Archive of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the holdings of the Ossoliński National Institute : characteristics and fate of the collection.

Abstract

The Shevchenko Scientific Society is the oldest Ukrainian scientific institution that was functioning in Lviv from 1873 till 1940. After the Society’s liquidation by the Soviet government, its collections were dispersed, part of the collection during World War II was relocated to Poland, where it was divided between two institutions: the National Library in Warsaw and the Ossolineum in Wrocław. The archives of the Shevchenko Scientific Society now held at the Ossolineum contain a valuable collection of documents concern the Ukrainian history of the first half of the 20th century. Documents from the mentioned collection are of particular importance for research into the history of Ukrainian political and economic life, the literary process and the publishing movement of that period. The archive also contains important documents informing about the Polish-Ukrainian relations at that time. At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century parts of the Shevchenko Scientific Society collections preserved in Poland became the subject of the Polish-Ukrainian revendication negotiations. Although the idea of ​​exchanging the Ukrainian collections transferred to Poland for the the Ossolineum collections remaining in Lviv was not realized, the problem was solved by way of copying the documents and through ensuring the access to these materials for the both parties.