Facts and memories of a Ukranian landscape

Abstract

The landscape of Prudentópolis-PR got peculiar characteristics from the arrival of Ukrainian immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These individuals have contributed to a dynamic transformation of the local landscape, and the cultural attributes printed on the landscape make Prudentopolis be known as “the Brazilian Ukraine”. Therefore, the present article exhibit the landscape, through news contained in a newspaper. The Prácia Newspaper present in the Ukrainian community since the year 1912 is a relevant instrument for the understanding of these individuals in their new territory. In this article, we emphasize the materiality of culture, in other words, the elements visible in the landscape, since there are many material and immaterial elements.

Keywords:
Landscape; Culture; Ukrainians

Resumo

A paisagem de Prudentópolis-PR tomou características peculiares a partir da chegada de imigrantes ucranianos no final do século XIX e início do XX. Estes sujeitos têm contribuído para uma transformação dinâmica da paisagem local, e os atributos culturais impressos na paisagem fazem Prudentópolis ser conhecido como “a Ucrânia Brasileira”. Neste sentido, o presente artigo exibe a paisagem por meio de notícias contidas em um Jornal. O Jornal Prácia, presente na comunidade ucraniana desde o ano de 1912, é um instrumento relevante para a compreensão desses sujeitos em seu novo território. Neste artigo, damos ênfase para a materialidade da cultura, ou seja, para os elementos visíveis na paisagem, visto que eles são muitos, materiais e imateriais.

Palavras-chave:
Migração; Ucranianos; Paisagem

Introduction

Prudentópolis, in the Paraná state - Brazil, is known as “Brazilian Ukraine” because it is the home of a large number of immigrants from this ethnicity. Migratory dynamics that occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries produced the configuration and changes in the local landscape. Their cultural codes printed on the landscape allow a wide view of the Ukrainian culture in town. Such a condition may be observed through the embroidery colors, from colorful paintings in homes; by the typical food flavors; the sound from Ukrainian music in parties and local radios, as well as in houses’ and churches’ architecture.

Therefore, in order to understand how this process occured, this study initially makes a brief discussion on the landscape concept, because it supports developing the objective proposed, which is a material and cultural landscape analysis of Prudentópolis town. Next, we present the landscape constitution itself through the printed newspaper called Prácia, a centennial printed present in the Ukrainian community of the town since 1912. We did not discuss the landscape only from what may be seen in loco, but through considerations and notes from the search for Prudentópolis landscape constitutive elements and from the Ukrainians insertion on the printed reports in Prácia Newspaper.

We used this object because it gives access to the readings of history, cultural practices and living experiences by Ukrainian and their descendants’ overtime. It allows us to understand how these subjects, from their particularities, are a fundamental part of the Prudentópolis landscape formation.

Landscape conceptualization

We start this interlocution from presenting the landscape concept within the cultural perspective. In other words, we start from the landscape concept as a description way and expression of material and immaterial in Prudentópolis, starting with the Ukrainian immigrants' arrival.

The symbols arranged in the landscape make the intercession between imagination and the real. The meanings attributed to these symbols lead us to an imaginative dimension, where they play an important role, because their union with an individual imagination justifies numerous interpretations assigned to the landscape. The cultural load and the identity construction of each one are processes that occur over time and with different spatiality experiments.

Landscape, as one of the key concepts of Geographic Science, added multiple interpretations over time, providing a large study field between elements from nature and society. It always depends on the cultural and historical context, which is the relationship among several viewpoints that may be contradictory sometimes, but that converge to what may be recognized singularly as a cultural process.

According to Corrêa (2011, p. 10), “however, the landscape is not the material form resulting from the human action changing nature. It is also a symbolic way impregnated by values [...]”. This author points out that the values give the sense attributed to the landscape, deconstructing the idea of landscape as everything visible and building sets and juxtaposition of meanings, as all the human relations.

