Meet Ukrainian Folk Artist & Educator Oksana Pasakas!

00:02 This is Leslie Scherrenbeck, folklife director of the Tuckerton Seaport, and I'm joined today by Oksana Pasakis, who is the educational coordinator and museums collection manager at Ukrainian History and Education center in Somerset, New Jersey. We are meeting today at the center, and the date is Thursday, October 5. The Tuckerton seaport is very excited to host Oksana and her colleague Mia on one of our virtual lunch and learn programs this month. So thank you for joining me today. Oksana.

00:30 Leslie, thank you so much for this opportunity.

00:33 So, Oksana, you're a descendant of ukrainian immigrants growing up in a ukrainian household. How was your culture and folk traditions presented to you?

00:43 Well, I am a third generation ukrainian American, which means that my grandparents on both sides emigrated to the United States and became us citizens. They emigrated here after World War two, after living in displaced persons camps in Germany. Both my parents, myself, and my siblings grew up with ukrainian culture all around us. Ukrainian was our first language. I actually went to kindergarten without knowing any English. Our home was decorated with paintings of ukrainian artists. Woven tapestries called kilims hung on the walls. Embroidered towels Rushnikit hung over our icons. We spoke Ukrainian at home and only Ukrainian to our grandparents. On Saturdays, we attended Ukrainian Saturday school wherever where we learned about Ukraine, its culture, its language, and the land. And in the afternoon, we had pla scouting meetings. On Sundays, we went to St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox Church, where my father served as a deacon in the church after being ordained in 1997. During the week, we attended Ukrainian Catholic grade school. On Mondays, we attended ukrainian dance. On Wednesdays, we had lessons, how to play the bandura, the ukrainian national instrument. And on Fridays, we didn't hang out at the mall. Instead, we were finishing up our ukrainian homework for school the next day. So ukrainian culture was not even something that we thought of as extra or different. It was just who we were and what we did. Everything that we did stemmed from some sort of ukrainian folk tradition that my grandparents and then also my parents taught us. And they stressed the importance of maintaining our culture and especially to keep the traditions, the culture, the language alive in the ukrainian diaspora. From my grandparents who were forced out of Ukraine during World War Two, they lived with the threat of ukrainian and ukrainian culture disappearing, and they did what they could to prevent that from happening while they lived in the United States.

02:34 Great. And so as a third generation Ukrainian here in America growing up, did you hear any stories of how your family first came to the United States, where they settled and why? I know we talked before about how you were in Ohio for a little bit. So how did they make a living, and how did you come to New Jersey?

02:56 Okay, so both of my grandparents on both sides left Ukraine in the 1940s. They lived in displaced persons camps in Germany, somewhere in Munich. My grandfather was in Hanover, and then they immigrated to the United States after the war. My maternal grandparents met in a DP camp in Munich. While they were in Germany, they attended Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and that's where my grandfather graduated from medical school. They got married in the camp, and together with their son, they moved to the United States, first to New York and then to the Cleveland, Ohio, area. My grandfather was a family doctor there, and he had his own practice in Cleveland. My paternal grandparents first moved to Connecticut and then to Cleveland, Ohio, as their sponsor in the United States, had found housing for them there. There they finished school. My grandmother was in high school. They met each other. Then they got married and raised their family. In the 1980s, my grandmother actually started to work at my grandfather's medical practice. It was all around the same time when my parents met. And so my parents met through the ukrainian scene in the Parma, Cleveland area. They now live in a suburb of Cleveland, and when they were growing up, they were both involved in ukrainian cultural and political events. They also spoke Ukrainian exclusively in the home. They sang in the choirs. They also played the bandura. They were also members of Plast, which was a ukrainian scouting organization. They attended and later were counselors for ukrainian summer camps, and they were involved in their respective churches. Now, Parma was like a mini ukrainian bubble. It's a suburb outside of Cleveland, and you would just look down the street, and you would see that there's ukrainian stores, there are ukrainian banks. There's Ukraine orthodox church, Ukrainian catholic church. That's where we had all of our afternoon activities after school. There was a ukrainian grade school. We had restaurants, shipping companies, and lots of other establishments. So that's what I grew up in, a little mini Ukraine in Ohio. And then I came. I moved to New Jersey for a graduate school, and I've been here since.

05:03 Okay, awesome. So growing up in Ohio and having that enclave of a cultural community, what would you say as a ukrainian woman, is the difference between New Jersey and Ohio?

