History of Ukrainians in Baltimore

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The history of Ukrainians in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. have the largest Ukrainian-American communities in the Mid-Atlantic. [1]

Contents

Demographics

St. Michael's, a Ukrainian Catholic parish in Baltimore, January 2016. St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church 01.JPG
St. Michael's, a Ukrainian Catholic parish in Baltimore, January 2016.
Ze Mean Bean Cafe, Fell's Point, June 2014. ZeMeanBeanCafe1.JPG
Ze Mean Bean Café, Fell's Point, June 2014.
National Slavic Museum in Fell's Point, June 2014. SlavicMuseum1.JPG
National Slavic Museum in Fell's Point, June 2014.
Ukrainian-American Youth Association, Inc. in Patterson Park, January 2016. Ukrainian Youth House.JPG
Ukrainian-American Youth Association, Inc. in Patterson Park, January 2016.
Alexander Onischuk, a chess grandmaster. Onischuk Alexander.jpg
Alexander Onischuk, a chess grandmaster.

The Ukrainian community in the Baltimore metropolitan area numbered 10,806 as of 2000, making up 0.4% of the area's population. [2] In the same year, Baltimore city's Ukrainian population was 1,567, which is 0.2% of the city's population. [3]

In 1920, 151 foreign-born White people in Baltimore spoke the Ukrainian language, then referred to as the Ruthenian language. [4]

In 1940, 14,670 immigrants from the Soviet Union lived in Baltimore, many of whom were of Ukrainian descent. These immigrants comprised 24.1% of the city's foreign-born white population. [5]

In 2013, an estimated 808 Ukrainian-Americans resided in Baltimore city, 0.1% of the population. [6]

As of September 2014, immigrants from Ukraine were the twentieth largest foreign-born population in Baltimore. [7]

History

19th century

Ukrainians began settling in Baltimore during the 1880s, mostly in East Baltimore and Southeast Baltimore and especially in the Highlandtown neighborhood. [8] Other Ukrainians settled in Washington Hill and Fell's Point, where there was a Ukrainian store. [9] Most of these immigrants came from Western Ukraine and were Catholic. By the 1890s, Ukrainian Catholic priests were traveling from Pennsylvania to Baltimore to serve the Ukrainian Catholic community. St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church was founded as a parish in 1893 and the church was built in 1912. [10]

While many immigrants from Western Ukraine identify simply as Ukrainian Americans, others identify as Rusyn American. Rusyns also sometimes describe themselves as Carpatho-Rusyns, Carpatho-Russians or Ruthenians. Some of the Western Ukrainians that established St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church identified as Rusyns. Rusyns also helped establish Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church. Many Rusyn and Western Ukrainians have settled in the neighborhoods of Fell's Point [11] and Patterson Park. Western Ukrainians began immigrating to Baltimore during the 1880s. [12]

20th century

During the early 1900s, many Ukrainian immigrants to Baltimore worked for steel- and glass-makers. [13]

From the 1920s to the 1970s, the Ukrainian American Citizen's Club and Ukrainian National Home was the focal point of the Ukrainian-American community in Baltimore. Coalescing as an informal association in the 1920s, the club was legally incorporated in 1931. The club owned a property at 3101 O'Donnell Street, which became the Ukrainian National Home. The home included a school for the Ukrainian language and culture, the Vasile Avramenko School of Ukrainian Dancing, the Ukrainian American Citizen's Club Choir, and a softball team for Ukrainian-Americans. The space was also used by multiple community organizations and after World War II it was used as accommodations for displaced refugees. [14]

By the 1940s, the Ukrainian community in Highlandtown numbered around 1,200. [8]

Many Ukrainians fled to Baltimore from the 1930s to the 1950s in order to escape political persecution, labor camps, the Holodomor famine, or deportation to Siberia. Every year Ukrainian refugees and their children and grandchildren celebrate their good fortune on Thanksgiving Day by giving a toast and playing a game of football in Patterson Park. [15] On 29 May 2008, the city of Baltimore held a candlelight commemoration for the Holodomor at the War Memorial Plaza in front of City Hall. This ceremony was part of the larger international journey of the "International Holodomor Remembrance Torch", which began in Kyiv and made its way through thirty-three countries. Twenty-two other US cities were also visited during the tour. Then-Mayor Sheila Dixon presided over the ceremony and declared 29 May to be "Ukrainian Genocide Remembrance Day in Baltimore". She referred to the Holodomor as "among the worst cases of man's inhumanity towards man". [16]

In 1969, the Ukrainian American Citizen's Club granted usage and maintenance of the Ukrainian National Home to the Dnipro Ukrainian Club. [14]

Beginning in the 1970s, large numbers of Ukrainian Jews immigrated to Baltimore in order to escape antisemitism in the then Soviet Union. In the early 1980s, about 70% of the Soviet Jews in Baltimore had immigrated from the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. One-third came from Odesa, Baltimore's sister-city at the time. [17]

Ze Mean Bean Café in Fell's Point opened in 1995. It is a restaurant which offers Ukrainian cuisine, as well as other Slavic and Eastern European fare. [18] The restaurant was founded by Yvonne Dornic as an ode to Ivan Dornic, her Czechoslovakian-born Carpatho-Rusyn father. [19]

21st century

The National Slavic Museum opened in 2012. The museum focuses on the Slavic history of Baltimore, including Baltimore's Ukrainian history. [20]

In light of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Russian intervention in Crimea, Ukrainians in Baltimore have mobilized to support the pro-Ukrainian cause. [21] [22]

