ABSTRACT
During the postwar years, a dislike and suspicion of the Soviet Union was common in much of the non-socialist Ukrainian diaspora in the west. The ancestral homeland was seen by many individuals and organizations as a place where the Ukrainian language, culture and religion were being actively suppressed by Russocentric Soviet authorities. As in other eastern European diasporas, protests over developments in Ukraine formed one part of Ukrainian diaspora community life. There were, of course, variations in those protests. As noted in the previous chapter, some organizations in the diaspora maintained group boundaries and helped their members sustain and express their ethnic identity by blending North American occupational or professional interests with Ukrainian interests. Some did this by helping raise the profile of Ukraine and Ukrainian ethnicity, history and culture through various educational initiatives; others did it through the promotion of the symbolic aspects of ethnic culture.
