Special Collections
Special Collections
General Description
Besides the PJRC, the University of Toronto Libraries house a number of other special collections in print, manuscript, and in microform. The particular strengths of the print and manuscript collections are in 20th-century Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian culture and history. A number of 18th- to early 20th-century rare books and revolutionary era newspapers from Russia are available in microform in the Media Commons of Robarts Library, as are scarce Soviet publications from the period of Lenin and Stalin.
Most of the rare book and manuscript collections are held in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. These include H. Gordon Skilling’s collection on the political development of Czechoslovakia from the 1930s to the 1968 uprising, as well as documents relating to the Charter 77 human rights group. Related material can be found in the “Petlice” collection of samizdat works in Czech and Slovak. The Jazz Section of the Czechoslovak Union of Musicians collection includes works on art, music, and culture. Materials relating to independence movements in other East Central European countries can be found in NSZZ Solidarnosc, a collection of publications by members of the Solidarity and other workers’ movements in Poland, and the Peter J. Potichnyj collection of books on insurgency and counter-insurgency in Ukraine from 1941 to 1954. Further Ukrainian material from post-Second World War pertains to the émigré experience and is part of the John Luczkiw collection of Ukrainian publications by displaced persons and political refugees.
In addition to book collections, the Fisher Library houses collections of a number of individuals, such as a 1919 diary by Dmitrii Dmitrievich Litovchenko, a Russian White Army Officer; the papers of Arkadii Liubchenko, a Ukrainian writer active in the literary movement of the 1920s and 1930s; and the papers of Mark Gayn, a Canadian journalist and commentator on Asian and Soviet bloc affairs. The library also has the papers of several former professors at the University of Toronto: Danuta Bien'kowska, James Mavor, and Josef Škvorecký. It is also worth noting that in addition to the collections listed below, the University of Toronto counts more than 500,000 Slavic and East European volumes, most of which have been integrated into the general library collection. These include Slavic-language music recordings at the Music Library and films from the region, located in the Media Commons.
This guide to special collections was created by Michael Rehak, March 2007; updated by Ksenya Kiebuzinski, April 2008.
