Special Collections: Ukrainian

The collection contains documents relating to the investigation into the assassination of Pyotr Stolypin. Stolypin (1862-1911), after having served as governor of the provinces of Grodno (1902) and Saratov (1903-1906), was appointed in April 1906 as Minister of the Interior and in July 1906 was named chairman of the Council of Ministers in which capacity he served until his assassination. He headed the Russian government at a time of massive protests by workers and peasants against the autocracy. Though firm in suppressing the protests and repressing revolutionary groups, he managed to introduce governmental, economic, and agrarian reforms aimed at improving conditions for farmers. Stolypin's policies irritated not only revolutionaries but many people in positions of power. After surviving several attempts on his life, Stolypin was shot by Dmitrii Bogrov, a leftist radical and agent of Okhrana, in Kiev on 14 September 1911, and died from his wounds four days later. The documents concern the course of the investigation, and the sentencing to death of Bogrov.

The collection contains documents relating to the trial of Mendel Beilis (1874-1934) held in September and October 1913. Beilis, a Jewish clerk at a brick factory on the outskirts of Kiev, was accused of murdering a young Ukrainian boy, Andrei Iushchynskyi. The identity of the real persons responsible for the crime were known by police but the government--at that time debating a draft law on abolishing the Jewish Pale of Settlement--sought to convict a Jew and thus to incite mass anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia. Progressive members of the Russian and Ukrainian intelligentsia came out in support of Beilis, who was eventually acquitted by the 14-member jury. The documents cover the two and half-year investigation, the trial itself, and the events around it. The collection contains proceedings of the court, forensic reports, testimonies of all 355 witnesses, speeches by the prosecution and the defense, materials of the investigation, and articles from newspapers.

The collection includes the original diary and English-language translation of Dmitrii Dmitrievich Litovchenko (1891-1919), a Russian White Army Officer in the Preobrazhenskii Leib-Guard Regiment in Ukraine, written from January 7 to November 7, 1919, as well as a number of Litovchenko's certificates and other original documents.

This collection contains approximately 140,000 pages of documents from the Peter J. Braun Mennonite Archive, assembled in the Molochna Mennonite Settlement, Southern Ukraine, during the years of revolution and civil war from 1917 to 1920.  The extensive collection of Russian Mennonite sources covers subjects ranging from religious life, to economic development, to administrative practices from 1803 to 1920.

A series of lectures sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. Among the speakers: M. Petryshyn, R. Zurba, C. Worobec, James Mace, V. Oleander, Orest Subtelny, and Stnaley Frolick.

The Declassified Documents Reference System provides online access to over 500,000 pages of previously classified United States government documents. Covering major international events from the Cold War to the Vietnam War and beyond, this single source enables users to locate key information underpinning studies in international relations, American studies, United States foreign and domestic policy studies, journalism and more. A wide range of documents is devoted to the Soviet Union, selected Soviet republics, and its satellite states in Eastern Europe. Highlights include U.S. intelligence reports on Ukrainian nationalists at the end of the Second World War as possible allies in case of a war with the Soviet Union; the Budapest Uprising of 1956; the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968; the Polish strikes and the Solidarnosc movement, etc.

A collection of 33 drawings depicting Ukrainian refugees in Displaced Persons camps following the Second World War.

Scott Eddie (1935- ) is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at the University of Toronto, where he has taught since 1971. He is the author of three books and several dozen articles and book chapters resulting from his research on the economic history of Central and Eastern Europe.

The papers include records relating to the appointment of Chair of Ukrainian Studies.

Created by U.S. Presidential directive during World War II and at first placed under the Federal Communications Commission in 1941, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was later transferred to the War Department, and then to the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947.

The original mission of FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. These translations, or transcriptions in the case of English language materials, make up the Daily Reports.

The FBIS Daily Reports collection is divided into two chronological segments: 1941-1974 and 1974-1996. FBIS Daily Reports, 1941-1974, consists of a single Daily Report publication. FBIS Daily Reports, 1974-1996, is comprised of eight separate regional Daily Reports, of which Part 6 pertains to Eastern Europe (EEU), and Part 7 to the Soviet Union and Central Eurasia (SOV). Regional coverage for eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is also included for the years 1968 to 1974.

The reports includes news, interviews, speeches, editorial commentary, and other materials.

Stanley Frolick (1920-1988) was a lawyer and a Ukrainian community leader in Canada. He held executive positions in several national Ukrainian organizations and was the founder of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Correspondence, legal documents, and minutes of meetings compiled by S.W. Frolick to support his contentions that certain events reported in the pamphlet, "The Five Years, related to the establishment of the first Chair of Ukrainian Studies", were misrepresented.

