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By Dale Barbour
The Bulletin, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Friday, November 22, 2002
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The Ukrainian folk art objects contained in the book Ukrainian Antiquities
in Private Collections are beautiful and unique enough to speak for
themselves.
Unfortunately the descriptions that go with them cannot and that's where
Orysia Tracz comes in.
A library assistant in the Elizabeth Dafoe Library by day, Tracz also has an
interest in Ukrainian folk art and culture. It's an interest that lead to
her playing the role of translator for Ukrainian Antiquities in Private
Collections - a compilation of Ukrainian folk art taken from 14 different
collections.
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Elizabeth Dafoe Library assistant Orysia Tracz provided her translating talents to the production of Ukrainian Antiquities in Private Collections. Tracz is keen to ensure English-speaking people have a chance to learn about Ukrainian culture
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"I've worked in a library on and off for the past 30 years but in my other
life I'm interested in Ukrainian traditions and folk art. I do it for myself
really," Tracz said.
That interest led Tracz to translate the book Ukrainian Folk Costume into
English in 1992. Her involvement with Ukrainian Antiquities came after she
had reviewed a different book produced by Ukrainian Antiquities publisher
Lidia Lykhach.
Tracz liked that book enough to send Lykhach an e-mail and congratulate
her on the effort. The two corresponded and when Lykhach was looking
for someone to translate the Ukrainian Antiquities' text from Ukrainian into
English, Tracz seemed like a natural choice.
While the strength of Ukrainian Antiquities is in the pictures of plates,
candelabras, jewelry, crosses, walking sticks and other items, the
descriptions and text that go with them still have a role to play and
dealing with the sometimes specialized descriptions often presented a
challenge.
"It's always an interesting experience," Tracz said. "When you're
translating you can't always take a sentence and make another sentence
out of it in English because there are ideas involved."
Sometimes the sentence has to be changed into two or three different
sentences in English to convey the same meaning that the original
Ukrainian-language sentence contained.
"So you have to have a good understanding of both languages," Tracz
said. In her case, she has spoken both languages nearly her entire life.
She was born in Germany just after the war - her parents had been brought
to the country as forced labour during the war. They lived in a Displaced
Persons camp in Berchtesgaden, Germany for four years. When Tracz was
four years old her family arrived in the United States as refugees, and she
picked up the new language almost immediately.
"My parents knew a lot of languages but they didn't know English," Tracz
recalled. "I learned English playing on the streets in the first few weeks
and was able to help them out."
The collection of material in Ukrainian Antiquities was drawn from the
Hutsul and Pokuttia regions located in the Carpathian Mountains and their
foothills and dates back to the 19th century or earlier.
The hand-crafted items, either produced in the home or by local craftsmen
had a practical purpose and would have been used extensively given that
people in the area didn't have the luxury of trotting down to the local Wal
Mart and buying mass produced items. But Tracz said the purpose of the
items went beyond purely practical reasons.
"With most folk art people did it for ritual reasons - it always has a
meaning beyond just something pretty to look at," Tracz said.
Religious symbols figure promi-nently in most of the folk art but Tracz says
a careful examination can even turn up sun symbols and other imagery which
predates Christianity.
Ukrainian folk art has always been a popular subject and with Ukraine
becoming an independent state in 1991 the ability to access and display that
material - something which was discouraged during the period Ukraine was
under the control of the Soviet Union -- has become easier.
"There's more and more interest in a lot of this material and people want to
see it in English," Tracz said. "I hope we can do other things."
Apart from her translation projects, Tracz also writes and lectures on
Ukrainian traditions and culture. She produces a regular column for the
Ukrainian Weekly (in the U.S.A.) and is looking at turning the series of
articles into a book on Ukrainian traditions. Another project is a book on
the symbolism of Ukrainian folk art in Ukraine and in Canada.
The book launch for Ukrainian Antiquities is planned for Jan. 22, 2003,
8 p.m., at McNally-Robinson Grant Park.
Elizabeth Dafoe Library assistant Orysia Tracz provided her translating
talents to the production of Ukrainian Antiquities in Private Collections.
Tracz is keen to ensure English-speaking people have a chance to learn
about Ukrainian culture.
http://myuminfo.umanitoba.ca/index.asp?sec=40&too=100&eve=8&id=2179
University of Manitoba, The Bulletin
For more information, contact: Dale Barbour, Bulletin Editor, Public Affairs
barbourd@ms.umanitoba.ca , Ph: (204) 474-8111, Fax: (204) 474-7631
NOTE: Information about the new book, "Ukrainian Antiquities in Private
Collections," with several photographs from the book, can be found by
clicking on: http://www.artukraine.com/availbooks/antiquities.htm
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