Landscape comprehension, while a symbolic way, comes from studies promoted by the new cultural Geography in the 1970s, highlighting those presented by Denis Cosgrove (1979; 1983; 1993; 1995; 1998), who presents the Historical-cultural Geography of the landscape associated with economic, technical, artistic, social or policy changes. He considers the landscape as external pictorial synthesis, which statically represents relations between life and nature, constituted in a “powerful mean whereby feelings, ideas and values are expressed” (COSGROVE, 1993, p. 8), and simultaneously “modeling these same feelings, ideas and values” (CORRÊA, 2011, p. 12).

In Ukrainian’s case, when they have settled down on the urban space, even in lower numbers when compared to those who have settled down on the rural space, they incorporated numerous aspects from their origins to the Prudentópolis landscape. Therefore, it is changed by immigrants over time according to their own way, considering their traditions, beliefs and teachings. It was manifested in the landscape through buildings, such as the theater, the market, school, club and church, as well as the cultural manifestations both in rural and urban spaces.

According to Hirsch (1995, p. 23), the landscape is a process that occurs between the “place and space, inside and outside, image and representation”.

The starting concept is linked to

[...] the neopositive approach addressed to the term region trying to focus the abstraction process of physical reality, according to its quantitative methodology. The approach by Marx (materialist), uninterested in the landscape geography identified itself with the term region, which defines as a territorial product from the action between capital and work. Approaches by human ecology, however, benefit themselves from the landscape idea when demonstrate its systemic characteristics, assembling several categories in the same space clipping (SCHIER, 2003, p. 80).

From the 1970s decade, the discussion is highlighted on the cultural landscape, especially those who bring analysis of images, symbolic content, human groups bonds with the space, analysis of representations and so on, contemplating aspects from a determined culture in the space. We bring some authors and their definitions and approaches regarding the landscape concept more connected to the cultural issues.

The landscape must be understood as a text in which everyone who reads it means it in a different way, according to his/her own lenses, experiences and living. It also results from the action by a society that expresses its cultural marks on the natural landscape over time.

According to Melo (2001, p. 30), “in the early twentieth century, the landscape was one of the first themes approaches in a cultural perspective by German geographers”. Corrêa (1995, p. 4) states that is “[...] about a set of material shapes articulated among them in spaces like fields, quickset, paths, houses, churches, among others, with their styles and colors, resulted from the changing action by the human on nature”.

Santos (1988, p. 23) presents a discussion on the landscape and production of work instruments, where these last ones are interconnected to the production process. For the author, “the landscape is not created at once, but by additions, substitutions, [...] a landscape is written over another one, it is a set of objects that have different ages, it is a heritage from several moments” (SANTOS, 1988, p. 23).

Santos (2002) still asserts that the landscape is the coexistence of ways and shapes created in determined historical moments and currently. The landscape may be thought under two ways: mark and matrix. As mark, it may be understood from the human actions, being perceived, experienced and valued. As matrix, it contemplates and expresses cultural characteristics from a determined society, becoming base, inspiration and reflection from the people yearnings.

Understanding the landscape in two ways is necessary: on one hand, it is seen by a sight, apprehended by a consciousness, valued by an experience, judged (and eventually reproduced) by an esthetic and a moral, generated by a policy, etc. and on the other hand, it is matrix, in other words, it is determined in a counterpart, this sight, this consciousness, this policy, etc. (BERQUE, 1998, p. 86).

Then, the complexity of the concept provided by Geography linked to the culture is noticed, and addresses our study by a cultural, symbolic and material bias, knowing that immaterial is also noticed when we talk about a landscape from a culture. So, we present the materiality of Ukrainian culture in Prudentópolis.

According to Caetano and Bezzi (2011, p. 458), “landscape materiality and immateriality have importance on researches addressed to the critical view by Geography”, able to express marks and human actions on a determined space. Buildings, superstition beliefs, religiosity, among other landscape marks are explained by this bias, whether material or immaterial.

Therefore, it is possible to assert that the landscape is constructed from individuals of determined culture, whether present on materiality or immateriality, according to their traditions, daily activities, etc. Still according to Caetano and Bezzi (2011, p. 260),

representativeness of cultural landscape does not mean only to the materialized aspects, but to everything that is part of it, whether scents, sounds, people, animals and objects that “fill” this landscape with living, color and peculiarities.

