Postcards from the past
Exhibition offers glimpse into pre-revolutionary Ukraine

January 23, 2009

By Colleen MacPherson

A collection of 134 picture postcards set to go on display at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada offers viewers an enticing glimpse into an age gone by, gentle reminders, according to the curator, "of a time when lost empires ruled."

Far, Far Away: Postcards from Pre-Revolutionary Ukraine is drawn from the personal collection of Bohdan Kordan, professor of political studies at St. Thomas More College and director of the Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage (PCUH). They represent, in some cases, the last remaining images of a time and a place that, he said, "still has that siren call 'Wish you were here!'." 

The exhibition was originally organized, with the help of the STM art gallery, for display during the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences' Congress event at the U of S in 2007 as a way of showcasing the activity of the PCUH, said Kordan. It has since traveled across the country with stops at the legislative building in Regina and at galleries in Winnipeg and Toronto.

A self-described "collector of just about everything," Kordan said he acquired the postcards over some 20 years in shops and flea markets across Europe—Paris, Brussels, Germany. And he had to do a bit of digging to find them.

"Typically postcards deal with stereotypical views of the countryside or of costumed figures but those don't particularly interest me. What I'm interested in is the pre-revolutionary urban landscape, before 1917, because they form an historical blueprint, recovered images of that time."

Ukraine is, and always has been, a multi-cultural country, he explained, so visitors to the exhibition might be surprised to see "that alongside the ecclesiastical structures of Eastern orthodoxy you have mosques and gothic churches that typify the building styles of Europe."

After the revolution, the Russians intentionally destroyed many of those ecclesiastical structures and monuments, converted some to alternative use like the synagogue that is now a national theatre, and masked the classical architectural elements of others with modern construction. The postcards then, serve as a reminder of what once was.

The exhibition title—Far, Far Away—not only evokes ideas of memory, said Kordan, but "the postcards speak to a kind of aesthetic that is sort of surreal, like magical places. They talk to us about an imagined place," the cities and towns of Ukraine that were cultural outposts of the empires.

The oldest postcard in the exhibition dates from 1896, corresponding to the beginning of the genre of postcard writing. Most are colour but a number of black and white cards are included because of the significance of the image. Kordan also selected postcards that represent the four geographic regions of Ukraine—East, West, Central and Crimea.

What are equally as interesting as the image on the front of each postcard are the stories told on the back, although this is not part of the exhibition. The cards are postmarked, a reminder they were produced to be sent away, said Kordan, and while some are illegible, most record messages similar to what would be found on a 21st century postcar—"this is a safe place, this is wonderful, you can't imagine what it's like here."

Looking at the framed postcards as they were removed from the packing boxes, Kordon commented that the exhibition "has done what we set out to do and that was to create something exciting and visually appealing that showcases what we're doing at the university. There is a lot of ivory tower-ism at the university but we have to bring what we do into the community. This is where the rubber hits the road."

Far, Far Away: Postcards from Pre-Revolutionary Ukraine opens at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada with a public reception Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. The exhibition will be on view until April 30.