Volodymyr Doroshenko about the development of the Shevchenko Scien¬tific Society Library under Soviet rule: illusions and realities (1940–1941)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37222/2524-0315-2021-13(29)-15Keywords:
Volodymyr Doroshenko, Shevchenko Scientific Society Library in Lviv, Lviv branch of the library of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, library censorship, Soviet library politics.Abstract
The library of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv was founded in 1894 by the Shevchenko Scientific Society. This is the first and for a long¬time the only scientific collection of Ukrainian studies in Ukraine. Its leaders I. Krevetsky and V. Doroshenko were prominent librarians and bibliographers. The library collected all the most important Ukrainian and foreign publica¬tions about Ukraine, conducted an intensive international book exchange. In 1939, the library had 72,828 titles of books in 207,923 volumes and issues, 1,485 manuscripts and 2,449 maps. In addition, there were about 50,000 doub¬lets and tens of thousands of unlisted books. According to I. Franko’s will, his library and archive, which numbered 6,000 volumes and 500 manuscripts, were given to the SSS Library as a special value.
After the accession of Western Ukraine to the Soviet Union in February 1940, it became part of the Lviv branch of the library of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was subordinated to the Library of the Academy of Science in Kyiv. The director of the library, Volodymyr Doroshenko, hoped that the new government and Kyiv leadership would understand the importance of this unique Ukrainian book collection.
The article highlights the desire of V. Doroshenko to preserve the integrity of the institution in the new conditions and its national character. The di¬rector’s efforts to enrich the composition of library book collections are reflected. The reasons and circumstances of the structural changes that the library underwent when it became a department of Ukrainian literature and language are highlighted. On the basis of archival sources, the striking losses of the institution’s funds as a result of planned systematic purges by the Bolshevik censorship bodies and the distribution of the SSS Library funds to the newly created departments of the Lviv branch of the Academy of Sciences are shown. Thus, on the example of this book collection the results of the Soviet library policy aimed at destroying the cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people are shown.
References
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