The landscape is a synthesis concept built from the comprehension of the place. Thus, “much more than a juxtaposition of picturesque details, landscape is a set, a convergence, a living moment, an internal link, an ‘impression’ that gathers all the elements” (DARDEL, 2011, p. 41).

It must be seen not only as a study object, intellectually reflected and interpreted, but as a living way in its full positivity of people daily. According to Dardel (1990, p. 54), “the landscape does not refer itself to the essence, to what is seen, but represents the human insertion in the world, his/her being manifestation for other, base for his/her social being.

Prudentópolis’ landscape is constituted by the Ukrainian culture codes in this perspective. Immigrants kept memories from events, festivities, religiosity based on their life in their homeland. So, they have reproduced and still reproduce what they have brought with them, attributing meanings from this culture in the space where they are settled.

The use of Prácia Newspaper as a historical source to understand the landscape

Using newspapers as bibliographic sources enable researchers to understand aspects from the current society and also deals with the historic past. Thus, the landscape object for this study may be observed through the newspaper circulation researched by different material and immaterial elements. Prácia Newspaper was used as research source by authors like Polak (2010), Lupespa (2013), Szeremeta (2015) and Prado (2017).

In order to find the elements that have formed the Prudentópolis’ landscape over time, expressed by the newspaper from the Ukrainian arriving, we explored the content of all the editions between the years 1912 and 2000. A random choice for one or another edition was not possible without knowing their content. So, we choose the editions, treated the data and translated information from the newspaper editions that make reference to the material and immaterial aspects expressed in the landscape. The newspaper was published exclusively in Ukrainian language until 1995. Since then the issues are bilingual in Ukrainian and Portuguese languages.

When defined the usage of a printed newspaper as a data source for research, we followed the idea that they are a reconstruction of reality, and not only a mirror, because the news does not implies on the fact itself, but in a report on what really happened. In Prácia Newspaper, as much as there is a symbolic limitation because it was edited by a religious chain, it does not mean that what was reported over time is not the truth. From subjective conceptions expressed by the newspaper, we have selected the real aspects of interest in order to understand the relations expressed in the landscape.

Prácia means “work” in Ukrainian, and the newspaper started to circulate in Prudentópolis in November 1912. In the early years, the newspaper was edited in a typography installed in a building on the Basilian priests' monastery backyards, where it remained until 1952. After that, its own building was constructed for writing and printing, remaining until nowadays under the name Gráfica Prudentópolis.

According to Escudero (2007), the “immigrant” newspapers have had several objectives, each one according to the immigrant community’s needs. Publications were addressed to “the social identification, to the search for information, breaking the insulation and to the contact with the foster society, to survive in the new land and to preserve and maintain their own culture” (ESCUDERO, 2007, p. 82).

The number 24 of the year 2012 of the Prácia newspaper had commemorative feature, and made reference to the first edition of the newspaper in Brazil, and brought the following note from the editor to the immigrants:

Basilian priests, also it is been two years, has published the “Ukrainian Missionary in Brazil” focusing strictly on religious themes. However, there was the need to offer information on cultural and political character to the people, and in order to do so the Prácia was born, and it will publish news and comments on political, cultural and religious themes. Then, it will fulfill the Ukrainian people need in Brazil, in order to increase the cultural level, inform on the world, Ukrainian and Brazilian events. And as comprehend a Christian formation work is impossible without faith and religion, [...] it is been more than one year between the Ruthenium in Paraná there was an uncertainty climate, because even they have missed an educative newspaper, it was had to overcome the situation. By publishing this first number, we wish to fulfill the spiritual needs of our Ruthenium people in Brazil, elevate their instruction level, build a national consciousness and gather all our educational work strengths of the people (PRÁCIA, 2012, n. 24, p. 9).

Despite the newspaper was edited by the local Ukrainian church, and therefore bring religious information, its content also dealt with other issues, such as news on the wreck of the Titanic in 1912, on the Hunger in Ukraine (1932-1933), and on the Ukrainian immigration on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

On the changes incorporated to the communication vehicle over time, the news published in the number 24 of 2012 dealt with changes in the letter styles and the beginning of electrical machines usage (Figure 1).

