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The Lissiuk Collection contains various documents,
two volumes of correspondence, an autograph book, and photographs.
The documents were issued to Kalenik Lissiuk and members of his family. They
include passports, certificates, and membership cards. There are some additional
miscellaneous papers, personal and historical.
The correspondence in volume one includes letters from the Republican National
Committee, chaired by Albert B. Hermann, and from United States Senators H. Alexander
Smith and Robert C. Hendrickson, thanking Lissiuk for his support in gathering
Ukrainian votes during election campaigns from 1948 to 1952. Lissiuk was also
actively involved with the Ukrainian Republican Committee of the State of New
Jersey. Additional letters pertain to Lissiuk's involvement with The John Birch
Society. The John Birch Society was a private organization founded in the United
States on December 9, 1958, by Robert H. W. Welch, Jr., for the purpose of combating
Communism and promoting various ultraconservative causes. Lissiuk, once he moved
to California around 1953, continued to correspond frequently with Republican
congressmen and senators. The second volume of correspondence reflects Lissiuk's
activities for the Congress of Freedom.
Lissiuk's autograph book contains signatures from various military and political
figures, such as Avhustyn Voloshyn, Iuliian Revai, Ivan Bahrianyi, Dmytro Doroshenko,
Ievhen Konovalets, Roman Smal-Stotskyi, Mykola Kapustianskyi, and Dmytro Antonovych.
The collection also includes numerous negatives and photographs from the Hungarian
invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine in March 1939, including images showing members
of the Carpatho-Ukraine government and soldiers of the Carpathian Sich. The collection
also includes photographs of Lissiuk and his family, as well as photographs of
organizations such as the Plast Ukrainian Youth Association, the Ukrainian National
Museums in Chicago, Illinois and Ontario, California, Ukrainian Free Cossacks,
the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic, as well as individuals such as Iurii
Horlis-Horskyi, Prince Serhei Mezhev, Stepan Smal-Stotskyi, and Jozef Tiso.
BIOGRAPHY
 A military leader, businessman, philatelist, publisher, and patron, Kalenik was
born to Vakhtam Lepykash and Frozyna Dudarchuk on August 18, 1889 in Bubnivka,
Haisyn county, Podilia gubernia. In his youth he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary
Party for which he was arrested several times and eventually sent to Siberia
near Irkutsk. After 18 months of exile, he escaped and changed his name to Lissiuk
(Lysiuk). In 1916 he completed ensign training in St. Petersburg and served with
the Russian Army on the Western front. The following year he broke with the Socialist
Revolutionaries and helped Ukrainianize the Armored Division near Przemysl. In
July 1917, he organized a division of 1600 Cossacks which shortly thereafter
was disbanded by Volodymyr Vynnychenko. From 1918 to 1920 Lissiuk served in the
Army of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), heading a counter-espionage unit
in Odesa under the name Mykola Butovych. In 1922 he was a diplomatic currier
for the UNR Government-in-exile.
He immigrated to the United States in 1923 and became a citizen in 1929. He ran
the K. Lissiuk Philately Co. in New York from 1924 to 1944, and later set up
the N.U Manufacturing Co. and an investment firm. In 1927 he founded the settlement "Nova
Ukraina"
in New Market, New Jersey. There, he invented a specialized concrete
cement block machine in 1938. With profits from his various entrepreneurships,
Lissiuk supported various Ukrainian institutions abroad, such as
the Union of Ukrainian Officers and the Ukrainian Institute in
Berlin; the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Podebrady, Czechoslovakia;
the Museum of Ukraine's Struggle for Independence in Prague; and
the National Museum and the Ukrainian Invalids' Home in Lviv. He
also sponsored the defense of Vasyl Bilas and Dmytro Danylyshyn
in 1932 for their raid of the post office in Horodok, and provided
funds for World War II refugees. During the 1930s Lissiuk traveled
extensively throughout Europe, visiting Lviv, Prague, Paris, Berlin,
Belgium, Switzerland and England.
Lissiuk also actively participated in the greater Ukrainian-American community.
He founded the Ukrainian National Museum in Ontario, California in 1954 and served
as its president until 1958. That same year he established the Ukrainian-American
Foundation and presided over it until 1974. Lissiuk was a member of various Ukrainian
organizations including: Wake Up America, the Ukrainian Republican Committee
of the State of New Jersey, the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee, the
Union of Ukrainian Veterans, and the Congress of Freedom. He was also a benefactor
of many Ukrainian cultural and educational organizations in the United States.
Lissiuk also worked as film producer and director of Dnipro Film Corporation
and then Tatra Film Corporation. In addition he edited several journals, compiled
stamp catalogues, wrote several political pamphlets, and contributed articles
to the Ukrainian press.
Lissiuk was married twice: first to Zina Karabach, with whom he had four sons,
and then to Kateryna Vehylyk. His son Petro Lissiuk (b. 19 Mar. 1919/24 Apr.
1919) fought and died in Khust, Czechoslovakia on March 29, 1939. Kalenik Lissiuk
died on August 12, 1980 in Chicago.
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