Select Page

Job Seekers - Achev - Connecting Skilled Newcomers with Employers 2
Job Seekers - Achev - Connecting Skilled Newcomers with Employers 2
Freedom Heart Ukraine
Job Seekers - Achev - Connecting Skilled Newcomers with Employers

The View From Here: Time, Space and Technology

Aug 22, 2017 | Featured, The View From Here - Walter Kish

Volodymyr Kish.

We live in an age where time and space no longer constrain our lives and our abilities the way they used to. Our earth is the same size, and our clocks still run at the same speed as they used to when we were kids, but our universe is much different and considerably less limiting than what it was a little less than a lifetime ago.

When my father made his way to Canada in the 1920’s he did this by train across Europe and then by ship across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip took him several weeks. The letter he sent back home confirming his arrival took months to get back to his village. By the time he returned to Ukraine in the late 1980’s, he was able to cover that same expanse in a little over one day. His phone call back to Canada confirming his arrival took only a few minutes to set up.

These quantum leaps in travel and communications have been made possible by the remarkable advances in science and technology over the past century. We have benefited from these not only from the perspective of making many of our activities faster, easier and cheaper, but also from the fact that they have expanded our horizons and changed the nature of our relationships with other people.

When I was a teenager, I knew very little about our extended family back in Ukraine. Ukraine was a distant place locked behind an Iron Curtain that inhibited contact of almost every kind. From time to time, my parents would get letters from their brothers and sisters, which they would read to us. I found the style of writing rather formal and curiously devoid of emotion. The letters would convey basic factual information about births, marriages, christenings and deaths, accompanied by grainy black and white photos of grim, non-smiling folks. It was hard to make the connection that these people were of my flesh and blood. There was little in there to give me any idea as to what they were like in terms of character or personality. They might as well have been aliens on another planet.

I contrast that to what things are like today, now that the walls have tumbled and I have been able to travel and spend considerable time in Ukraine over the past few decades. I now know these formerly grim faces as real people. We have laughed, cried, sung, danced, broken bread and toasted the nights away together. Even though I have not been in Ukraine for several years, I have almost daily contact with my countless cousins in Ukraine. We chat on SKYPE, we exchange pictures on Facebook and e-mail each other regularly. We are a virtually connected real family and I am the richer for it.

The family experience is enhanced even further by the fact that the digital era has given me access to a rich trove of historical and genealogical information that has enabled me to build a rich and detailed family tree that goes back centuries. I have managed to trace my family roots on both my father and mother’s side back over five generations to the late 1700’s. Originally this was largely done through poring over microfiche records of Ukrainian church registers made available here in North America by the Mormon Church. Additional in person research done by my relatives in the Lviv archives added more detail, and recently I have been able to access some of these as well as other large stores of archival data online over the internet.

I have an early Austrian map showing the plots of land that my great great great grandfather owned in the little town of Devyatyr in what is now Poland. I have a copy of my mother’s grade school record. I have an inventory showing how many cows, pigs and chickens my father’s grandfather possessed a hundred and fifty years ago. All this information has given me a much bigger and deeper picture of my family roots and consequently my own place in the grand scheme of things.

Above all, these discoveries of the past few decades have enabled me to better understand the recent history of Ukraine and its personal impact on my immediate family as well as recent ancestors. What our parents, grandparents and great grandparents lived through has played a major role in shaping our own personalities as well as values and principles. The better we understand our personal histories, the better we understand ourselves. The better we understand ourselves, the better prepared we will be to make something productive and meaningful of our own lives.

Share on Social Media

Announcement
Pace Law Firm
2/10 Years of War
Borsch

Events will be approved within 2 business days after submission. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Manage Subsctiption

Check your subscription status, expiry dates, billing and shipping address, and more in your subscription account.