Ukrainian Canadian

From the Associated Press:

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s pro-Western Orange coalition dissolved Tuesday as her former allies turned against her, setting her up to be ousted in a no-confidence vote.

The development spells the final repudiation of the Orange Revolution Tymoshenko helped lead in 2004, and paves the way for Ukraine’s new Kremlin-friendly president to consolidate his power.

…

In a sign that she will be removed, speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn told parliament Tuesday the Orange coalition had been unable to prove it still had majority support in the 450-seat chamber.

“This coalition did not come up with enough votes … I therefore announce the termination of this coalition’s activity,” Lytvyn said.

Russia’s new ambassador arrived in Kiev to congratulate Yanukovych on now appears to be total victory.

Ukraine’s political parties must now form a new majority coalition, and are most likely to group around Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Yanukovych says that if no majority can be reached he will disband parliament and call elections.

Tymoshenko lashed out at Lytvyn, who is also a leader of the Orange forces in parliament, for “illegally ruining the democratic coalition” and paving the way for Yanukovych’s “anti-Ukrainian dictatorship.”

“This was the last barricade worth defending if we wanted to protect our independence, sovereignty, strength and the European development of our country,” Tymoshenko said in a televised speech.

“History will hold him responsible,” she said.

Tymoshenko laid out no plan of action. She said only that she would seek to unite Ukraine’s “truly democratic and patriotic forces.”

Parliament is set to hold a confidence vote Wednesday on Tymoshenko’s government.

Read the rest of the article

From the Province:

The Olympic party may be over but at least one country’s hospitality house may be facing a stiff bill for broadcasting the Games to its visitors.

Ukraine House, sponsored jointly by a local non-profit group and the country’s Olympic organizing committee, learned halfway through the televised Games it was infringing on CTV’s broadcast rights for turning on two TVs in the hall.

The screens went dark before the Canada-Slovakia men’s quarterfinal hockey game on Friday night after CTV asked for $8,000 because Ukraine House was rebroadcasting its signal to an audience.

“If we had to pay the full amount, we couldn’t pay and without the Olympics on TV, (the house) just wouldn’t work,” said organizer Adam Kozak.

“We’re just a little guy,” he said. “We’re going to lose money and we had a very limited budget and we didn’t know about the (fee).”

He said the $8,000 amounts to almost a quarter of the house’s entire operating budget.

Ukraine House, which charged no admission, offered home-cooked meals and a cash bar, isn’t expected to even break even after paying suppliers and rent for the hall on Ash Street near 16th Avenue.

“We didn’t have huge crowds, but we were the friendliest (of the countries’ houses),” said Kozak.

Kozak said after a call, CTV agreed to waive the $8,000 fee in lieu of a $1,500 donation to the Rick Hansen Foundation.

CTV’s Andrea Goldstein said she wasn’t able to provide an executive to comment on the fee or if other houses were charged similar fees for broadcasting the Games to their patrons.

Read the rest of the article

Shame on you CTV!

From the National Catholic Register:

LVIV, Ukraine — Just 20 years ago, in Moscow, some 200 Ukrainian Catholics initiated a hunger strike to dramatize their demand that the Soviet government legalize the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the largest Eastern-rite Catholic Church, which had been banned and persecuted by the Communists for 45 years.

The bravery of these faithful — and the Vatican’s swift engagement — led to Soviet recognition of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in December 1989, announced during President Mikhail Gorbachev’s historic visit with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic community, geographically centered in western Ukraine around the city of Lviv, began rebuilding with gusto.

The obstacles were immense: The Soviet regime had confiscated all Church property, and the Church had few clergy, since most had been imprisoned, murdered or forced into exile. The number of believers had dwindled, since they had been punished or intimidated into worshipping elsewhere.

But the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, operating underground, also had remarkable resources, including a dedicated diaspora that had protected the faith abroad and strong support from Rome.

And from the start, the Ukrainian Church had a vision of the centrality of education to its revival.

It’s that vision that has brought about the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, the only Catholic university in the former Soviet Union and the first university founded by an Eastern-rite Church in full communion with the Holy See.

Founded eight years ago and built on a cornerstone blessed by Pope John Paul II when he visited in 2001, the Ukrainian Catholic University has been cited by many Roman Catholic leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI, as a portentous sign of a Catholic renaissance in the former Soviet republics, where political progress is fitful — and religious tolerance still not perfectly assured.

The roots of the university date to an 18th-century seminary, closed by the Soviets in 1944. The seminary reopened just outside Lviv, in the middle of a forest, in 1992, one year after Ukraine regained its independence.

“To replace the Lviv seminary confiscated by the Soviets, the Ukrainian government offered the Church an abandoned summer camp, without even heating for winter,” said Matthew Matuszak, 44, an American who taught English and Latin at the school in the 1990s. In exchange, the Church had to give up claims for the seminary’s original buildings.

Read the rest of the article

From BlogTO:

Out in the west end at Royal York station, you’ll often find TTC busker Yarko Antonevych calmly plucking away at a strange lute-like instrument. The scene so charming and anachronistic that it’s no wonder commuters are instantly drawn to him. “What is that you’re playing?” they’ll ask, and it has become such a common question that Yarko has the  bandura’s history hard-wired into his brain for anyone who cares to know.

Humble Yarko says he is but a bandurist and not a  kobzar, or a traveling Ukrainian minstrel who would historically entertain and teach those around him. But if you ask me, with his natural storytelling capability and eagerness to share what he knows, there is no description that better fits him than that of a modern-day kobzar.

…

For me, being a TTC bandurist is a way of continuing the tradition and legacy of these kobzari. They played in marketplaces; the TTC is my marketplace. I’m introducing the instrument to people who wouldn’t normally hear about it. I’ve been a TTC busker on and off since 1987. It’s a nice way to round out my income, too.

…

A kobzar is more spiritual, more of a teacher to other people. A bandurist is someone who plays the bandura. Kobzar is a term that I wouldn’t be able to use on myself. Someone else would have to call me that, and I have been called that by certain people.

Read the rest of the article

Next time you are taking the subway to the West end, be sure to stop by!

After being inaugurated yesterday it looks like Yanukoych’s pro-Russian agenda wasted no time in getting started. Today on the Presidential website a section to the dedication of the genocide that was the Holodomor was removed.

This is what the page used to have (thanks Google cache):

But now there’s nothing. Who to complain to? Yanukovych has an official feedback form that’s worth a try (or maybe it will put you on a secret blacklist). Anyways it’s good to make your voice heard. I guess they are finally accepting Yanukovych’s candy after all!

[Thanks Ucrania-Mozambique for pointing this out]

Update: Also Ukrainiana points out that the official Ukrainian Presidents Twitter page is now defunct as well.