[...] in 1940 the electricity started to be used for impression and dactylography on Intertype, and later the Lynotype for letter composition, and only in 1996 the typography started to execute graphic works and impression on the computing age and photoliths usage. The first electrical machine was acquired in 1938 (PRÁCIA, 2012, n. 24, p. 9-10).

Figure 1
First electric printing machine of Prácia Newspaper, 1938

Other highlighted change announced in the same issue asserted that the newspaper, which was published biweekly since its first edition, started to be weekly because of the equipment modernization.

The objective was that the newspaper could be read not only by the immigrants who mastered the language but also by the descendants who were born in Brazil. Thus, initially it was published only in Ukrainian language, and from 1995 it started to be bilingual. This information also is part of the newspaper in 2012: “did you know that our newspaper started to introduce the Portuguese language from the Young Way brochure publication in 1995, becoming totally bilingual in 1998?” (PRÁCIA, 2012, n. 24, p. 10). This change occurred because several readers could not follow the readings in Ukrainian language.

The newspaper translation may be considered innovative. The Law number 10.406, January 10, 2002, points that “all the documents reported in a foreign language have to be translated into Portuguese language to have legal effect in the country” (BRASIL, 2002), but the newspaper became bilingual seven years earlier. Another point to be considered is the reduced number of readers at the beginning of publications. However, the profile changed over time (Box 1). The number of readers rose up between the years 1924 and 1937, and it may be justified by new Ukrainian immigrants in Brazil. It is also possible to notice the publication reached Ukrainian communities in Brazil and other countries, such as Argentina, United States of America, Canada, Italy, Ukraine, England, Germany and France. The newspaper activities remains nowadays. However, the number of readers is lower than before, and most subscribers are from Paraná, Santa Catarina and São Paulo (Box 1).

Box 1
Variation and origin from Prácia Newspaper subscribers from 1912 to 2012

YEAR	SUBSCRIBERS	ORIGIN
1912 - 1923	800	Brazil: 800 Overseas: ----
1923	987	Brazil: 935 Overseas: 52
1924	1700	Brazil: 1700 Overseas: ----
1937	2500	Brazil: 2500	Overseas: ----
2012	Brazil: 1092 Other countries: 47	Brazil: State of Paraná: 935 State of Santa Catarina: 95 State of São Paulo: 36 Outher States: 26	Other countries: Argentine: 5USA: 8 Canada: 5 Italy: 9 Ukraine: 8 England: 4 Germany: 7 France: 1

• Source: Prácia Newspaper, n. 24, p. 11, March, 1^st 2012.
• Org: Mageroski (2017).

Until 2012 there were 6410 numbers published. Nevertheless, the newspaper stopped being published from 1941 to 1946, period known by the Getúlio Vargas nationalization campaign, through the Decree-Law number 1,545, of August 25, 1939, which “forecasted immigration adaptation to the Brazilian territory, and the spoken language was forbidden, as well as publishing magazines, newspapers and brochures in foreign language” (BRASIL, 1939).

Since the newspaper debut, it played an important role to maintain the culture among Ukrainians. Publications have oriented immigrants on how they should keep their cultural and religious practices, as well as approximate these subjects to their roots. Once it reported facts occurred in Ukraine, it provided contact between the immigrant and his/her origins. Thus, the Prácia Newspaper may be used as research source in several fields, because the texts are in the community for more than one century, guiding, transmitting values and information to immigrants, and nowadays to their descendants.

Prudentópolis and the Ukrainian immigration

Prudentópolis was constituted in 1907 after its emancipation from Guarapuava. Its name is a tribute to the Brazilian ex-president from 1894 and 1898, Prudente de Morais. It is 200 kilometers far from Curitiba, the capital of the state, and it has 52.125 inhabitants (IBGE, 2017).

While Ukrainians had lived severe conditions under the Austro-Hungarian domain (1891-1914), in Brazilian territory some circumstances, such as the end of the slavery regimen, have changed social and work relations. The government was encouraging the entrance of Europeans in the country to fulfill great productive blanks in agriculture.

According to Lopez (1983, p. 12), “the empire has always resisted an abrupt abolition afraid of shaking the bases of property”. When the end of the regimen set up, there was no alternative than to further import immigrant labor. Moreover, there was a severe concern with demographic blanks. Then, “young American nations governments searched to solve the land effective occupation problem, necessary to the national sovereignty and to economic value” (BALHANA, 1996, p. 41).

