Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina. One of the southern states of Brazil (2020 pop 7,252,502), bordering on Paraná to the north and Rio Grande do Sul to the south, and occupying 95,730.7 sq km. Its capital is Florianópolis. Estimates of the number of Ukrainians in the state range from 14,000 to 35,000 (in the 1990s) and make it the second- or third-largest region of Ukrainian settlement in Brazil. Two hundred families established the state’s first Ukrainian settlement, in Iracema in 1886. They were joined by additional waves of settlers, who established new communities in Itaiópolis, Papanduva, Canoinhas, Jangada, Tres Barras, Costa Carvalho, Moema, and Mafra. They faced pioneering difficulties comparable to those of Ukrainians in other areas of Brazil, with an added problem of social unrest caused by a boundary dispute with Paraná. Organized religious life started in 1897, when the Catholic priest Ivan Ya. Voliansky undertook missionary work in the Itaiópolis region. He was followed by priests from the Basilian monastic order in the early part of the century. An Orthodox church was established in Marco Cinco in Jangada. Civic institutions started with the establishment of branches of the Prosvita society in the early part of the century.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]