50th Anniversary of Ukrainian Youth Association
From the collection of
50th Anniversary of Ukrainian Youth Association
Culture and traditions take centre stage for the Bradford Youth Club's celebrations.
At the time the film was made, around 50% of the young people in Bradford's Ukrainian community belonged to CYM, many of them being the children or grandchildren of the original members. CYM (Ukrainian Youth Association / Spilka Ukrayinskoiy Molodi) in Bradford was founded on 29 August, 1948 and named 30 June, 1941 branch in commemoration of Ukraine's declaration of Independence on that date.
The first chair was Stefan Nakonechnyj. Bradford was one of the very early CYM branches, as the organisation was only established in the UK up on 1 July 1948, when Myroslaw Szawrytko (the authorised UK representative of CYM Central Executive), Mychaijlo Hryniuk and Ihnaty Fedzyniak created a CYM organisational centre at a POW camp in Tattershall, Lincolnshire.
This built on an underground Ukrainian liberation movement established in the 1920s by Mykola Pavlushkov which was resurrected by Ukrainians who found themselves in German Displaced People's camps in 1946. The first general meeting of CYM in Great Britain was held on 16 January 1949, when the first Nation Committee for CYM in the UK was elected.
In common with other branches of CYM, Braford has a four-tier membership structure: Sumeniata (youngest children), Yunatstvo (children and teenagers), Druzhynnyky (young adults) and Seniors (adults). CYM branches organise educational meetings for younger members which focus on Ukrainian history and culture and Bradford is one of the branches with strong tradition of performing arts groups such as choirs, folk dance groups and musical groups.
In 1958 Petro Wasylyk set up a dance group and Wolodymyr Parfaniuk set up a string orchestra (first mandolins, then guitars) which was directed by Jaroslaw Hawryliuk.
CYM Bradford also plays an active part in community life and leads on several significant community occasions including providing the guard of honour for the plashchenycha (icon of Jesus Christ) in the Ukrainian Catholic Church at Easter, the commemoration of Battle of Kruty (29/30 January 1918), the Declaration of Ukrainian Independence 30 June 1941 and the feast of St Michael Archangel (8 or 21 November).
It also manages to persuade St Nicholas to visit every year to give out gifts to children.
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Bradford Ukrainian Community Life
The largest and most active Ukrainian community in the UK diaspora thrives in Bradford.
Ukrainians have lived in Bradford since the end of the Second World War. The community was established by displaced Ukrainian men and women who came to the UK as displaced people from camps in West Germany and Austria under Westward Ho!, the European Volunteer Workers (EVWs) scheme.
In Bradford, EVWs were placed into jobs in the textile industry to fill labour shortages and were initially housed in hostels and private rented accommodation. They were joined by members of the Ukrainian Army Division who came to the UK from camps in Italy.
These early settlers founded the Bradford branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB) in 1947, established other community organisations and worshipped in both the Ukrainian Greek Catholic (Uniate) and Orthodox faiths. This collection is a snapshot of the Ukrainian community which settled in Bradford and continues to be one of the largest and most active in the UK's Ukrainian diaspora.
10 videos in this collection
1
2
Commemoration of Ukrainian Heroines
3
Interview with Ostap Buriak, Choreographer
4
Easter Basket Blessing by Father Hutornyj
5
Building of the New Ukrainian School at Westfield
6
Kolos Bakery's 25th Anniversary
7
10th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
8
50th Anniversary AUGB in Bradford
9
50th Anniversary of Ukrainian Youth Association
10