Ukrainian emigration in western Canada: an experience of philosophical reflection

The article presents the experience of philosophical comprehension of the Ukrainian immigration to Western Canada. We tried to analyze some major features of the first flows of emigrants from Ukraine at the end of XIXth – at the beginning of the XXth centuries, and the circumstances of the diaspora’s shaping from the perspective of existential rooting. We focused on the Ukrainian contribution to the public and political life of Canadian society. While stressing the scientific novelty of the research, we also tried to undertake a study founded on the idea of existential rooting. We examined main features of the Ukrainian immigrants’ integration in Canadian social and cultural space. Comprehension of this process reveals that Ukrainians came off as one of the most creative and productive nation. Ukrainian emigration as it is stated in the paper is a very complicated and multifaceted phenomenon, from definitions on out to different aspects of genesis, formation of Ukrainian emigration flows to North America in tot and to Western Canada particularly. Summing up we would like to underline that the problematic of emigration as in the Western so in Ukrainian historiography is characterized by richness of meanings and could provide a means for further researches, especially from an interdisciplinary perspective. Special attention is called to comparative analysis of Ukrainian diaspora’s integration in Canadian society along with similar processes of other diasporas in Canada.