Those collections that have been processed
have links to the collection-level descriptions. Detailed inventories
of these collections are available upon request to the Institute Bibliographer/Archivist.
All other collections listed without links are in the process of
being arranged and described.
The chronological extent of the Institute's manuscript and archival
collections ranges from 1860 to the present. The material in the
collections includes personal documents, correspondence, telegrams,
minutes, financial and administrative records, manuscripts, publications,
press clippings, and photographs. The predominant languages of
the various documents are Ukrainian and English, although some
of the documents are written in other European languages. The collections
are a particularly important historical resource for the study
of Ukraine during the revolutionary years 1917 to 1921, and Ukrainian
refugee and émigré life in Europe and the United
States following the Second World War. The papers and archives
are also useful for studying Ukrainian cultural life from the viewpoint
of individual lives and institutional activities.
Several collections provide insights into the immediate post-World
War I period in Ukraine. The Yaroslav Chyz collection includes telegrams
relating to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in early 1917 and
the ensuing hostilities that enveloped Eastern Europe. Another collection
useful for the study of Ukrainian history and politics from 1917
to 1921 is that of Stepan Dushenko. The Chuchman, Hanydziuk, and
Solowij collections contain postage stamps and/or paper currency
issued by the government of the Ukrainian state from 1918 to 1920.
The Victor Peters collection includes research material for his book
on Nestor Makhno. His notes trace the history of Makhno's anarchist
movement during the Ukrainian revolutionary ferment. The Jan Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz
collection contains documents regarding the Ukrainian National Republic
(UNR) under the command of Symon Petliura and, subsequently, the
government-in-exile. It is also a good source for studying Ukrainian
political refugee life of members of former Ukrainian diplomatic
and economic missions of the UNR. The notebooks of Ivan Liubusko
contain articles from the American newspapers Ameryka and Batkivshchyna,
as well as excerpts from books, about the Ukrainian revolutionary
period that he copied in longhand over a ten year period beginning
in 1969. The Antin Podufalyi papers include documents issued to him
by the UNR, Poland and France. Another collection of interest for
this period of Ukrainian history is the biographical sketch of Andrii
Livytskyi, former head of the government-in-exile of the UNR, written
by Stepan Vytvytskyi.
The period leading up to and including the Second World War is
best documented by the records of the hetmanite movement and the
papers of Mykola Lebed. The hetmanite collection includes correspondence
from 1926 to 1932 between leading members of the movement who went
on to establish the Ukrainian Union of Agrarians-Statists, an émigré
conservative monarchist organization founded in Vienna by Viacheslav
Lypynskyi which stood in direct opposition to the Government-in-exile
of the UNR. The Lebed collection is comprised of correspondence,
documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, and publications dating
roughly from the 1930s to 1990s that pertain to his involvement in
various Ukrainian political and civic organizations, including the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the Ukrainian Insurgent
Army (UPA), and the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UVHR),
and the Prolog Research Corporation. These organizations were engaged
at various times in struggles against occupying forces in Western
Ukraine, including the Polish inter-war regime, the German and Soviet
Armies during the Second World War, and, subsequently, the Soviet
post-war regime.
The experience of Ukrainian displaced persons following the Second
World War can be traced in several of the other collections housed
at the Institute. The Volodymyr Nestorovych collection includes a
scrapbook he kept during his years as bookkeeper for the World's
YMCA-YWCA for displaced persons in the British zone of Germany. It
includes photographs of joint conferences of Ukrainian YMCA-YWCA
leaders from the American and British zones. The archives of the
Ukrainian Council for Physical Culture (RFK) are comprised of a photo
album containing images of various Ukrainian DP sports clubs in Germany.
Additional material regarding Ukrainian DP sports clubs can be found
in the records of the Berchtesgaden (Orlyk) DP Camp, which also include
documents from the "Zaporizhzhia" sports club in the Aschaffenburg
DP Camp and the RFK. The Ukrainian student movement archives consist
of records of the Central Union of Ukrainian Students, the Union
of Ukrainian Student Associations of Germany, and the Federation
of Ukrainian Student Organizations of America. The Bohdan Kozak collection
includes letters and photographs relating to the Ukrainian Catholic
chapel of Chrzanowo in northeastern Poland, the only chapel to have
mass celebrated in the Ukrainian Catholic rite in Warmia diocese.
Additional collections at the Institute document Ukrainian émigré
life in the United States. The two largest collections are the papers
of Bohdan Krawciw (Kravtsiv) and Mykhailo Bazhanskyi. The Krawciw
papers consist of clippings, notes, and correspondence related
to his work in the U.S. as a member of the editorial boards of
the newspapers Ameryka and Svoboda, the journal Suchasnist,
and the Entsyklopediia ukraïnoznavstva. The papers
of Bazhanskyi contain material related to his work as a journalist,
and as an active member of the Ukrainian community in Detroit and
of the Ukrainian scouting organization Plast.