The Royal Charter signature was a fundamental decision for the Brazilian government promoting massive propaganda in European countries, promising better opportunities and richness in the American continent for immigrants, oftentimes feeding illusions. “The country of Cocanha of the sixteenth century became in a paradise of delights in the nineteenth century and boosted thousands of Europeans to move to America, performing a movement known as Great Migration” (ANDREAZZA, 1996, p. 14).

Ukrainian migration to Prudentópolis occurred in three periods. The first one from 1895 to 1897, and it was a reflection from the rural overpopulation, delay in industrialization and bad socioeconomic conditions faced by Ukraine. The second one, from 1908 to 1914, had the First World War as motivation. The third one was from 1947 and 1951, and its main thrust factor was the Second World War (BURKO, 1963; BORUSZENKO, 1995; GUÉRIOS, 2007).

Immigrants in Brazilian territory were addressed to several states, mainly to Paraná and Santa Catarina. Smaller groups also were settled in the states of São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, Goiás and Rio de Janeiro (BURKO, 1963).

The Ukrainian great migration flow, from the last nineteenth century until 1951, in twentieth century, formalized the small village called Firmo Mendes, an immigrant-receiving nucleus. According to Guérios (2007), the massive immigrants arriving made the federal government open up colonial nuclei, “the Union asked to localize immediately large number of polishes” (RELATÓRIO, 1907, 61 apudGUÉRIOS, 2007, p. 116). So, Prudentópolis was one of these colonies founded to receive immigrants.

Constituent elements of a Ukrainian landscape expressed by Prácia Newspaper

The living space approach values people's memories of the wisdom, cultures and social production relations elaborated and changed into identities that are seated in the place as particular ways of life. Space notion presumes the living space meaning, considering feelings and ideas from a group or People on the space of experiences.

According to Pereira (2013), production and building of the human landscape of a geographic space will obey wishes, dreams, emotions and reasons of the citizens that take part in it. In this sense, Prudentópolis’ landscape is pervaded by cultural elements from the Ukrainian immigrants homeland. According to Cosgrove (1995, p. 42), “the landscape is closely linked to the culture and to the idea that the visible shapes are representations of speeches and thoughts. Thus, the landscape looks like a symbolic place”.

In this context, Saquet (2007, p. 145) asserts:

The human creates with the wish, with the willing to build an ideal landscape in which may recognize his/her history, his/her culture. The wish creates images that are study instruments and to build new territories. The landscape means these images from the real and from the own imaginary (scientific and/or artistic), which reveals simultaneously a linking way from the landscape with territory as abstraction and representation on whish for new landscapes and projections of the future (SAQUET, 2007, p. 145).

In the Prácia Newspaper, especially in the editions that refer to the first migration periods, the description of the landscape highlights aspects connected to the religion. For this reason, news related to the chapel building by Ukrainian immigrants was common. We found in the newspaper an excerpt of a letter written by the priest who had come from Ukraine to help the immigrants in 1897, and there was a reference to the building:

[...] With God’s help I already built a spacious chapel for our people with two sacristies, presbytery and choir. It has the capacity for 700 people. The chapel is in honor of Saint Basil the Great and the first celebrations I will perform on the Three Holy Patriarchs day, in January 30^th. However, I do not have an icon [...] (PRÁCIA, 1995, n 15, p. 8 apud MISSIONAR JOVKA, 1898, p. 174-176).

In this excerpt from the letter published, we identified the “order” of how the church was built in Brazil, what would allow the immigrants to have a material element built-up from memories of landscape elements under they lived in Ukraine.

The number 48 of Prácia Newspaper of 1923 brought the news that the biggest Ukrainian church in Brazil would be built “[...] in the noblest place in town [...] (PRÁCIA, 1923, n. 48, p. 13). The church had to be built with the same characteristics from those in the origin country: Byzantine style, Byzantine liturgical rite, the language, among others.

