A Conference on Ukraine and Ukrainian Canadians

Thursday, September 24, 2026
Archives of Ontario (York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto)
This event is in-person only. Registration is closed.

The conference on Ukraine and Ukrainian Canadians will feature four sessions. The first session will pay tribute to Orest Subtelny, who played a crucial role in analyzing and interpreting the history of Ukraine. Sessions 2 and 3 will focus on Ukrainian studies and the primary sources available to researchers. Session 4 will provide the audience with an opportunity to watch the documentary Horizons of Belonging and to ask questions of its director, Oleksandr Pankieiev. Finally, the fourth and final session will examine the current situation in Ukraine and the role of journalists.

More information will be added to this page over the coming weeks.

If you have any questions, you may contact Carolyn Podruchny (Professor, Department of History) at: carolynp@yorku.ca

Conference sponsors: LA&PS (York University), Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, and the History Department (LA&PS)

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Presenter Biographies (in alphabetical order):

Jars Balan is the Director of the Peter and Doris Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. He is the author of numerous scholarly and popular articles on Ukrainian Canadian themes, and an illustrated history, Salt and Braided Bread: Ukrainian Life in Canada, published by Oxford University Press in 1984. He is the editor of two collections of Ukrainian Canadian literature and has translated poetry and prose by both Ukrainian and Ukrainian Canadian authors. Forthcoming works by him include “The Beginning of My Fifteen-Year Friendship with George Ryga”; “The Unsung Pioneer of Ukrainian Canadian Letters: The Life and Literary Legacy of Sigmund Bychinsky”; and Memories of Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in Alberta, a collection of 66 congregational histories illustrated with photographs.

Serhiy Bilenky is a Research Associate at the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, and has been Editor-in-Chief of East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies since 2023. He has also served as Programs Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute at Harvard University since 2015.

Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Bilenky graduated from KyivNational Shevchenko University, where he alsoearned hisCandidate of Historical Sciences degreein 1997. He received his PhD in History from the University of Toronto in 2007. He has taught Russian, Ukrainian, and East European history at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, and the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute. His publications include Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe: Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian Political Imaginations (Stanford University Press, 2012) and Imperial Urbanism in the Borderlands: Kyiv, 1800–1905 (University of Toronto Press, 2018). He also edited Fashioning Modern Ukraine: Selected Writings of Mykola Kostomarov, Volodymyr Antonovych, and Mykhailo Drahomanov (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2014), a collection of selected writings by leading nineteenth-century Ukrainian intellectuals. His most recent book is Laboratory of Modernity: Ukraine between Empire and Nation, 1772–1914 (McGill-Queen’s University Press and CIUS Press, 2023).

Steven Brese graduated from the University of London, Heythrop College, with an MA in Contemporary Ethics in 2011 before pursuing a career in media production. He worked in television for four years in Ukraine before returning home to establish himself as a visual storyteller in Edmonton, Alberta. Steven films, edits and directs and has a deep desire to highlight stories of individuals who have the power to inspire others.

Marta Dyczok is Professor (Associate) of History & Political Science, Western University, Fellow, University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, Adjunct Professor, National University of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. Wilson Fellow (2005-2006), Harvard Shklar Fellow (2011). Author of 7 books, most recently Ukraine not ‘the’ Ukraine (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Her doctorate is from Oxford University, research interests: social, digital, and mass media; decolonization, historical politics; information warfare; migration; post-communist transitions; and World War II.

Elaine Gold is the founder and Director of the Canadian Language Museum. She brings to her work at the CLM a PhD in Linguistics, an MA in Art History and strong experience in arts administration and curatorial work. Dr. Gold taught Linguistics at the University of Toronto for over 20 years. She is the recipient of the 2019 National Achievement Award from the Canadian Linguistic Association and received a Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Award in 2023 and a Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada in 2024 for her work promoting Canada's diverse language heritage. 

Elisa Lucente is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow jointly at the University of Pavia, Italy, and York University, Toronto, where she is working on the housing history of European migration in postwar Canada. She defended her PhD in May 2024 at the University of Pavia with a thesis titled "My Ukraine Is Here. Journeys of Belonging: A Cultural and Political History of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Canada, 1945–1991". Her research interests encompass memory and migration studies, with a focus on urban cultural landscapes.

Kassandra Luciuk is an assistant professor of History at Dalhousie University. She is the author of several books and articles on the Ukrainian Canadian experience, including her forthcoming book with McGill-Queen's University Press, Mindguards: Ukrainian Canadians, Political Representation, and the Roots of Consent, 1939-1945. 

Lubomyr Luciuk, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor of political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada, a Senior Research Fellow of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, and the author of numerous publications dealing with the political history of the Canadian Ukrainian community and contemporary Ukraine. A founding member of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Dr Luciuk was distinguished in 2019 with Ukraine’s Cross of Ivan Mazepa. He has been a GIC appointee to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and the Parole Board of Canada, and was, for many years, active on the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, which he helped establish. Among his most recent books are Enemy Archives: Soviet Counterinsurgency Operations and the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023, coauthored with Volodymyr Viatrovych) and Holodomor: Understanding the Great Famine of 1932-1934 in Soviet Ukraine (Kashtan Press & Chair of Ukrainian Studies, 2026, coauthored with Oleh Wolowyna). He was declared a persona non grata by the Russian Federation in April 2022. He is currently serving as a Research and Academic Advisor to Cowater International on the Holodomor Legacy Initiative. 

Myron Momryk graduated with an M.A. in Canadian History from the University of Waterloo in 1972. He began to work at the Department of the Secretary of State in 1974 and in 1976, he transferred to the Multiculturalism Program as History Officer and where he held other responsibilities. From 1981, he worked as an archivist at Library and Archives in Canada for twenty-five years where he held various positions. He worked primarily in the multicultural archives program where he was responsible for the acquisition and preservation of east European fonds in particular, Ukrainian archival material. He retired in 2006 and continued his involvement with Ukrainian archives as a volunteer at the archive of the Canadian Museum of History. During his career as an archivist, he has published articles, guides, and finding aids and participated in many academic conferences in particular with the Canadian Association of Slavists. He has also contributed to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Among his publications are: Remember the Flag, Mazeppa Legion History, (2009); Mike Starr of Oshawa, A Political Biography, (2017); The Cold War in Val-D’Or, A History of the Ukrainian Community in Val-D’Or, Quebec, (2020). He has continued his research and writing in Canadian, Ukrainian Canadian and Cold War history.

Ashton Osmak is an Outreach Officer at the Archives of Ontario. From leading tours to organizing public events, Ashton is passionate about making archives accessible and welcoming. Prior to joining the public service, Ashton worked in media, publishing, and digital communications. She holds an MA from the University of Toronto’s Centre for European and Eurasian Studies. Her studies focused on Ukrainian cultural history with courses abroad at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv.

Dr. Oleksandr Pankieiev is Director of the Kule Centre for Ukrainian and Canadian Folklore, as well as Associate Professor and Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. He also serves as President of the Alberta Ukrainian Film Festival and President of the Alberta Society for the Advancement of Ukrainian Studies.