The Lemko House, an apartment complex on South Ann Street, provides housing for Eastern European immigrants. Founded in 1983 by Ivan Dornic, an Eastern Rite priest, the complex is named after Dornic's ethnic group, the Lemkos. The Lemkos are a Rusyn ethnic group inhabiting Lemkivshchyna, a part of Transcarpathia that spans parts of Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine. Lemko House has opened its doors to low-income residents of any ethnicity, but is still home to many Slavic and Eastern European immigrants. [23]

Little Ukrainian Village

A corridor of Baltimore's Patterson Park neighborhood is referred to by locals as "The Little Ukrainian Village in Baltimore" and "Little Ukraine." The village is home to St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church and Baltimore's Ukrainian-American festival, as well as organizations for Ukrainians, such as the SelfReliance Baltimore Federal Credit Union, the Ukrainian-American Youth Association, and the Dnipro Ukrainian Club, a sports club and cultural organization. [1]

The Ukrainian Festival was founded in 1976 and is organized by the Baltimore Ukrainian Festival Committee, a non-profit affiliated with the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA). The festival lasts two days and features traditional Ukrainian music, dancing, crafts, and cuisine. [1] [24]

Notable Ukrainian-Americans from Baltimore

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruthenia</span> Medieval exonym for Rus

Ruthenia is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin, as one of several terms for Kievan Rus'. It is also used to refer to the East Slavic and Eastern Orthodox regions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, corresponding to the territories of modern Belarus, Ukraine, and some of western Russia. Historically, the term was used to refer to all the territories of the East Slavs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rusyn language</span> East Slavic language spoken by Carpathian Rusyns, Lemkos, Boykos, and Hutsuls

Rusyn is an East Slavic language spoken by Rusyns in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and written in the Cyrillic script. The majority of speakers live in an area known as Carpathian Ruthenia that spans from Transcarpathia, westward into eastern Slovakia and south-east Poland. There is also a sizeable Pannonian Rusyn linguistic island in Vojvodina, Serbia, as well as a Rusyn diaspora throughout the world. Per the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Rusyn is officially recognized as a protected minority language by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Serbia, and Slovakia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruthenians</span> European ethnic group

Ruthenian and Ruthene are exonyms of Latin origin, formerly used in Eastern and Central Europe as common ethnonyms for East Slavs, particularly during the late medieval and early modern periods. The Latin term Rutheni was used in medieval sources to describe all Eastern Slavs of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as an exonym for people of the former Kievan Rus', thus including ancestors of the modern Belarusians, Rusyns and Ukrainians. The use of Ruthenian and related exonyms continued through the early modern period, developing several distinctive meanings, both in terms of their regional scopes and additional religious connotations.

Transcarpathia is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast, with smaller parts in eastern Slovakia and the Lemko Region in Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemkos</span> East Slavic ethnic group

Lemkos are an ethnic group inhabiting the Lemko Region of Carpathian Rus', an ethnographic region in the Carpathian Mountains and foothills spanning Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zakarpattia Oblast</span> Oblast (region) of Ukraine

Zakarpattia Oblast, also referred to as simply Zakarpattia or Transcarpathia in English, is an oblast in west Ukraine, mostly coterminous with the historical region of Carpathian Ruthenia. Its administrative centre is the city of Uzhhorod. Other major cities within the oblast include Mukachevo, Khust, Berehove, and Chop, the last of which is home to railroad transport infrastructure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boykos</span> Ethnic group

The Boykos, or simply Highlanders, are an ethnolinguistic group located in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Along with the neighbouring Lemkos and Hutsuls, the Boykos are considered a sub-group of Ukrainians and speak a dialect of Ukrainian language. Within Ukraine the Boykos and other Rusyns are seen as a sub-group of ethnic Ukrainians Boykos differ from their neighbors in dialect, dress, folk architecture, and customs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rusyns</span> East Slavic ethnic group

Rusyns, also known as Carpatho-Rusyns, Ruthenians, or Rusnaks, are an East Slavic ethnic group from the Eastern Carpathians in Central Europe. They speak Rusyn, an East Slavic language variety, treated variously as either a distinct language or a dialect of the Ukrainian language. As traditional adherents of Eastern Christianity, the majority of Rusyns are Eastern Catholics, though a minority of Rusyns practice Eastern Orthodoxy. Rusyns primarily self-identify as a distinct Slavic people and they are recognized as such in Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia, where they have official minority status. Alternatively, some identify more closely with their country of residence, while others are a branch of the Ukrainian people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church</span> Eastern Catholic church of the Byzantine Rite

The Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, also known in the United States as the Byzantine Catholic Church, is a sui iuris (autonomous) Eastern Catholic church based in Eastern Europe and North America. As a particular church of the Catholic Church, it is in full communion with the Holy See. It uses the Byzantine Rite for its liturgies, laws, and cultural identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hutsuls</span> Ethnic group in the Carpathian Mountains

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canton, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carpatho-Rusyn Society</span> Cultural heritage non-profit

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The history of Czechs in Baltimore dates back to the mid-19th century. Thousands of Czechs immigrated to East Baltimore during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, becoming an important component of Baltimore's ethnic and cultural heritage. The Czech community has founded a number of cultural institutions to preserve the city's Czech heritage, including a Roman Catholic church, a heritage association, a gymnastics association, an annual festival, a language school, and a cemetery. During the height of the Czech community in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Baltimore was home to 12,000 to 15,000 people of Czech birth or heritage. The population began to decline during the mid-to-late 20th century, as the community assimilated and aged, while many Czech Americans moved to the suburbs of Baltimore. By the 1980s and early 1990s, the former Czech community in East Baltimore had been almost entirely dispersed, though a few remnants of the city's Czech cultural legacy still remain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church</span> Church in Baltimore, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic groups in Baltimore</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Slavic Museum</span> Ethnic museum in Maryland, United States

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References

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Further reading