Mother Church of St. Jehoshaphat had its building finished in the 1930s. However, insofar as the church was raised, publications noticed details and stages: “blessing of the church foundation stone” (PRÁCIA, 1923, n. 46, p. 3); “inauguration of the stone under the altar” (PRÁCIA, 1929, n. 12, p. 2); “celebrations performed for church paraphernalia such as the installation of chandeliers” (PRÁCIA, 1935, n. 48, p. 2); and “church painting” (PRÁCIA, 1936, n. 44, p. 2). The consecration of the already established church took place in 1939:

[...] On Sunday, August 27^th, 1939, Your Honor, The Apostolic Visitor Don Ivan Buczko, solemnly performed the new church consecration in Prudentópolis. The emotional consecration ceremony started at 8 o’clock a.m. with a procession leading His Excellency, the bishop, from the monastery to the church [...] (PRÁCIA, 1939, n. 34, p. 4).

Descriptions of the building in the newspaper, the church meaning and functions are constituent elements of a place landscape, the so-called material and immaterial elements. The first may be seen on the church architectonic shape (Figure 2), and the second regards to the ritual, celebrations in Ukrainian language.

According to Pereira and Soares (2012), the landscape is impregnated by nature’s own elements, from its people's culture. The newspaper brought information on the church building and portrayed a landscape formation that started with the Ukrainian immigrants' presence there.

Figure 2
Mother Church of St. Jehoshaphat, Prudentópolis- PR, 2017

According to Vendruscolo (2009, p. 196), “the preserved architecture represents the materialized culture and history in monuments and buildings that take meaning and maintain alive the significances of the collective memory”. Cultural bonds among Ukrainians in Brazil, as well as the “Ukrainian-Brazilian” feeling, are recurrent to the past and the historical values of the group. Costa (2008, p. 1) highlights that “these relations are mediatized by symbols which may be a material reality and they unite themselves to an idea, to a value, to a feeling”.

Another perceptible cultural material element in the Prudentópolis landscape is the memorial in honor of the Ukrainian poet Taras Chevtchenko, built in 1985 (Figure 3).

Figure 3
Memorial Taras Chevtchenko, Prudentópolis-PR, 2017

The newspaper brought several reports on the building in order to inform the Ukrainian community: “[...] angular stone launch of the monument of Taras Chevtchenko Square, in August 12^th, 1986 [...]” (PRÁCIA, 1986, n. 16, p. 5); promotion by the Church of St. Jehoshaphat in favor of the building: “[...] Invitation! Prudentópolis and region. On May 17^th in this town there will be a party in favor of the building of the monument Taras Chevtchenko celebrating 1000 years of Christianity in Ukraine [...]” (PRÁCIA, 1988, n. 18, p. 15).

The landscape has the virtuality to retain the idea of the past. When conceived as a cultural landscape, it considers not only the objects built focused on preservation, but all the insertion context, amalgamating actions, processes and the product from work, the cultural and environmental inheritance.

Although the Prácia Newspaper has its origin closely linked to the Catholic Church, reading the editions enable us to extract numerous information on the landscape that were not linked to the religious matter. These elements enabled us to notice the social actions valued on the environment building when pervading historical processes (PIMENTA, 2015).

Thereby, another material element described in the newspaper editions and which marks significantly the Prudentópolis landscape is constituted by the typical Ukrainian residences. On Prácia Newspaper we found described in detail how the architecture marks were: the painting in strong tones (Figure 4) and the details of the porch lambrequins and their fences (Figure 5).

On this landscape aspect, Prácia Newspaper reported: “[...] Ukrainian people always was prestigious for cleaning their homes, as well as for their stunning organization. As the saying goes: it takes good taste and a gracious organization [...]” (PRÁCIA, 1964, n. 2282, p. 6); “[...] we share some hints for home walls adornment: pictures of God, Christ, Mary, as well as the Saints must be in large size, right and hung on above other pictures, photography and thirds [...]” PRÁCIA, 1964, n. 2282, p. 6); “[...] housewives, take care of your homes to be enjoyable to get in them [...]” (PRÁCIA, 1964, n. 2282, p. 6).

