Hello you beautiful person,countryEagle/Stacey,
Yes, i remember well the exhaustion I felt in preparing for a feast for my friends and family, many, many times.
but that is part of the Slavonic nature.
that is why you have felt so connected to friends from the Baltic States.
We believe that socialising around food warms, the heart and enhances healing and bonding between friends and family.what you have said about that is so true, it does bring about and enhances connection and joy, laughter is the best medicine for all ills, physical as well as emotional.
Ukraine is not part of the Baltic states. It is a very big country, the name Ukrain means land without borders. that, as well as the fact that it is the "rice bowl", of the region has encouraged marauders and invaders from its long history in the past.
I have finished reading "Ukraine: The history" and it traces the history of Ukraine from 4000 years ago. always it was for its rich back earth, the fertile "Chernaya Zemlya."
the Urainian language is different from the Russian language.
Western Ukraine has many Polishised words and the people are Ukrainian Catholic, while Eastern Ukraine has many Russianised words. e.g. In Western ukraine the word for "fork" is "fidelko: the Polish word, while in Eastern Ukraine the word for "fork" is "vilka", the Russian word. the Faith practised in Eastern Ukraine is Orthodox, like the russian faith.
We, our family are Orthodox, and we speak a Russianised form of Ukrainian.
The reason i can speak russiak (not fluently), but I understand every spoken word, is becuase when we migrated to australia, we lived in Geelong about 50 miles from melbourne and the only church we could attend that was Orthodox was the Russian orthodox church, so many of our family friends in the neighbourhood where we lived in Geelong were Russian and we had to communicate with them in Russian, even the music teacher who taught me on the piano was Lithuanian who culd onlly communicate with me in Russian.
IN my street, my neighbours were from latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Poland, and Estern and Western Ukrainian.
Once the Ukrainian Orthodox church was built about 3 streets away from mine the Catholic Ukrainian church was also built nearby and we began to be polarised from the Russians.
that was a natural thing becuase of the politics played out in the the history of Ukraine , especially in the 20th centruy by the Russian bolsheviks and the communist party headed at first by Lenin then Stalin who murdered 50 million of his own people due to his madness and paranoia.
After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 Ukraine took the opportunity to break away from Russian domination and re -introduced the Ukrainian language, history and arts and crafts, education all in Ukrainian, it was independant for 4 years, having it's independance taken away by the Russian Tsar in the early 1800's. it had it's independance given and taken away many time during the last 500 years. It always took back its independance either from the Polish /Lithuanian/Russian invaders. always for the same reason, for the fertile soil, strategic position to the East and south, hence the formation of the Cossacks, those patriotic sons of Ukraine who were driven by their invaders to the grassy plains ot Eastrn borders of Ukraine, they were the rag-tag soldiers who invariable were the only defenders of Ukraine for centuries.
there was a famous film starring Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis in the 60's called
Taras Bulba" which touched on those Cossacks who defended Ukraine from the marauding Poles at that time in the late 1700's.
If you purchase the book called "The History of Ukraine" by Paul Macosci, a Canadian Ukrainian, from amazon, which is where i got it from, it is so revealing about how Ukraine has been coveted by its neighbours in its long history.In the year 1400 it was conquered by Kublai Khan , a Mongol and was part of his conquest for 200 years.
khublai Khan himself didn not stay there, he returned to Mongolia shortly after conquering Ukraine, but sen as merceneries, the Tatars, who acted on his behalf and took the trade and produce from the Ukraine as part of his conquest.
The tatars settled in the crimea and built schools,mosques and influenced that mpart of the Ukraine with its culture. Evne today you can find traces of its culture, race, language and buildings in the Crimean region of Ukraine.
Stalin inventually killed off or drove out the Tatars in 194 to and beyond the Caucusus mountains in the east, as he considered their presence a blight and disgraceful reminder of their conquest of Russia.
the book i read just reiterated many of the historical truths that happened during my mother's birth, existence and life in the Ukraine under Stalin's rule.
during the Second World War, many soldiers from the Ukraine were forced into the Red Army to faight the Nazis. Imagine how it must have been, to be driven by your enemies from behind to face enemies fromm the front.
20 million men, women and children died during the Second World war, either killed by Stalin's Red Army or by the Nazis.
Hence the displacement of millions of refugees from russia, ukraine and the Baltic countries and Rumania as well as Po9land.
United Nations Refugee orgaisation had millions in camps all over Europe.
some stayed there for decades in camps, particularly if you unlucky enough to be in a camp at the end of the war in Italy.I met some refuees from Italy, Jugoslavians who only got transference papers out of the camps in the early 1960's.
We were lucky enough to be in the amican zone in germany after the war and got out by assisted passage in 1949.
Tracing one's ancestors history gives one a better understanding of your own self.It's a fascinating subject, tracing one's geaology.
I hope my brief outline of the Ukraine and where i originated from gives yu a better understanding and knowledge of that part of the world and its peoples.
The largest Ukrainain migration took place to Canada at the end of the 1800's.
One Jewish migrant to Sachketwan in Canada , who wrote back home how favourable the land and similar the land was to the Ukriane started a mass migration from ukraine to Canada which lasters for decades at the turn of the 20th Century.they started their migration to escape the pogroms of Serfdom by the Russian Tsar.
so i landed in australia with my mother and father and later my sister was born in Australia. Melbourne has the largest Ukrainian community in the Southern Hemisphere.
Now i ma married to a malaysia chinese, have two Eurasia children, one is married to an Italian the other to an Englishman who speaks, reads and writes fluent Mandarin and Japanese.Their childrn are truly representatives of United Nations.
Love and happy reading of my letter to you.
Halyna