Ukrainian diaspora
It is particularly concentrated in other post-Soviet states (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Russia), Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland), North America (Canada and the United States), and South America (Argentina and Brazil).
After the loss suffered by the Ukrainian-Swedish Alliance under Ivan Mazepa in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, some political emigrants, primarily Cossacks, settled in Turkey and in Western Europe.
In time, Ukrainian settlements emerged in the major European capitals, including Vienna, Budapest, Rome and Warsaw.
A secondary movement was the emigration under the auspices of the Austro-Hungarian government of 10,000 Ukrainians from Galicia to Bosnia.
Furthermore, due to Russian agitation, 15,000 Ukrainians left Galicia and Bukovina and settled in Russia.
Finally in the Russian Empire, some Ukrainians from the Chełm and Podlaskie regions, as well as most of the Jews, emigrated to the Americas.
However, the writings of Galician professor and nationalist Dr Joseph Oleskiw were influential in redirecting that flow to Canada.
He visited an already-established Ukrainian block settlement, which had been founded by Iwan Pylypiw, and met with Canadian immigration officials.
By contrast he was fiercely critical of the treatment Ukrainian settlers had received in South America.
These new Ukrainian organisations maintained links with the homeland, from which books, media, priests, cultural figures, and new ideas arrived.
The majority of the Ukrainian diaspora in the Americas focused on obtaining independence and convincing outside powers to join its war against the Soviets.
An interesting note is the role the Ruthenians played to convince the American government about the inclusion of the Transcarpathian region into the Czechoslovak Republic in 1919.
The revolution of 1917 allowed the creation of Ukrainian organisations, which were linked with the national and political rebirth in Ukraine.
Thus, new communities were created in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, France, Belgium, Austria, Romania, and Yugoslavia.
The largest was in Prague, which was considered one of the centres of Ukrainian culture and political life (after Lviv and Kraków).
A Sovietophile movement appeared, whereby former opponents of the Bolsheviks began to argue that Ukrainians should support Soviet Ukraine.
Some argued that they should do so because the Soviet republics were the leaders of international revolution, while others claimed that the Bolsheviks' social and national policies benefited Ukraine.
[8] On the other hand, the Canadian and American diaspora maintained links with the Ukrainian community in Galicia and the Transcarpathian Region.
After the Second World War, the Ukrainian diaspora increased due to a second wave of displaced persons.
In the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s, these Ukrainians were resettled in many different countries creating new Ukrainian settlements in Australia, Venezuela, and for a time in Tunisia (Ben-Metir), as well as re-enforcing previous settlements in the United States, Canada[10] (primarily Toronto, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec), Brazil (specially in the South and Southeast regions), Argentina and Paraguay.
The cultural separation from Ukraine proper meant that many were to form the so-called "multicultural soviet nation".
This meant that outside the parent national republic and large cities in the Union there was little or no provisions for continuing a diaspora function.
Of the countries where the Ukrainian diaspora had settled, only in Canada and the Soviet Union was information about ethnic background collected.
[12] On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has led to millions of Ukrainian civilians moving to neighbouring countries.
Most crossed into Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, and others proceeded to at least temporarily settle in Hungary, Moldova, Germany, Austria, Romania and other European countries.
[123] List of notable British people of Ukrainian descent: In 2016, there were an estimated 1,359,655 persons of full or partial Ukrainian origin residing in Canada (the majority being Canadian-born citizens), making them Canada's eleventh largest ethnic group.
