Waves of Diaspora Communities 

 

In 1751, organised migration occurred from Mukachevo, Zakarpattia Oblast, in today's Western Ukraine to Bachka and to other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ukrainians, known as Galicians, brought with them their Eastern Rite Catholic faith. The second wave of migration occurred after the devastating floods in the early 1880s. This migration departed for Germany as sessional workers; to America for the new industrial towns; Canada to the prairies and to Bosnia to clear the forests and begin agricultural cultivation in this section of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This second migration of Galicians from Galicia/Halychyna was given free suitable fertile land for agriculture and herding of animals. Also, a third wave departed from Galicia in 1910 to Bosnia near Prnjavor and had to buy land.

​

The Burlak family belonged to the third wave of migration. Katerina Senjov nee Burlak was born in Gajevo, near Prnjavor, Bosnia in the former Yugoslavia on 13 February 1928 to Dmytro and Anastasia (nee Hura) Burlak. Katerina’s mother, Anastasia, was also born in Bosnia on 24 December 1902 to Maria and Maksim Hura, during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was ruled by the Habsburg. Katerina’s father, Dmytro, was born on 8 December 1902, in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Galicia, which was also part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but in the lands of today’s Western Ukraine (Worldatlasbook 2011). When her father was eight years old, he and his parents, Tatiana and Kost Burlak, migrated to Prnjavor in 1910, and like many third-wave migrants from Galicia, they had to buy their land.

​

Unfortunately, good quality land was scarce and they were given rocky terrain and forests, which required clearing before they could farm the land. Living conditions were not always congenial and some Galicians did not remain in these lands, instead returning to the homeland. Others remained and began the arduous task of building their homes and setting up households and farms to stabilise their lives and feed their families. Their ingenuity and skilfulness enabled them to settle and engage in life, because they had emigrated from a more advanced agricultural area in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They introduced new crops that were not previously available;that is,wheat, rye, barley and potatoes,which were in plentiful supply in Galicia (Nota 1994). On their farm, they also developed orchards and they had their own mill to process grain.