Next-Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction

Mateusz Świetlicki is Assistant Professor at the University of Wrocław’s Institute of English Studies and Director of the Center for Young People’s Literature and Culture. His scholarship focuses on North American and Ukrainian children’s and YA literature and culture, memory, gender, and queer studies, as well as popular culture and film. He has published in English, Ukrainian, Polish, and Croatian.

• Introduction1 Land of All Colors and Races?: Canadian Cossacks, Indigenous Peoples, and the Myth of the Founding Fathers of the Prairies 2 “Unspeakable. Unacceptable. Then and Now”: The First World War and Canadian Internment Camps 3 Canadian Pysanky and the Survival of the Seeds of Memory 4 “You filthy little Zaraza!”: Red Terror, Collectivization, and the Holodomor in Canadian Cultural Memory 5 Survivors, Oppressors, Implicated Subjects, and Entangled Bystanders: The Second World War and the Holocaust Conclusion

Winner of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) 2025 Book Award for Best Monograph"I would heartily recommend this book not just to scholars and educators but also to the wider public. It is a truly pioneering study and is definitely more timely now than its author could ever have imagined. Each of the chapters is accompanied by extensive and detailed endnotes, and the work concludes with an impressive bibliography of primary and secondary texts."--Lindsay Myers, University of Galway"Mateusz Świetlicki’s book monograph is not only an important contribution to the study of Ukrainian Canadian and Canadian children’s literature, highlighting the history of Ukraine and the relations of Ukrainians with other peoples in Canada, but also a fascinating story about how reading, imagining, and reimagining history can lead to the formation of beyond-textual next-generation memory."--Tetiana Kachak, Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Ukraine"The monograph showcases a perfect balance between historical context and content analysis of the primary children’s texts, thereby being accessible to anyone who might not be familiar with either Ukrainian or Canadian history and culture."--Liliana Santos, University of Coimbra"Without a doubt, Świetlicki’s undertaking was laborious, but his prose is far from labored: erudite yet accessible, the author’s writing style marries sophistication and clarity. Insofar as Next-Generation Memory delivers precisely what it promises (more, in fact), the book has every reason to spark—or, rather, “sprout”—long overdue dialogue and debate about writers for children/young adults who endeavor to keep memory and history alive among their readers."--Lisa Grekul, University of British Columbia, Okanagan"Mateusz Świetlicki has created an impressive study of the role of children’s literature in transmitting cultural memory within the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. [...] Through his thorough analysis of works of Canadian children’s literature, Świetlicki provides a substantial contribution to memory studies, literary criticism, cultural studies, and the field of children’s literature."--Melanie Braith, University of Winnipeg