Collection F2623 - Internment operations research collection

Lubomyr Luciuk was born and raised in Kingston, Ontario. He is a graduate of Queen's University (BSc 1976, MA 1979) and the University of Alberta (PhD, 1984) and has held post-doctoral fellowships at University of Toronto and Queen's University. He is currently a full professor in the Department of Politics and Economics at the Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston. Lubomyr Luciuk specializes in the political geography of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, refugee studies, and the ethnic and immigration history of Canada. Luciuk has served as a Member of the federal Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and as a founding member and director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA).

Luciuk has published numerous articles, op-eds, scholarly books and popular texts on the Ukrainian Canadian experience in Canada. His books include:The Holodomor and the Holy See (2011), In Fear of the Barbed Wire Fence: Canada's First National Internment Operations and the Ukranian Canadians, 1914-1920 (2001), Searching for Place: Ukrainian Displaced Persons, Canada and the Migration of Memory (2000), Canada's Ukrainians: Negotiating an Identity (1991), Creating a Landscape: A Geography of Ukrainians in Canada (1989), Internment Operations: the Role of Old Fort Henry in World War I (1980).

Luciuk was a leading champion of the Ukrainian Canadian community's request that the Government of Canada acknowledge what happened to Ukrainians and other Europeans during Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920, a campaign that took some 20 years to succeed and in May 2008 resulted in the signing of an agreement establishing a $10 million endowment within the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko. Luciuk currently sits as a member of the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, the council that oversees the endowment.

Luciuk has been recognized for his various activities through a number of awards: John Sopinka Award for Excellence in Ukrainian Studies; various Doctoral/Postdoctoral Fellowships; Canada Research Fellowship; and the Shevchenko Medal for Education from the Ukrainian Congress of Canada.