NEWS AND VIEWS: Filip Konowal comes home (08/29/04)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Filip Konowal comes home

by Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk

I was standing over his grave when the verses came to me: "I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. ... Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."

How apt a devotional for a Canadian hero, Corp. Filip Konowal.

I first heard of him in the early 1980s. In those days Konowal was "lost." Of those who even knew his name most questioned who he was. There was no Ukraine when Konowal came to Canada, they said, only imperial Russia. Ukrainians were just "Little Russians." Those claiming otherwise were pesky "émigré nationalists." And they ignored how he identified himself as Ukrainian. So I empathized with Konowal. They didn't want me to be a Ukrainian either.

In Ottawa's Notre Dame cemetery, where he has been since 1959, scarcely a trace of him could once be found, save for a small tablet, flush to the ground. How ironic that Konowal lies not far from Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, a good man who opposed branding Ukrainians and other Europeans as "enemy aliens" during Canada's first national internment operations. Yet, from 1914 to 1920, thousands were herded into concentration camps, stripped of what little wealth they had and later disenfranchised. That happened as other Ukrainians, like Konowal, were loyally volunteering for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, some lying to enlist. Calling themselves Russians, for example.

Across Canada, and even in his ancestral village of Kutkivchi, Konowal was unrecalled, save for his name inscribed over Branch 360 of the Royal Canadian Legion, on Toronto's Queen Street West. It was not then the trendy area it is today.

Why should Konowal have been better known? Because he was a hero. During the Battle of Hill 70 on August 22-24, 1917, just beyond Vimy Ridge, Konowal's exploits were so daring that King George V personally awarded the Victoria Cross. And also because he was archetypically Canadian - an immigrant, forest worker, soldier, a man who persevered through hard times, loosing his first wife during the genocidal Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine. He married a French Canadian widow, learned her language, worked as a janitor on Parliament Hill, never bragging of his VC, save for joking how he cleaned up with a mop, as once he mopped up with a rifle.

Mainly due to Branch 360 a campaign to recover Konowal's memory began in 1995. Much was done. A proper headstone was consecrated. Trilingual historical plaques were unveiled at sites connected with his life - one at the Toronto Legion, whose honorary patron he is, another in the Governor General's Foot Guards Armory - in Ottawa, home of the 77th Regiment, a third in the armory of the Royal Westminster Regiment, in Richmond, British Columbia, for he fought in the 47th's ranks. There is also a marker at the Ukrainian Canadian Centennial Park in Dauphin, Manitoba. His bust even graces the village where descendants occupy the family home. And a bas-relief will be unveiled next August, near Lens, France.

With Ukraine having re-emerged in Europe, Konowal is also no longer called a Russian. Curators and commentators alike concede he was Ukrainian Canadian and most acknowledge Ukrainians weren't Russians - then, now or ever.

Still, something remained "lost" - his Victoria Cross. Spokesmen for the Canadian War Museum vowed it was just misplaced, astray in their collections. We thought it was stolen, but couldn't prove it - until April 2, when an email came from England, from Iain Stewart. He reported Konowal's VC for sale by Jeffrey Hoare Auctions of London, Ontario. Immediate steps were taken to have the RCMP secure and authenticate that medal. Unquestionably, it is Konowal's.

Undeniably, it was filched from the museum. By whom? Where was it? That tale has yet to be told. But, thanks to the CBC's Geoff Ellwand, we know that in the early 1990s a well-dressed woman in her 30s brought it and a Hawaiian silver dollar into a local coin dealer's shop. Told both were fakes, she sold them, got $20 and went away content.

The dealer had it half right. The coin was a copy, but the VC was real. How could he not know? He consulted a reference book on military medals and there saw a photograph of a Canadian Victoria Cross. Official bilingualism required Pro Valore as an inscription instead of the English-language-only "For Valour" of Konowal's VC. But for the flick of a few pages the gem that had come to hand would have been revealed.

And so on August 23, the 87th anniversary of the Battle of Hill 70, Konowal's Victoria Cross was returned to its rightful owners, the people of Canada. His prodigal medal will become a centerpiece in the new Canadian War Museum's World War I galleries. It will be where it belongs.

As a soldier of the Great War, Konowal must have heard the magnificent hymn, "Amazing Grace." Hoot, if you will, but I am a man of faith. That spiritual's comforting words intruded just as I paused where he rests. So I know Filip Konowal has been found. And that grace led him home.

Lubomyr Luciuk is a professor at the Royal Military College and co-author, with Ron Sorobey, of "Konowal: A Canadian Hero" (Kashtan Press, 2000).

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