Kolos Bakery's 25th Anniversary
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Kolos Bakery's 25th Anniversary
A bakery which brought a slice of home to Ukrainian immigrants in Bradford.
Kolos Bakery and Company was established in 1961 by Ivan Prytulak. Born 10 June, 1916 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ivan and his wife Olha came to the UK in October 1947 as displaced people, settling first in Bury, Lancashire. Ivan worked in cotton mills but attempted to return to his trade as a baker, having served an apprenticeship as a teenager in Ukraine.
On 10 October 1961, having secured premises in Bradford, he opened Kolos. Olha and their three young sons, Jaroslaw, Dmytro and Taras, eventually moved to Bradford and all worked in the family business.
After Ivan retired from the business in 1978, his three sons managed the bakery. Kolos became a huge success, winning plaudits for its bread and supplying baked goods to Bradford and beyond. It was featured in a BBC documentary and in the BBC Radio 4 Home Truths series. Ivan passed away in 1999.
In 2010, Jaroslaw found his father's typescript autobiography, which he published as Father, Did We Know You? This volume provides a detailed account of Ivan's life in Ukraine, his experiences in the army in the Second World War and imprisonment in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, his arrival in the UK and life as an émigré in the Ukrainian diaspora.
Bread has an important and symbolic place in Ukrainian culture and Ukraine has been described as the breadbasket of Europe. Guests are traditionally greeted with bread (symbolising wealth) and salt (symbolising the purity of the soul) and no family or religious event is considered complete without some form of ritual or symbolic bread.
Special breads are baked for Easter (paska), weddings (korovai) and a kolach, a round bread taking its name from the word kolos meaning circle, can be found at many different celebrations. Wheat is predominantly used for making bread, but rye bread is just as popular and is sometimes mixed with wheat to make a longer lasting loaf.
The importance of bread and wheat in Ukrainian culture is very ancient, its significance evolving after the Holodomor or Great Famine of 1932-1933. This was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine which killed millions of Ukrainians and was part of the wider Soviet Famine of 1930-1933, which affected grain producing areas including the Northern Caucasus, Volga Region, Khazakstan, South Urals and West Siberia.
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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
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2
Commemoration of Ukrainian Heroines
3
Interview with Ostap Buriak, Choreographer
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Easter Basket Blessing by Father Hutornyj
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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
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50th Anniversary of Ukrainian Youth Association
10