says Vyacheslav Chornomaz. "Population here and the representatives of humanitarian intelligentsia, in particular, have a kind of foggy idea about the history of culture of Ukraine and its contemporary life. "

The first national-cultural autonomy of Ukrainians registered in the Russian Federation was from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski. There are 46,000 Ukrainians living on the peninsula, which is almost 10 percents of all population. The national-cultural autonomy of Kamchatka Ukrainians headed by Viktor Manzhos has its own monthly newspaper "Batkivshchyna". For the second year in a row there is the Ukrainian Sunday class in a city, which more than twenty pupils attending. The diaspora was lucky to employ talented teachers Oxana Petruk and Mariya Sydoryk. The pupils here are both from Ukrainian and mixed families. Irina Guiliazova, the director of the school, takes care of the Ukrainian class and says: "When the representatives of Ukrainian diaspora came to me and asked to create a class, I stood up against it at first. I am Tatar myself. But I agreed on the second thought. Now I deem it necessary that the Ukrainian example is followed by the Tatar diaspora. I would give them a class with pleasure. Quite often our children do not have a slightest idea who they are."

The Ukrainian culture club has been working at the oblast library for thirteen years now; it is managed by Edita Pozniakiva. Due to this woman a number of books (though very thin) were published on Kamchatka: I Had No Youth by Sviatoslav Polishchuck, The History of One Family As a Hiatory of Ukraine by Nina Balanchuk etc. The authors are Ukrainians brought by good wind to the faraway peninsula.

However, the common self-consciousness and activity of the Far-East Ukrainians (with exception of the former repressed ones) are low; very few people know Ukrainian; there is but a small number of young persons in organizations. The fourth or the fifth generation of Ukrainians living here is well integrated into the Russian society and more often than not they do not have the slightests idea about modern Ukraine. The Russian mass media paint Ukraine as a country of disasters: either a plane was brought down, or children are starving at the infant home. And nothing about everything else.

Bread and salt is ok, then what?

They heartily welcomed the UWCC delegation in the Far East. In their

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turn, the members of the delegation did their best to inform about Ukraine: handed books and newspapers kindly given by the National Parliamentary Library, State Library of Ukraine for Youth, State Committee for the information policy of Ukraine, "Veselka" Publishers, OUN Secretariat. They lectured students and communities, granted interviews.

At the press conference dedicated to the results of the trip a Ukrainian newswoman asked, whether such trips would help to stir Ukrainians. Certainly, trips wouldn't suffice. National feelings need to be developed; they wouldn't appear out of the blue. But the hope for revival still exists; the participation of the Russian speaking sponsors of Ukrainian origin is a good example.

The state concept of work with Ukrainians abroad is necessary. The UWCC will appeal to the presidents of Ukraine and Russia, Verkhovna Rada and Cabinet of Ukraine. The above-stated facts show that there are only twenty ensembles< one radio broadcast, one newspaper and one Sunday class per 500,000 Ukrainians in the Far East. The resources of the Russian national minority in Ukraine cannot be even compared with those of Ukrainians in Russia.

During the last decade many Ukrainians left the Far East. Only those who identify themselves as the Far East residents remained there. There is a lot of Ukrainian words in their spoken Russian. They have kept national customs, transfer recipes of Ukrainian dishes from generation to generation and do not take offence being

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called Ukes. The like situation is in Kuban district, where Ukrainians were transformed into Cossacks and speak Ukrainian, which is called the Kuban jargon. Because of low national self-consciousness the Far-East Ukrainians never set global objectives. But our state cannot leave aside the said examples of oppressions; it certainly has to protest, like Russia does. The Ukrainian authorities should work out a mechanism of getting versatile news, reference books and historical literature etc by the Ukrainian diaspora in Russia. Besides it should help the Ukrainian diaspora activists to solve a number of concrete problems: open the Far East consulate-let it be only honorablefor the beginning, - initiate the course of Ukrainian studies at the Dalnevostochniy University, construct the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Kyiv Patriarchate in Vladivostok, carry out subscription of periodicals etc. Because it is rather difficult to build the image of Ukraine in information vacuum.

Adopted from the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia Weekly, #2, Jan. 17, 2004

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