A number of smaller collections should also interest scholars working
on local history of Ukrainian immigrants. The Dmytro Bratush collection
provides information about organizations such as the Ukrainian Socialist
Radical party, Defense of Ukraine, and Prosvita Society, as well
information about Ukrainian community-life in Rochester, New York.
The archives of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart
in Boston contain information on the establishment of the church
and the subsequent conversion of the parish to the Orthodox creed.
The Petro Moroz collection is also useful for studying the Ukrainian
community in the Boston area, particularly the development of its
Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Aspects of the Ukrainian community in
Chicago may be studied by looking at the Alex J. Zabrosky papers.
The Stephania Halychyn collection mostly relates to her activities
as organizer and president of the Ukrainian Gold Cross in the United
States. The Ievhen Kulchytskyi collection spans the first fifty years
of Plast and covers some its activities in Ukraine, the United States,
and Canada. The activities of professional organizations in the United
States, such as the Ukrainian Engineers' Society of America, the
Shevchenko Scientific Society, and the Ukrainian American Association
of University Professors, are documented by circulars and other printer
matter in the Oleksander Smakula papers. The organizational life
of Ukrainian-Americans can also be studied by examining the papers
of Joseph Lesawyer, a community leader active for many years in the
Ukrainian National Association and the Ukrainian Congress Committee
of America, and the archives of Defense of Ukraine, Branch 11, Buffalo,
New York; the Ukrainian Cultural Society in Detroit, Michigan; the
Ukrainian Knowledge Society (Prosvita) in New York City; and the
Ukrainian Technical Institute in New York.
The library holds few records relating to Soviet Ukraine. It does,
however, house copies of the documents gathered and written by the
International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine.
This collection contains testimonies of famine eyewitnesses and prominent
international experts of Stalin's terror policy, and documentary
evidence, including diplomatic reports, publications, and Soviet
decrees. Besides this collection, the library has a memoir of the
1932-1933 famine in Ukraine written by Ivan Tsven. The period of
Soviet Ukraine in the early 1970s is covered by photographs originally
printed in the journal Po radianskii Ukraïni. The Kostiantyn
Morozov interviews document the end of the Soviet Union and the birth
of Ukraine. They provide detailed reminiscences of the period from
1988 to early 1992, when he came to Ukraine as the commander of the
Soviet 17th Air Army and ended up the first minister of
defense of independent Ukraine. A report written by Tatiana Vlasova
and Iurii Lositsky examines the changing cultural and architectural
policy towards the historic Podil district in Kyiv during the second
half of the twentieth century.
Papers that are of a more cultural interest include those of Zenon
Kuzelia. Much of the collection of this bibliographer, editor, and
journalist, is comprised of correspondence from his years in Berlin
from 1920 to 1945. The Zinovii Lysko collection provides insights
into the experiences and problems Ukrainian composers and musicologists
faced working outside Ukraine. The collection includes correspondence
with noted composers, conductors, musicologists, and musicians, as
well as Lysko's musical scores and writings. The Mykola Ponedilok
collection gives a sense of post-World War II émigré
life among Ukrainian writers, journalists, and literary scholars.
Other collections of writers held by the library include manuscripts
of Andrii Shelest, Kostiantyn Vanchenko, Mykhailo Iurchenko, and
Igor Pototskii, as well as correspondence, documents, poetry, and
other writings of Kost Vahylevych. Mary Lesawyer's papers help track
the numerous Ukrainian musical productions given throughout North
America. The bulk of the Theodore Wacyk collection includes photographs
of his art work and family; and original charcoal and ink drawings,
pastels, and oil paintings. The library also houses illustrations
by Mykola Butovych. The material in the Volodymyr Sichynskyi collection
reflects his career as a prolific scholar of Ukrainian architecture,
art, and graphics, while that in the Augustin Stefan collection reflects
his scholarly work on Carpatho-Ukraine. The archives of the Conference
on Ukrainian Economics, the Permanent Conference on Ukrainian Studies,
and the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies, document the vast scholarship
on Ukraine in a wide range of disciplines.
Collections of a more personal nature include those of Myroslav
Kotys and Volodymyr Solowij, who trace their family history in their
respective memoirs. The Konstantyn Schynkar collection consists of
notebooks of Ukrainian poetry that he collected from 1915 to 1917
while living in New York City. The correspondence in the Stepan Salyk
collection consists of letters from the pedagogue and writer Mykhailo
Lomatskyi. The letters discuss not only personal matters and Lomatskyi's
work on Hutsuls, but reflect general émigré
concerns. The Kalenik Lissiuk collection consists of his correspondence
with members of the Republican National Committee and The John Birch
Society, as well as an autograph book containing signatures of various
prominent Ukrainians. Besides these personal papers, there are miscellaneous
documents from the families Alchevskyi of Kharkiv, Piotrowski of
Vilnius, and Kalytovskyi of Detroit, Michigan; and correspondence
of Myroslav Sichynskyi and Mykola Davyskyba of Boston. |