Emigration of Ukrainians to America

Author

Kozholianko Heorhiy – a Doctor of History, a professor, a head of the Bukovynian Ethnographical Society

Kozholianko Oleksandr – a Doctor of History, an associate professor, an administrative assistant of the Bukovynian Ethnographical Society

Emigration of Ukrainians to America

Abstract

Historical and ethnological studies show that the Ukrainians settled on the American continent as far back as in the XVIIth century. After the annexation of Ukraine to Russia in the mid-XVIIth century, there has intensified the migratory movement from the Ukrainian terrains both westwards and eastwards. The earliest Ukrainian settlement on the American continent appeared in the early XVIIth century.

The settling of Ukrainians on the American continent is also connected with the Russian seafarers’ discovery of Alaska in the early XVIIIth century. That expedition embraced the Ukrainians as well.

It is usually accepted to consider the migrations to Canada undulatory. The first documentary arrivals in the years of 1891–1892 are thought to be the onset of immigration of Ukrainians to Canada.

In the Ukrainian-Canadian historiography, there exists an opinion that the history of Ukrainians in Canada should be reckoned from May 17th, 1813, when the port of Quebec received a regiment’s soldiers sailed on the ships Ann and Canada. Among 1,600 fighting men, over 100 people were of Ukrainian descent. They waged war for the sake of Canada, lost their life for it, and those that had remained alive, became farmers on the acquired ground. It was those described people, who were the earliest Ukrainian settlers in Canada. This resettlement may be called the military-farmer immigration of Ukrainians to Canada in the early XIXth century.

As generally accepted in Canada, 1891 is regarded as an official date of commencement of the migration of Ukrainians to this country, when the Halychyna families of Vasyl Yelyniak and Ivan Pylypiv emigrated there.

Nevertheless, in actual fact, it was the Bukovynians who have laid the foundation for organized settling of the Ukrainians in Canada. Scientific studies demonsrate that not Ukrainians-Halychyna dwellers I. Pylypiv and V. Yelyniak were the earliest organized emigrants from Ukraine to Canada (1891), but the Bukovynians, notably the family of Stefan Koroliuk from the village of Chornivka (1888).

Researching the issues of Ukrainians’ settling in the United States and Canada shows that the first Ukrainians took up their residence in America as far back as in the early XVIIth century. Later on, in the late ХІХth century (1888), the Bukovynian family of Stefan Koroliuk emigrated to Canada.

Keywords

emigration, research, archives, scholars, USA, Canada, historiography, community, migration.

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