{"id":166080,"date":"2026-05-18T09:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theukrainians.org\/shcho-v-imeni-hryhorij\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T11:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T09:25:06","slug":"whats-in-this-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theukrainians.org\/en\/whats-in-this-name\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in This Name \u2014 Hryhorii?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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This piece was made possible thanks to the support of The Ukrainians Media community \u2014 hundreds of people who believe in independent, high-quality journalism. If you value our work, consider supporting us and help us tell more meaningful stories.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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Three steps on Ukrainian soil<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI used to say: I was born in Canada, I\u2019m a Canadian of Ukrainian descent. But the moment I took three steps on Ukrainian soil, everything changed: I\u2019m a Ukrainian of Canadian descent,\u201d says 68-year-old Stefko Ostafiichuk.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s early spring in Kyiv, still quite cold, but the man in glasses, with a gray beard and gray hair, is wearing a T-shirt and a light, unbuttoned shirt. There\u2019s a pair of shorts in his bag. \u201cWe\u2019re from Canada,\u201d he explains, meaning that the early Ukrainian spring is, for him, practically summer. Stefko\u2019s \u2014 that\u2019s how he introduces himself \u2014 T-shirt has the inscription \u201c\u0414\u0415 \u0422\u0418?\u201d<\/em> (\u201cWHERE ARE YOU?\u201d). That\u2019s the name of the platform he founded, through which the world can learn about Russia\u2019s war crimes and about the Ukrainian children who have been killed or abducted. The project was born after Russia dropped an aerial bomb on the Mariupol Drama Theater on March 16, 2022. In front of the building, on the pavement, people wrote in large letters: \u201c\u0414\u0415\u0422\u0418\u201d<\/em> (\u201cCHILDREN\u201d). The Mariupol residents who were hiding in the theater hoped this would stop the Russians from bombing it. It didn\u2019t. According to various estimates, between 300 and 600 people were killed there.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Where are YOU?<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere are YOU?\u201d is also a personal, nagging question that has tormented Stefko for many years. Sometimes it takes a different form: \u201cWhat\u2019s in this name \u2014 Hryhorii?\u201d That was his older brother\u2019s name; he died in 2017. It wasn\u2019t until he was an adult that Stefko learned he had been named Hryhorii not by chance, but after his father\u2019s brother, whom his father had never spoken of. Why? What happened to the Hryhorii Stefko never knew \u2014 his uncle? Will he be able to find anything out? Will he find any traces of him in Ukraine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The village of Trostianets, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. Stefko Ostafiichuk enters the yard where his father was born. Next to the new house stands an old mud-brick one with blue wooden windows, doors and planks nailed to its base. By 19th-century standards, it is large and sturdy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stefko\u2019s grandfather, Vasyl Ostafiichuk, built the house 125 years ago. The current owners have long been planning to tear it down, but they just can\u2019t bring themselves to do it.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Ostafiichuk family lived here until 1941. Vasyl was a carpenter. He and his wife Hanna had two sons, Mykola and Hryhorii. Both attended the Kolomyia Gymnasium. They were the first in the family to receive an education. Mykola worked briefly at the school, but later decided to become a doctor and went to study in Lviv. In 1939, Soviet troops occupied western Ukraine, and with them came repressions. The Ostafiichuks were forced to flee. In 1941, they ended up in Germany. From there, they moved to Austria. Mykola knew German well and enrolled in medical school in Innsbruck. All traces of the younger Hryhorii were lost.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1948, the Ostafiichuks obtained a residence permit in Canada and moved there. Mykola was hired to provide medical care to Indigenous people in tuberculosis sanatoria and also served remote Indigenous communities. At the university hospital, he met a young woman, Janett Evelyn Thomson, a Canadian of French-British descent. She was a nurse. They got married.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janett went with Mykola to Austria so he could finish his medical studies. That\u2019s where their first child was born.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis name has always been a mystery, for as long as I can remember. Mom said that when she asked what we would name our son, Dad hesitated for a moment, and then said \u2014 Hryhorii. It took a long time before Mykola told Janett about his lost brother,\u201d says Stefko.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crossing<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Their next three children \u2014 Mykola, Stefko and Lada \u2014 were born in Canada. The couple settled in Oshawa, a city on the shores of Lake Ontario. In the language of the Ojibwe people, the city\u2019s name literally means \u201ccrossing to the other side of a lake or river.