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In memory of Pavlo Romanovich Yavorsky, Saskatchewan-born Ukrainian ballet master, CYMK founder and lifelong champion of Ukrainian heritage and culture, ‘Show Them What You Can Do’ ~ Building the Ukrainian Spirit Across Canada: An Illustrated Biography of Pavlo Romanovich Yavorsky’ was launched last year at the 75th anniversary national convention of the Ukrainian Youth Association of Canada (CYMK).

Since its release, orders for the book have been received from every province between B.C. and the Maritimes; it is on file at Library and Archives Canada and Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec as well as Alberta’s Vegreville Centennial Library, Saskatoon Public Library and the Ukrainian Museum of Canada, where copies are also available for purchase at the museum gift shop.

Produced by Pavlo Yavorsky’s daughters, the 112-page full-colour large-format (8.5”x11”) book contains his writings and more than 275 images of artifacts, photographs and documents compiled from a rare private collection as well as the ‘Paul Yavorsky fonds’ at Library and Archives Canada. Text includes translated excerpts from ‘Starymy Stezhkamy/Bygone Pathways’ — Pavlo’s published memoirs — as well as journal entries from 1932-1937 when he organized CYMK branches in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Eastern Canada and from 1938-1939, when he travelled with Vasile Avramenko as dance instructor, performer, publicist and fund-raiser for the Avramenko/Edgar G. Ulmer feature film, ‘Cossacks in Exile’. In later years, over several decades, Pavlo was a columnist for the Ukrainian Voice and other publications, writing on varied topics of significance to a Ukrainian-Canadian readership: multiculturalism, arts and literature, history, politics and current events.

Generous funding assistance toward printing of his biography was provided by the SUS Foundation of Canada and is gratefully acknowledged here.

‘Show Them What You Can Do’ is available by mail-order in hardcover (limited edition of 100 numbered copies) and softcover, with proceeds from book sales going toward the Pavlo Romanovich Yavorsky Ukrainian-Canadian Youth Scholarship fund.