Jars Balan

Jars Balan directed the Ukrainian Canadian Program at CIUS since 2000, renamed the Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre in 2007, and was the CIUS Director from 2018 to 2020. A specialist in Ukrainian Canadian history, literature, and theatre, in 1991 Jars spearheaded the creation of the Kalyna Country Ecomuseum. Balan's publications include the landmark conference proceedings Identifications: Ethnicity and the Writer in Canada (1982), the anthology Yarmarok: Ukrainian Writers in Canada Since the Second World War (1987), and the revelatory article "Rhea Clyman: Forgotten Canadian Eyewitness to the Hunger of 1932" (2014, 2019) and documentary Hunger for Truth: The Rhea Clyman Story (2017).