\u201d By the early 20th century, there were 60 Ukrainian families living there. By the time Mykola and Janett settled there, the Ukrainian population had grown to several thousand: General Motors Canada opened a plant in Oshawa with 4,000 jobs, and people flocked there for work. The Ukrainian community grew strong and became one of the city\u2019s largest. In 1949, Ukrainian Michael Starr (Mykhailo Starchewsky) became mayor of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mykola Ostafiichuk ran a private medical practice and performed surgeries at the local hospital. He was one of the leaders of the Ukrainian community. Although his wife was Canadian, they spoke exclusively Ukrainian at home \u2014 Janett had learned the language. The Ukrainian community knew her as Miss Ivanka. She led various Ukrainian initiatives, such as the women\u2019s league. She advocated for equal pay for women and men. Their children studied Ukrainian history and culture. They attended a Greek Catholic church, even though Janett was a member of the Anglican Church. On December 25, they celebrated Canadian Christmas with turkey on the table, and on January 6, they celebrated Ukrainian Christmas Eve with 12 traditional meatless dishes. At Easter, they painted pysanky. In the summer, they went to Ukrainian camps.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI asked my mom why she learned Ukrainian, and she replied: \u2018When you love someone very much, you learn their culture, their language \u2014 you do it all.\u2019 Mom ended up all alone at 20, so maybe that\u2019s why she clung so tightly to Dad,\u201d reflects Lada Ostafiichuk.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were called \u201cthe doctor\u2019s kids.\u201d But medical practice wasn\u2019t the only thing that interested Mykola Ostafiichuk.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy father was 15 when he and my grandfather planted an orchard. When we were little, my parents bought a 400-acre farm, and my father said, \u2018I want to plant an orchard because we had one like that back home.\u2019 And on the farm in Canada, we planted over 600 trees. Dad used to say, \u2018I was born of the earth, and I want to die in the earth,\u2019\u201d says Stefko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That orchard is, in fact, the only memory of Ukraine that his father shared with them. Now Stefko wonders why his dad never told them anything, instead focusing on developing Ukrainian projects in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Perhaps he felt guilty: he was able to escape to a safe place, and his brother was not. Survivor\u2019s guilt.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When the workday ended at the medical office, patients would come to the doctor\u2019s home. Mykola never turned anyone away. In the late 1960s, Stefko\u2019s parents took in a young woman and put her up in his room. She worked in Mykola Ostafiichuk\u2019s office, and at the same time, the doctor cared for her. The woman\u2019s name was Lesia. She moved to Canada from Germany in 1960, when she was a teenager. In 1959, her father was murdered in Munich. Until his death, Lesia did not know her real last name or who her father was. His death and the revelation of his true identity hit her very hard. The woman\u2019s name was Lesia Bandera.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was young, Lesia Bandera stayed in my room in Oshawa. She had PTSD. She was a child when her father was killed, but she didn\u2019t know who he really was. She had an emotional disorder. The OUN leadership and acquaintances asked my father to take care of Lesia. She lived with us for a year. She was a wonderful, fascinating person,\u201d says Stefko.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ostafiichuks crossed paths with the Bandera family back in Ukraine. Stefko\u2019s grandparents knew Father Andrii Bandera, the father of OUN leader Bandera. Many years after Lesia Bandera had lived in his room, Stepan Bandera\u2019s grandson \u2014 his namesake \u2014 would help Stefko Ostafiichuk uncover the secret of Hryhorii, his father\u2019s brother.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ostafiichuk family\u2019s safe and happy life would come to an end in 1978. Their son Mykola, who took care of the farm and the garden, was run over by a car right outside his house by a drunk neighbor. He died in his brother Hryhorii\u2019s arms. Stefko was away at school at the time. He received a phone call informing him that his brother had died. On the way home, he had wondered \u2014 which one of the two?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The house went dark<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The loss of his son hit Mykola Ostafiichuk hard. Exactly one year later, he passed away \u2014 as Stefko says, from \u201cheartbreak\u201d [heart attack \u2014 Ed.]<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy brother died, then my dad. For me, it was like the lights went out. The house went dark.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At his father\u2019s funeral, 21-year-old Stefko sat next to his father\u2019s friend, Petro Bashuk, a member of the OUN since the 1930s and a survivor of Auschwitz. That was when he told Stefko a story he had never heard before \u2014 that his father had a younger brother, Hryhorii, who was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and in 1941, was likely shot by the Soviets.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was all the information he had. Stefko didn\u2019t dig any deeper \u2014 he was devastated by the deaths of his brother and father.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He moved to Toronto and became a successful international recruiter, sourcing talent for global tech giants. He completely cut himself off from the Ukrainian community. He forgot the language. Even the events of 1991 did not affect him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n