05:16 Well, I don't know if there would be any major differences between growing up in New Jersey versus Ohio. I grew up knowing a lot of people from the east coast that I met through some of the ukrainian summer camps and their upbringing, my upbringing, our family stories were all very similar. And as a collective group, every family from that wave of immigrants made the preservation of ukrainian culture and language important in their family life. What I did notice, though, was that some families here in New Jersey had different folk traditions or recipes or sayings, even phrases that I've learned from Mia here in the office working together. And I think that a lot of that could be attributed to the fact that many people settled in different regions. They came from, say, western Ukraine or central Ukraine, and they moved together in a wave and settled in, you know, those in Cleveland, those in Chicago, those in Detroit, and those in the east coast. And a lot of those different recipes or phrases I've now picked up on and incorporated in my life.

06:20 Oh, that's awesome. What's a recipe that you think that's different between New Jersey and Ohio?

06:28 Well, I think a good one that me and I were just talking about, actually, was some of our Christmas traditions, the way we all have the same dishes, but just the variation of it or how it's served. There's a Christmas eve dish called kutia, and everybody here, even my husband, has a different recipe that they use. Some are a little bit more watery. Some are served with the. Some are served with fruit. So everybody just has a different twist to it.

06:57 Okay, and what's the dish comprised of?

07:01 So kutia is cooked wheatley. It could be like a barley, and then it is mixed with poppy seeds, honey, and sometimes raisins. I have seen chopped apples, which is very rare, but it happens, and then walnuts chopped up.

07:23 Okay, so growing up in this enclave and in Ohio, you said you spoke Ukrainian at home. So what languages do you speak? And then I'm always curious, do you speak a different language in different settings? So, such as home school work? And are there any expressions, jokes, stories, or celebrations where you always use a certain language or a dialect? Even if you give me some examples, just because I hear it in the office now, right as people come in, it's like it's half and half and certain. Half their few. Yes, that's right. And so I was just curious about, you know, what you speak at home. Your husband is from Ukraine, so the dialect or, you know, what you're teaching your children, that type of thing?

08:13 Yes. So my first language was Ukrainian. Like I said, I went to kindergarten only knowing Ukrainian. Had a buddy who was teamed up with me so he would help translate. And then I learned English through the school. Through being in school at Ohio State, I also studied russian language and literature, so I could say that I picked up a little bit of Russian along the way. So I can get by. So my husband is from western Ukraine. He moved to the United States in 2007 to study, and he likes to remind me that some of my phrases in Ukrainian are a bit outdated. He says, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about, because we were taught the language of my grandparents, and that's the early terminology from the early 19 hundreds. That's world War two language. And language is fluid, and many of the words and phrases have since changed or have been mixed with western words. One of our favorites here in the office is the word donate, which means to donate. Literally, it sounds like you just took it from or donate. I did not grow up knowing that word. I heard it here. We always said to make a donation, and Ukrainians from this way of immigration, that's what they use, and I'm not yet used to it. I probably have not used it in my regular vocabulary, but, you know, that's. That's a word that they now use. So at home, we speak English. Shocker. Yes. I have four kids, three kids. They are nine, almost six, and four, and they attend Ukrainian Saturday school. They do ukrainian dancing. They now started playing the bandure as well. And they are slowly learning more and more ukrainian phrases. My almost six year old's favorite phrase right now is nemozho, which means you can't do it. So she just waves her finger on. So I probably should be doing a little bit of a better job teaching them Ukrainian, because growing up, that's what we only spoke at home. And to my grandparents, we only spoke in Ukrainian. My grandfather would say, I don't know what you're talking about, Jan, even though he totally knew what we were saying in English. But he would say, janiu, I don't understand.

10:26 Yeah. And to keep that. To keep the language alive. That's really great.

10:30 Yeah. So we attend the Ukrainian orthodox church here in south Bambro, and our services are also mostly in Ukrainian. So my kids are picking up on phrases. They're singing their responses in Ukrainian as well. When we greet each other, we say privit or slava soso gesto, which means glory to Jesus Christ. And the response is slava navike, which means glory forever. And, of course, for the holidays, you always have different phrases and songs that we singhe.

10:59 Do you remember what your kid's first ukrainian words were?

11:04 Oh, that's a tough one. Probably nY, which means no, that's an easy one.

11:12 So can you. We're here today at the Ukrainian History and education center. So could you tell us a little bit about the mission statement here and what this place is all about?