Figure 4
Ukrainian typical house in Prudentópolis, 2017

Figure 5
Ukrainian typical house in Prudentópolis, 2017

According to Nór (2013), the place’s identity may be linked to the subject, his/her memories, his/her interpretations, his/her ideas and affections, and also may be manifested by its own spirit. The spirit of place, or genius loci, is connected to relations among material and immaterial components in determined space, whether natural or built. It reveals through permanences the dialogue between the past and present, giving a living and permanent character to the landscapes (NÓR, 2013).

Through reports expressed as news in Prácia Newspaper, we found specificities of urban traces, like the commercial street, typical localizations of churches in highs, slightly far from the main axes, its districts originated by old rural colonial lines and small properties then dismembered.

Whether architectonic examples have created scenery which distinguishes Prudentópolis from other Brazilian towns over time, we agree with Augé (1994) when the author asserts that place is a space where social and cultural values from a population are expressed, and where the symbolic identity is materialized. In Prudentópolis, social groups' constitutive element allows the inhabitants to recognize and define themselves in it, playing an important role in the identity structure of individuals.

Buildings architecture marks the history of towns, such as the case of Ukrainian culture presents in the cultural identity of Prudentópolis population, and it may be defined as spatialization of social relations.

Final considerations

Arguably Slavic people who immigrated to Brazil have contributed to the diversification and enrichment of the country's culture. Such perspective implies investigation and recognition of cultural contributions by these immigrants and their descendants for Brazilian reality.

They have established, and still do, multiple and changeable relations, so far little studied or maybe insufficiently understood, with nature, native people, with their uses and traditions and with the world around them. There is much to study on the theme, especially regarding architecture, food, identity building, religiosity, folklore, rituals, and art.

Therefore, thinking of culture means considering it as a constantly changeable phenomenon, implying the need to record the aspects considered important for its own recognition and comprehension of the subjects who keep in touch with it. In our research, we searched on the reports by Prácia Newspaper to find how the cultural diversity of Ukrainian immigrants expressed on the Prudentópolis landscape allowed this group to recognize itself in Brazilian lands. Over the years, it has been an instrument for reporting how the immigrants could resist and maintain all their traditions, strongly present in the society of Paraná.

The reports mapped on the newspaper, even if unintentionally, were responsible for disclosing the Ukraine immigrants culture in several historical moments, for example when they portrayed the oppression on this country, and even in Brazil, when they suffered discrimination because the practice of their traditions, especially the language. Discrimination and linguistic prejudice lead many to abandon the language, rituals and traditions inherited from ancestors.

Therefore, considering the Ukrainian immigrants and the landscape study by the cultural bias, we highlight their cultural codes and group’s identity. Among the political, social and religious facets in numerous other publications in Prácia Newspaper, it also has been the main vehicle for understanding immigration, guiding this group’s representativeness.

The landscape is dynamic and its elements change by the action of natural and cultural forces in its material and immaterial dimensions, through the culture mark of peoples on the territory they have occupied.

In line with the contemporary cultural logic, building identities, appreciation of differences, eclecticism and tradition are experiences that create, in a certain way, a new symbolic affiliation mode and belonging to a territory. Through the effort that reformulates the sense of signs we could find expressed in numerous editions of Prácia Newspaper.

In this dynamics, the way that Prudentópolis landscape is forming itself for more than a century, especially from the Ukrainian immigrants’ arrival; there is a strong intersectional element between the old and the new, the tradition and new cultures, the history and the modern that merge in the same space. These consonances are evident when we analyze the elements which were constituting the town's landscape and registered in the newspaper, even if they did not represent anything important at that moment.

From the comprehension that the landscape is dynamic and constantly submitted to changes, and depending on how the changes happen, their cultural elements may be threated. Bringing up what was reported on Prácia Newspaper over more than a century allows comparing interactions from the past with the present. By gathering a documental analysis we were able to recognize the landscape as a holder of patrimonial and identity values.

We understand the landscape conception is related to the subject’s understanding who watches and lives it. Therefore, bringing up the elements expressed on the landscape enabled us to identify how the socio-spatial changes happened in Prudentópolis and their effects on the landscape.

References

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  01 May 2023
• Date of issue
  2019

History

• Received
  08 Aug 2018
• Accepted
  12 Sept 2019