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[UKRAINIAN AMATEUR THEATRE IN CANADA] Svatannia v ... Skachevani Komediia na Chotyry Dii [i.e. Matchmaking in ... Saskatchewan. A Comedy in Four Acts]

Yrshchenyi, Ivan (Bodrug, John)

Item #2503

Winnipeg: Z Drukarni Kanadiiskoho Ranka for Petro Shevchuk, 1926. 61, [3] p. 15×11 cm. Original publisher’s paper cover. In Ukrainian. Right edge of the brochure is bumped, minor defects to the lower right corner of the block; else fine.

Yrshchenyi is not a real surname, rather a Hutsul dialecticism. Hutsuls are a Ukrainian sub-ethnic group of the Carpaty mountains region using a mix of Romanian and Ukrainian languages. Thus yrshchenyi is an endonym evolved from the Russian khreshchenyi, an adjective meaning “baptised” or “christened”. Hutsul people were (and some still are) calling themselves yrshchenyi. This underlines the opposition to their heathen neighbours. And the author who chose this pseudonym was not only christened himself – but actively baptised
others. The real author of this play is a priest named Ivan Bodruh. This fact was confirmed by us using supplementary documents accompanying the Bodruh’s archive donated to Library and Archives Canada and described by W. Holowacz and M. Momryk in John Bodrug Papers. MG 30, D 214. Finding aid no. 1664 (National Ethnic Archives, 1986). Ivan Bodruh (1874–1952) was born in Kolomiya, Austro-Hungaria. Hutshul people were independent and free of serfdom. Looking for better life opportunities, Bodruh joined the first Ukrainian immigrant wave heading to North America. He moved to Canada during the third immigration wave in 1897 and westernised his name as John Bodrug. Bodruh was a pioneer in many senses. He was probably the first ever Ukrainian university student in the whole of North America. As an educated evangelist, he was an active enlightenment proponent, engaged in fundraising for local national Ukrainian schools. And while prior to WWI there were as few as a couple of thousand of Ukrainians, by early 1920’s Canada housed over 100 thousand of Ukrainians, with a noticeable percentage of them being literate. In spite of that, there was a need for national media. So a number of newly emerged local Ukrainian newspapers saw Bodruh’s editorial supervision, namely Kanadysky Farmer and Ranok: the latter one also covered the publishing process of the brochure. As Bodruh mostly wrote on local news and theologica, Svatannia appears to be his only work of fiction. In the short preface the author shares his hopes that the play will bring some “spiritual benefits”. And indeed the play stays true to the task of intellectual development of the viewers. Even at the cost of the artistic value.

The play revolves around lives of two neighbouring farmer families with a boy and a girl from younger generation Handzia and Roman. Those two are the bride and groom respectively. The story is about the moral transformation of a rich but covetous and old-fashioned farmer who never got used to the more advanced Western style of living. His daughter Handzia wishes for their family to spend money in the correct way, for self-development and education and she asks to buy her a piano. But her father lives according to the traditional Hutsul way. He does not and nor wants to understand the modern times and his more open-minded fellow farmers. The old farmer even refuses to finance a new Ukrainian school! He tries to
match Handzia with an unattractive and drinking but rich kid. But Handzia loves Roman and the boy proposes to leave for Saskatchewan and start a new family, build a new farm with the support of his own, more progressive family. Handzia agrees and runs away to Roman. Her future father-in-law and mother-in-law hide the poor girl from angry parents – and bless Roman and Handzia to start a new family, promising their parental and financial support. The newlyweds set up a wedding. Even the strict parents manage to forgive their daughter and join the feast. Everyone sings Canadian and Ukrainian songs. This melodramatic story conceals monologues on benefits of sobriety and communal fundraising. A really interesting dialogue happens in the fourth act with the characters comparing English and Ukrainian customs, laws and traditions. The rigidness of immigrant transformation and the troubles of cultural integration is not a common topic in fiction literature of the era. The author clearly roots for modernisation of the patriarchal Hutsul families in accordance with the newly acquired “Canadian way” of living. The closing pages provide advice for amateur actors. The tips are rather simple: learn the text by heart, recite it with a clear and loud voice, try to behave on stage according to your character. On the other hand, the viewers are advised not to bring children to the theatre and refrain from smoking. We were unable to find any information on the actual staging of this play. Yet judging from the advice mentioned, the stagings (if there were any) mostly happened in the rural area. Intriguingly, the audience’s reception of the
play remains unknown. The dialogues feature a mix of Hutsul dialectisms and barbarisms like доляр, анґлійчитися, лайсенс and дістрікт.

Rare. Not in KVK. WorldCat finds 2 copies, both in Canada: University of Toronto and Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. We were able to locate a copy at University of Manitoba within Slavic Studies Unique Collections (Ukrainian-Canadian Pamphlets).

Price: $650.00