FORMATION OF UKRAINIAN MEMORIAL AND MONUMENTAL SPACE IN CANADA

The article is devoted to the study of the process of formation of the Ukrainian memorial and monumental space in Canada. The study is based on written (information leaflets, programs of events, materials from the Government of Canada, documents of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine [CP(b)U]), pictorial (photo images of monuments), electronic (materials from the official websites of Ukrainian embassies in Canada and Canadian embassies in Ukraine, public associations of Ukrainians in Canada) sources. They showed that in Canada, more than twenty monuments are dedicated to the iconic subjects of the Ukrainian history. They are located in five provinces – Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan, which are places of compact residence of Ukrainians. It is shown that the monuments are dedicated to important events of national history, namely: emigration, the Holodomor, as well as prominent writers and poets. Six memorials commemorate the victims of the Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine, and four monuments honour the figure Taras Shevchenko. All, except one memorial, were installed in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The culmination of the activity of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada took place at this time. The initiative to erect monuments in most cases belonged to the Ukrainian community. Funding was provided by private donations, which indicates the existence of an internal need to create their own symbolic space. The unveiling of each monument was accompanied by the mass of people, and Canadian high-ranking officials were often present, which demonstrates the organic fit of the Ukrainian memory into the all-Canadian one. It is noted that several monuments were donated to the Ukrainian Canadian community by the Soviet government on behalf of the Ukrainian people. Such actions testified to attempts to expand the Soviet Union’s influence on the Ukrainian diaspora. Thus, the community of millions of Ukrainians in Canada has not only preserved its language, religion, and traditions, but also outlined the visual space of its own history through the installation of monuments. This strengthened their self-identification with the Ukrainian people and their ethnic homeland.