The collection contains resolutions, directives and telegrams from the Central Committee of All-Union Communist Party, the Soviet of People's Commissars and their mirror organizations in Ukraine; correspondence from local Party committees and executive committees of the local Soviets; official and private appeals of the regional party committees to higher Party authorities; memoranda and information reports from branches of state security, justice, and the prosecutor's office, as well as citizens letters. This material provides information about grain procurement policies in Ukraine; the escalation of food shortages, large-scale starvation, and mortality among the peasantry; political attitudes and political unrest among the peasants and some members of the grassroots Party organizations; and measures eventually taken by the Central Committee and the People’s Commissariat to contain the scale of the disaster.

A collection of 1,246 independent newspapers published in Ukraine between 1989-1996, and collected by the Central Academic Library in Kiev.

Scattered around the world today are an estimated 12 million descendants of Jewish emigres who departed Ukraine for the United States, Canada, Europe and Russia between 1895 and 1917. From start to finish, this remarkable diaspora was managed by a single organization in Kiev—the Society for Adjustment of Jewish Emigration, later called the Jewish Emigration Society. The Society organized and managed the outflow of Jewish emigres and their destinations abroad before it was disbanded in 1917. The collection of over 38,000 pages includes documents of the Jewish Emigration Society, as well as personal correspondence of the emigres.

The aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and subsequent civil wars brought outbreaks of anti-Semitic activities, particularly in Ukraine, where tens of thousands fell victim to Jewish pogroms during the Ukrainian-Soviet War of 1917-1921.  The collection of over 30,000 pages documents the activities of the Kyiv District Commission for Relief to Victims of Pogroms, including its work with orphanages, schools, hospitals, work centers, shelters, and refugee camps.  The records include correspondence, witness accounts, reports describing commissioners' and committee activities, records of individual investigations, refugee and victim lists and statistics, communications with Western relief organizations, and documents pertaining to Jewish emigration out of Ukraine.

A collection of vocal and instrumental music, with Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian and Ukrainian words.

Judaica Digital Collections database includes eight resources from the State Archives of Kyiv Oblast', spanning the mid-19th and early 20th centuries:

• Promoting Jewish Education (190 delo)
• Jewish Societies in Ukraine, 1857-1929 (565 delo)
• Anti-Semitic Organizations: Union of the Russian People, 1900s (16 delo)
• Jewish Pogroms in Kyiv, 1905 (152 delo)
• Victims of Pogroms (502 delo)
• Mendel Beilis Trial Papers (435 delo)
• Jewish Emigration from Ukraine, 1895-1917 (296 delo)
• Jewish Emigration from the USSR, 1926-1930 (1,466 delo)

The collection documents the life and activities of participants of one of the Ukrainian nationalist movements, the United Hetman Organization (Soiuz hetmantsiv derzhavnykiv), mainly from the 1940s to 1950s. The correspondence of Rodion Kaliuzhnyi, who served as secretary to Danylo Skoropadskyi, the son of the last Ukrainian hetman, forms a large part of the collection. The collection also consists of a great deal of correspondence between him and other participants of the hetmanite movement in the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia, France, Austria, and Switzerland. A considerable part of the collection contains material on the death and funeral of Danylo Skoropadskyi. Additional material relates to the activities of the Association of Ukrainian Women in Great Britain. There are also photographs of the Ukrainian community in the displaced persons (DP) camps in Germany, mostly Mittenwald, from 1946 to 1949.

Daily journal maintained by the secretary of the Ukrainian Student Society of War Veterans in Emigration. The Society was formed in a refugee camp for Ukrainian war veterans in Riccione (near Rimini), Italy on 7 August 1945. Journal entries were recorded between 7 Aug. and 30 Dec. 1945 and record excursions to Rimini, visitors to the camp, and events held there.

From the description of Professor Martin Dimnik and Librarian's Assistant Caroline Suma:
"The distinguishing feature of the PIMS Slavic Collection is its highly specialized nature. From the start of the collection (1971) the library purchased Slavic materials relevant to researching the history of Kievan Rus’ and Muscovy (i.e., from the 9th to the beginning of the 17th century). The library’s main aim has been to obtain editions of original texts, such as charters and the chronicles of Kievan Rus’ and Muscovy, which are the primary tools of research. Secondary literature that facilitates the study of the sources has also been selected with special care. These materials cover  areas such as political, ecclesiastical, monastic, cultural, and social history as well as literature, language, law, historiography, archaeology, art, architecture, numismatics, sphragistics, and genealogical studies."

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