11:23 So the ukrainian history and education center's mission is to connect generations by telling the stories of Ukraine and Ukrainian Americans through its museum and archives. And we fulfill this mission through rotating exhibits, public access to the archives, educational and cultural programming, and online resources that increase the appreciation of ukrainian history and culture among non Ukrainians and help Ukrainian Americans better understand their roots.

11:49 That's great. And one of your many positions here is the museum collections manager, which the museum houses beautiful artifacts on the cultural, religious, and political history of Ukraine. Can you talk a little bit about the collection in general, the breadth of folk art that it spans, and just the tradition bearing in folk arts? So I hear everybody in your family plays the ukrainian national instrument. So just talking a little bit about the tradition bearing and the culture that's being passed down and how this mission helps, how the museum helps to sustain that mission.

12:25 Okay, so our museum was always kind of known as the museum of the church from the 1960s. And so, of course, that means that our collection includes a lot of religious artifacts, such as embroidered clergy vestments, the antimensions, the banners, hand crosses, pictorial crosses, and any other kind of ecclesiastical items that were used during services. Some of these date back to the first wave of the priests who opened up parishes in the US. We also have a fine art collection of ukrainian and ukrainian american artists. And then, of course, the folk art collection that you're interested in, which has a lot of woven tapestries, the kilims that hung on the walls, embroidered towels, rushneke costumes for both men, women, kids, jewelry, ukrainian Easter eggs, the piss. We have ukrainian ceramics, tiles, vases, bowls, carved wood and wood inlay candlesticks, and, of course, the ukrainian instruments. So the collection includes objects from all regions of Ukraine, as well as traditions that may have evolved during the generational changes. Some traditions and styles have changed over the years, and our collection strives to incorporate and maintain all ukrainian and ukrainian american folk art.

13:39 So what's your favorite piece, folk art in the collection?

13:44 Such a tricky question.

13:46 Not to put you on the spot.

13:49 I'm gonna pick out two things from the collection. So the first one is going to be ukrainian embroidery, and probably because I am not a very good embroiderer, so I can appreciate the amount of work and the skill that goes into making some of those beautiful, beautiful cloths. I have a few favorite that are like the ukrainian wedding ones, and the wedding ones are red. They've got the tree of life. And the tree of life symbolizes the generations. And then, you know, some of the more modern diaspora ones. I like a nice blue or green embroidered cloth. Those are. I like those. And then, of course, probably my second one will be, and I don't think you'll be surprised. It is the bundoora. We have a bundoora in our collection that belonged to Jehori Katasti. And like I said, I come from a musical family. We all grew up playing the bundoor, and my kids are now playing, so it's kind of a big deal. And my parents were actually students of Jihari Ketasti when he was alive, and he was a well known composer and bandurist whose music captured the spirit of ukrainian immigration and the entire ukrainian nation, so. And he's actually buried here behind St. Andrew Memorial Church. And he was also conductor of the Ukrainian Banderas chorus and whose current conductor is my uncle Alak Maklaide.

15:15 Oh, wow. So this is. You're totally musically connected to everything. So for those people listening that aren't familiar, how would you describe the instrument and what it sounds like? Not to put you on the spot, but you're.

15:29 Yeah. So a bandura is a multi stringed instrument, kind of like a harp or a lute, and it is played using both your hands. You have the left hand that has your basses, and then your right hand plays the melody.

15:42 Wow. And does it sound totally unique? Like, it's, like, guitarish in nature? Is it just.

15:51 Oh, no, it's definitely unique and probably closer to, like, a harp sound.

15:57 Okay. Very cool. One other piece that you conduct is the programming aspect at the center, providing workshops on a host of different ukrainian folk arts and even food ways. So how did you first get started with this particular tradition and skilled met, because you came and did an egg workshop at the seaport. So what got you interested in preserving the folk and traditional arts of Ukraine and keeping that alive and starting all these workshops that are so well attended?

16:28 Well, I think because it was always a part of who we were and what we did. The piss and que. I am not a professional piss and kha artist. I am an amateur. Just something that I love doing. I find it very therapeutic, and there are others who have studied it and are professional, and I take inspiration from them and from what they do and their beautiful work. I learned to make it just like our patrons do when they come to my workshops. I learned from other people at other museums. I used to attend piss and co workshops every spring at the Ukrainian Museum archives in Tremont Ohio. We did it with ukrainian school. We did it with our plas scouting group. We did it in our basement at home with my parents. I teach them. I do them for myself. My favorite one actually is called a sore cocklin, which is a 48 triangle division. I like the geometric ones. And so every year I'll do that one just for myself, and I'll pick different colors. I like to experiment with the blues, the greens to match the embroidery, and just pick a different pattern of that, that particular egg.

