Events
You are invited to visit the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
Established in 1976, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, located at the University of Alberta, is a global leader in the field of Ukrainian studies. Our offices are located on the fourth floor of Pembina Hall - if at any point during the conference you are exploring campus and would like to visit, please drop by. Our office hours are 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Presentation: Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada
Time: May 8, 2025, 12:15 pm
Location: Arts and Convocation Building, Main Floor, Student Lounge
Exhibit Opening: Our Life Behind Barbed Wire: Photographs of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters in Nazi Germany. Curated by Alex Averbuch.
Time: May 8, 2025, 12:45 pm
Location: Arts and Convocation Building, Main Floor, Student Lounge
This exhibit showcases rare photographs of Ukrainians brought to Nazi Germany as forced labourers (Ostarbeiters) during World War II, accompanied by excerpts from their letters to relatives back in Soviet Ukraine. Presented within the context of official visual and textual propaganda, these personal materials are explored as carriers of news, covert messages, and creative resistance under totalitarian rule. Highlighting the historical and emotional weight of firsthand accounts, the exhibit challenges the prevailing notion that Ostarbeiters left no cultural or artistic record. The exhibit will be open throughout the conference.
Join us for the exhibit opening and talk by Alex Averbuch. This talk will open the exhibit Our Life Behind Barbed Wire: Photographs of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters in Nazi Germany, curated by Alex Averbuch. 12:45 p.m., Arts and Convocation Building, Main Floor, Student Lounge.
War, Memory, and Song: A Musico-Poetic Performance
Time: May 8, 2025, 5:15 pm
Location: Arts and Convocation Building, Main Floor, Student Lounge
Join us for a powerful performance featuring poet Alex Averbuch and musician and composer Olga Zaitseva-Herz — an immersive blend of poetry, music, and storytelling that offers a profound meditation on war, memory, and resilience. Averbuch will read from his original Ukrainian poetry and its English translations, weaving together voices from past and present wars. Through his pages, a Babylonian mix of peoples, restlessly and torturously displaced, speaks in a multitude of voices — revealing Ukraine’s horrors and inspirations. His work evokes the trauma of war through poeticized documentary materials — from WWII Ostarbeiters and Holocaust survivors to those enduring Russian aggression against Ukraine, currently unfolding in Averbuch’s home region of Luhansk. Accompanied by Olga Zaitseva-Herz's haunting melodies and song, the performance paints a poignant portrait of uprooted lives — registering the stories of those captured, deported, or lost to violence, alongside reflections on people and objects left behind in occupied territories.
Film Screening: A Canadian War Story, directed by John Paskievich
Time: May 9, 2025, 7:00 pm
Location: The Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS) L1-140
To mark the occasion of the 80th anniversary of VE Day and the Allied victory over the Axis Powers, the Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, in partnership with the Ukrainian Pioneers Association of Alberta, is screening A Canadian War Story (2023), by the Winnipeg filmmaker and photographer, John Paskievich. The one-hour documentary, produced by the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre in Toronto, tells the story of the estimated 40,000 Ukrainian Canadians who served in Canada’s Armed Forces during the Second World War. Jars Balan from the University of Alberta will introduce the film. A Q&A with the director will follow the film.
Curator's Talk: The Ukrainian Voice Legacy Mosaic. Curated by Larisa Sembaliuk Cheladyn.
Time: May 10, 2025, 1:30 pm
Location: Royal Alberta Museum (to register please email pogosjan@ualberta.ca)
The Ukrainian Voice Legacy Mosaic captures the collective memories of the Ukrainian Canadian Community from the early 1920s to the mid-1990s. The interactive installation is made from 2,674 printing blocks salvaged from Trident Press in Winnipeg, Canada’s oldest Ukrainian-language printing house, founded in 1910. The photographs and graphic images pay tribute to the many events and accomplishments that shaped Canadian history. The Mosaic will be displayed at the Royal Alberta Museum from April 2 - June 23, 2025.
Visit to the Basilian Fathers Museum in Mundare and Film Screening: “A Canadian War Story,” directed by John Paskievich.
Time: May 10, 2025, leaving from the University of Alberta at 1:00 pm (Mundare is about an hour's drive east of Edmonton, transportation will be provided, however, space will be limited to the available vehicles). To register please email Jars Balan, jbalan@ualberta.ca.
You are invited to visit the Basilian Fathers Museum in Mundare. “A Canadian War Story” will be screened at the museum at 2:30 pm. A Q & A session with the filmmaker will follow the screening. The museum curator, Karen Lemiski, will be happy to show any CAS scholars their huge archival collection of books, periodicals and artifacts, and it will also be possible to tour the museum. A reception with sandwiches will complete the event by 5:30-6:00 pm.
The Kule Folklore Centre will be open for visitors on Thursday and Friday, May 8 and 9, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Please feel free to drop by!
The Kule Folklore Centre is dedicated to collecting, sharing, and preserving Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Canadian culture through research, education, and community engagement. Since the 1980s, the Centre has served as a global hub for Ukrainian folklore studies and is home to the Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, the Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography, and the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives.
You can read more about our history and programs here.