Stepan Bandera: “I often use my name to shock people”

He said that the stereotype portraying Ukrainians as dirty and smelling of garlic has long become history. Ukrainian Canadians are full-fledged citizens of that country and have the same opportunities as all the other ethnic groups. Incidentally, Canada’s highest post, Governor General formally representing Queen Elizabeth II, was previously occupied by the Ukrainian Ray Hnatyshyn. People in Canada, unlike many other Western countries, know about Ukraine and distinguish it from Russia. Stepan Bandera believes that this is a significant accomplishment of the ethnic Ukrainian community at large, and that his father Andriy Bandera, made an important contribution in this also. Back in the 1970s he published the English language Ukrainian Echo newspaper which was quite popular with Canadian public servants.

Q: Has Stepan Bandera’s family experienced any material hardships overseas?

A: No, after my grandfather’s assassination the OUN-UPA community took good care of the widow and her three children. They had to work, of course.

Q: What Ukrainian traditions are still cultivated by the Banderas?

A: We have always adhered to one strict rule: while at home speak Ukrainian. Also, we celebrated every Ukrainian religious holiday by the old calendar. As a small boy I was thrilled to receive Christmas gifts from St. Nicholas come December 19, six days before Santa Claus would visit my Canadian friends.

Toronto has a kind of Ukrainian ghetto where every day is associated with things Ukrainian. I would go to the so-called full-day school to attend daily Ukrainian classes (although the language was not modern Ukrainian, rather the Galician vernacular dating from the turn of the century). Every Saturday I would be sent to Saturday School specializing in Ukrainian studies — history, folk traditions, and religion) and every Sunday the whole family would visit the Ukrainian church. There are several Ukrainian youth organizations in Canada: Plast, SUM (Ukrainian abbreviation for Association of Ukrainian Youth), and ODUM (Association of Democratic Ukrainian Youth). I was a member of SUM, and we formed a very strong community, so much so that when I went to a regular Canadian school I was surprised to learn that Ukrainian was not part of the curriculum.

Q: Did you have fatback on your family menu?

A: No. At first I was horrified by it, but now living in Ukraine I have got used to it.

Q: Don’t you feel sometimes overburdened by your family name?

A: Older people often told me, “You must be like your grandfather. We will struggle for an independent Ukrainian state to the last man.” That was my father’s credo and I did believe in it. Now we have a Ukrainian state, but it is not the real Ukraine which is still to be built. I see my own future inseparable from Ukraine and I want to apply for Ukrainian citizenship, because this is the only logical completion of my family’s efforts and struggle.

As for my name, it is rather well known and I have no ambition to go down in Ukrainian history, the more so that my grandfather’s name is already there. Quite honestly, however, I often use my name to shock people in a good way.

Q: Doesn’t your decision to remain in Ukraine signify that there is emerging another outstanding Ukrainian politician named Stepan Bandera?

A: Of course not. I don’t want to be a politician. Never! I see myself as a bridge, rather a brick in the bridge linking the Ukrainians in Canada, the United States, and Ukraine. And I am planning to take up journalism, because a free press is a special branch of power that cannot be shrugged off, considering its tremendous impact on the general public. At present, I work for ROMYR, an association supplying various international organizations and potential Western partners with information about Ukraine. Ukraine is often associated in the West with corruption, organized crime, and Chornobyl, so the task of our organization is to refute this stereotype and demonstrate the positive aspects and gains of Ukrainian politics and people capable of bringing about real changes in this country.

Q: How do you explain to other people the cause for which your grandfather fought and died?

A: He wanted every Ukrainian to feel master of his native land.

Q: And what does Ukraine lack to have your grandfather’s dream come true?

A: The Ukrainian spirit, a sense of pride in one’s own nation.

Q: How do you usually describe your grandfather when asked to tell about him?

A: He was basically an intelligent person, not a desperado or cutthroat. By the way, a TV film is being made in Ukraine, commemorating his 90th birth anniversary. It includes unique documentary scenes with Bandera and Melnyk attending a memorial service for Yevhen Konovalets, standing side by side (contrary to the Soviet propaganda stereotype portraying them as inveterate enemies) and conversing in a quiet civilized manner. Both had differing views but struggled for the same cause.

Q: How did you picture Ukraine before visiting and what shocked you most when you did?

A: I did not know what to expect. On the one hand, there was its picture the way we had studied it at school: Shevchenko groves and cherry orchards; on the other, what I had watched on television and video cassettes of the late 1980s: mostly folk fests, the first Chervona Ruta festivals. In a word, I would not have been surprised to find Kyiv streets crowded with people wearing embroidered shirts, blind kobza players on every corner, and many clergymen passing by. I first came here in late October 1991. Our team, made up of Americans and Canadians, was to canvass for the December 1 referendum. It was a very difficult period for Ukraine – well, I know that now, but my first impression was that gray was the dominant color. The buildings looked ramshackle and there was suffering in people’s eyes. What struck an especially painful chord was sugar ration tickets. I also remember buying a can of Coca Cola, by force of habit, on Independence Square. I had hardly emptied it when several youngsters ran up asked for it. They wanted an empty can. Unbelievable! We took a stroll on Khreshchatyk at 11 p.m. Not a living soul in sight except rats dashing across underground pedestrian tunnels.

What worries me now in Kyiv is people’s indifference toward ecological problems. And I don’t mean Chornobyl as it was something no one could have prevented. I mean heaps of garbage and burning dumps. Huge panel trucks rumbling across the city, even part of downtown, poisoning the air with their diesel exhausts. No passage restrictions. It’s a shame!

Another thing that still baffles me is that Kyiv, being a giant megalopolis, almost the size of Toronto, has a rustic element: on Kharkivske shose one sees cows grazing by the road with modern high-rise buildings in the background and in the downtown section one can hear roosters heralding the morning from some of the balconies. Now that’s weird, something one wouldn’t dream of seeing in Toronto.

Q: What about the problems considered most important by the Ukrainian Canadian community?

A: One of the most pressing problems (I doubt that few if any know about it in Ukraine) is the issue of Ukrainian internment camps. Many people immigrated to Canada from Galicia during World War I. They had Austro–Hungarian passports, whereas Great Britain – and, of course, Canada – were in a state of war with that empire. Although most were peasants who could hardly read and write, they would be locked in such camps on the slightest suspicion of collaboration with the enemy and their property confiscated. Quite a number of inmates died there because of the hard working and living conditions. The ethnic Ukrainian community has for the past several years been after the Canadian government to officially acknowledge the fact and make amends to the innocent victims’ posterity. The government refuses to admit the criminal nature of that internment, saying it was wartime and mistakes could have happened. There is a golf club on the grounds of one such former Ukrainian internment camp in Alberta, from Calgary. They built it and did not bother to consider our ethnic sentiments. Also, the Ukrainian community has on more than one occasion asked the Cabinet of independent Ukraine to intercede at the government level, but to no avail.

Another problem is rapid assimilation. After World War II Ukrainian was one of Canada’s most widespread family languages, on a par with German and Italian. Now it is not even among the “top ten.” And there is a sharp decline in the number of ethnic Ukrainians who know the language and are aware of their identity. The Ukrainian Canadian community hoped that after Ukraine became independent, this would help slow down the process. It turned out to the contrary as Ukraine constantly appeals to this community for financial assistance. The overall impression is that the Ukrainian government does not care for the Ukrainians and their problems overseas, one way or the other.