17:44 So what are some key things in folklore that people should know about the ukrainian Easter egg? The story in and of itself is beautiful, but I remember when you did the workshop, you kind of gave people little pieces of folklore that are associated with the eggs and why they are so important, not only. Not only religiously. Right. But then there's also the story of the luck that they can bring. Right. So if you don't mind sharing some of those.

18:16 So a lot of the imagery and the symbolism that you see with the piss and kai stems from what you want to maybe gift the person as well. Like I said, one of my favorites is you always want to have a top to it so that the person you get does not go bald. But there's also a lot of legends associated with it. And there's one about the evil monster named Perunenne, who sends out his minions every year to see if people are making pisson K and if they are, those chains on him tighten, and he is imprisoned. And if the people are not making Pese en Khe, his chains are loosened, and he unleashes evil in the world. And even though I am a christian woman, I shouldn't believe in these superstitions, I would still like to think that we're all doing our part in keeping evil away. So if we're gonna be making pes on kit to keep people away, let's make a ton of piss and k just in case. Just in case.

19:14 And so what now, you mentioned the colors. So when we made the eggs, they were black, red, yellow, orange. We did like a variety. But then you mentioned that in newer generations, they're adopting more colors. Is that something that's uniquely here in America?

19:33 No, I think that what's unique about America and or let's just say the ukrainian diaspora population is that we strive so hard to maintain those traditional colors, those traditional designs. When we teach the workshops, we do work one for. Because of the time that we're given that we try to work with colors that work well together. There aren't these more modern variations or washback techniques in using more of the trickier colors. But I think that this current generation is incorporating more and more of these different colors and making them just as beautiful. But I think it's definitely a different look from what could be those considered those diaspora eggs that were preserved by my grandparents generation when they came from Ukraine versus people now who are making in Ukraine.

20:27 Yeah. And so why do you think it's so important to pass down the tradition?

20:34 I think it's important to pass it down just because each pesanka is unique and it represents the person who made him the occasion. It's a bonding experience, and now I get to share it with my husband, with my kids, and hopefully they'll continue doing that as well. My husband actually made his very first piss and co with me here at the center when we were just still dating. One of the other things that we started here at the center a few years back was called piss and come meetup. And we just get, it's an informal group of people who just get together on a weeknight or a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and we'll pull out all the dies, all the supplies, all the books from our library collection, and we just start writing pes en kha. There's no, you know, formal instruction. You already have one that you start at home. Bring it. You want to start a new one? Fine, go for it. You want to be like me? Start three different eggs at the same time? Go for it. And we just bounce ideas off of each other. We try to experiment different things, and we get together and we feed off each other's energy as well, and to be able just to keep that tradition going.

21:43 Yeah. And so what do you hope your legacy is here?

21:48 I hope that I play a small role in the preservation of the culture, of this very rich culture and hope that maintain these traditions, the art, the folk art, the fine art, and keep it, preserve it for future generations.

22:05 And so especially the center is so rich and robust. What do you think is the future of your traditions and what challenges are there for the ukrainian folk arts community?

22:18 I think that the symbols, the colors are changing everything, but that still doesn't maintains that the tradition is still alive. It's going on and it's keeping going. People now use different colors, like we mentioned. They also use electrochysical, like we did at the seaport. We take, you know, people are trying to incorporate different methodology in when they're doing it. I don't think that's maybe a challenge. I think that just, it enhances, you know, what people are doing. I think that a lot of the traditions that I was taught stemmed from the experiences of those refugees that came during World War Two. I think that, you know, we're just trying to maintain what we know.

23:03 Yeah. And my last question, if you could teach listeners one word in Ukrainian, you gave us a couple. But if you could teach listeners one word in Ukrainian, what would it be and what does it mean?

23:17 I would like to teach everybody the word vitayemo, which means welcome. And I welcome all listeners to Ukraine. I welcome you to learn more about ukrainian culture, and I hope that one day you will all be able to visit Ukraine and experience the culture.

23:34 That's great. Well, thank you so much for being here today.

23:37 Thank you. Leslie.