Lviv's Stefanyk Library in crisis, appeals to diaspora for assistance

by Ika Koznarska Casanova

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - The Vasyl Stefanyk Scientific Library of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Lviv has issued an urgent appeal to Ukrainian organizations, institutions, businesses and the diaspora community at large for financial aid to ensure the continued functioning of the library.

The library, which finds itself in dire financial straits, is an important research institution and information resource center, noted especially for its extensive periodicals collection.

Among its collections are rare books, a significant collection of old manuscripts and documents, incunabula (books printed before 1501), extensive archival material of prominent leaders, cultural figures and scholars, among them: Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky (1865-1944); members of the Galician literary group Rus'ka Triytsia (late 1830s): Markian Shashkevych, Ivan Vahilevych, Yakiv Holovatskyi; foremost western Ukrainian writer, political and civic leader Ivan Franko (1856-1916); the composer Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912); the literary scholar Mykhailo Vozniak (1881-1954); noted Slavic ethnographer Volodymyr Hnatiuk (1871-1926); philologist, museologist/director of the National Museum in Lviv (1905-1939), later the Lviv Museum of Ukrainian Art, and art historian Ilarion Svientsitsky (1876-1956).

Today the library functions as an important academic/research library, with 12 general and eight scholarly divisions. Its collections, which number some 7 million volumes, are housed in seven separate buildings. It provides interlibrary loan services with 59 other libraries. The library has 320 employees and is visited by some 100,000 people a year.

In her appeal Dr. Larysa Krushelnytska, the library's director, stated outright that the financial crisis is of such proportions that it poses a threat to the library's existence. The lack of funds will force the institution to close down. Operating expenses reportedly are 600,000 hrv (about $300,000) annually. This includes everything from bills for heating and electricity to the salaries of employees, proper upkeep of the collections and expenditures on acquisitions (which have been curtailed).

Library employees, who haven't been paid for the past six months, went on strike in mid-January after repeated appeals to the government by Dr. Krushelnytska met with no response.

It should be noted that the Vasyl Stefanyk Scientific Library, unlike the Vernadsky Library in Kyiv, which is also a branch of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Library, does not have the status of a national library. National status qualifies an insitution for government funding and confers depository status on the library, whereby the institution receives complimentary copies of every publication issued in Ukraine. Dr. Krushelnytska had previously applied for national library status for the Stefanyk Library.

As part of the general campaign to solicit funds for the library, the Society of Friends of the Stefanyk Library was created in Lviv, with Dr. Krushelnytska as head.

In response to the appeal made on behalf of the library by Dr. Krushelnytska in January, the Ukrainian National Association, jointly with the Ukrainian Historical Association, formed an ad hoc initiative committee, lending official support to the project and launching an extensive campaign to come to the immediate aid of the Stefanyk Library.

Ukrainian fraternal, civic and scholarly organizations were contacted by Ulana Diachuk, Ukrainian National Association president, and Prof. Lubomyr Wynar, Ukrainian Historical Association president, an official appeal was issued and published in the Svoboda Ukrainian daily on January 29, strongly urging both institutions as well as individuals to contribute to this very important cause.

Historical background

The Vasyl Stefanyk Scientific Library was established in 1940 as a unit of the central library of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, a year after the Soviet occupation of Galicia, when all existing public and scholarly libraries were nationalized and reorganized.

The library was formed on the basis of the holdings of over 80 libraries in Lviv, among them, the Shevchenko Scientific Society Library (established in 1894; which by 1938 housed 200,000 volumes, including 1,500 manuscripts, and was an internationally recognized center for depository material and bibliographical research, with interlibrary loans with all leading university libraries in Europe); Narodnyi Dim Library (established 1849; the first Ukrainian library in Lviv, it housed a large collection of Ucrainica, including 100,000 volumes and many manuscripts and documents), the Ossolineum Institute (established 1817, with 298,000 volumes), and the partial holdings of the Stavropegion Institute (1788).

When Ukraine was occupied by German troops in 1941-1944, many collections were destroyed during the hurried evacuation of the Soviet authorities, and remaining collections were seriously depleted by the Germans.

In 1971 the library was named for the noted prose writer Vasyl Stefanyk (1871-1936), master of the short story/novella, who was a native of Pokuttia, western Ukraine.

Donations

A major contribution, made at the very outset of the campaign, was by Oleksander Kobasa of Williamstown, N.J., who is originally from the Lemko region of western Ukraine. Mr. Kobasa made a donation of $50,000 in memory of his wife, Olha, establishing the Lemkivshchyna Foundation as a separate fund to enable the Vasyl Stefanyk Scientific Library to continue its work as one of the leading libraries in Ukraine. (See sidebar on page 8.)

To date, for the period from mid-January through the begining of March, $12,262.90 has been received in contributions from individual contributors and organizations.

Tax-deductible contributions, with checks made out to: "Ukrainian National Foundation - V. Stefanyk Library in Lviv," may be sent to: Ukrainian National Association, 30 Montgomery St., P.O. Box 17A, Jersey City, NJ 07303.

The list of contributors and sums donated will appear in forthcoming issues of Svoboda.

* * *

Among the organizations and institutions as well as individual scholars who have lent their support to the campaign are:

• Ukrainian National Association, Ulana Diachuk, president;
  
  
• Ukrainian Fraternal Association, John Oleksyn, president;
  
  
• Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, Dr. Askold Lozynskyj, president;
  
  
• Ukrainian American Coordinating Council, Ulana Diachuk, president;
  
  
• Self-Reliance Ukrainian Federal Credit Union, New York, Bohdan Kekish, president;
  
  
• First Security Ukrainian Savings Bank, Chicago, Julian Kulas, president;
  
  
• Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., Dr. Wasyl Omelchenko, president;
  
  
• Shevchenko Scientific Society in the U.S., Dr. Leonid Rudnytzky, president;
  
  
• Dr. Roman Szporluk, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute;
  
  
• Ukrainian Historical Association, Dr. Lubomyr Wynar, president;
  
  
• Ukrainian Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Dr. Dmytro Shtohryn;
  
  
• UCCA Educational Council, Dr. Evhen Fedorenko, president;
  
  
• Ukrainian Association of University Professors, Dr. Oleksander Sydorenko, acting president.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 30, 1997, No. 13, Vol. LXV

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