V.K. Lypynsky Institute continues to promote Ukrainian, East European studies

by Christina Pelenski

PHILADELPHIA - The general meeting of the V.K. Lypynsky East European Research Institute (EERI) took place here on April 24.

The meeting was convened by Prof. Jaroslaw Pelenski, the institute's president and foreign academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and chaired by Dr. Sviatoslav Trofimenko, first vice-president, with the assistance of Martha Pelensky, secretary.

Following the presentation of reports by individual members of the outgoing board of directors and board of auditors, new directors and auditors were elected: Prof. Pelenski, president; Dr. Trofimenko, first vice-president and treasurer; Prof. Oleksa Bilaniuk, second vice-president; Olena Ott-Skoropadska, third vice-president; Martha Pelensky, secretary and administrator; Marian Kots, financial matters; Dr. Martha Trofimenko, statutory matters; Christina Pelenski, editorial and press matters; Lubomyr Bej, Dr. Stephan Woroch, Ilarij Mazepa, Markian Onuferko, Dr. Roman Procyk, members of the board of directors; Maria Honcharenko (chair), Zorian Dubenko and Ivan Kuzemsky, members of the board of auditors.

Firmly convinced of the need for the continued existence of the Lypynsky Research Institute and the perpetuation of its scholarly objectives, the participants of the general meeting outlined plans for the institute's work in the realm of research and publishing, which is aimed at promoting Ukrainian and East European studies and in supporting research and publications primarily on Ukrainian statehood, both past and present.

This activity is to be conducted in close cooperation with scholarly institutions of Ukraine, particularly with the Lypynsky Research Institute's fraternal organization in Kyiv, the East European Research Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, as well as in collaboration with scholarly institutions of the West and the Ukrainian diaspora.

Founded in 1963 by a group of Ukrainian conservatively oriented community activists headed by Eugene Zyblikewycz, the Lypynsky East European Research Institute is a non-profit research and publishing institution based in Philadelphia.

Research institute's patron

The institute's patron, Viacheslav K. Lypynsky, one of the leading Ukrainian historians and probably the most original Ukrainian political theorist, sociologist and ideologue of the 20th century - was born in 1882 in Zaturtsi, Volyn region of Ukraine into the family of a Polish nobleman and landowner whose family had settled in Ukraine during the 18th century.

A Pole by birth, Lypynsky considered himself a Ukrainian on the basis of his theory of statehood, namely that national political identity was determined not by ethnic, racial or religious origin, but by the territory on which a person lives, works and participates in society.

Lypynsky began his political career as a conservative democrat. Following World War I his political orientation as an émigré in Austria was conservative and oriented toward a hetmanate; he ended up as an unaffiliated independent conservative. At the early stage of his activity he attempted to Ukrainianize the Polonized nobility in Ukraine. At the time of the Ukrainian Hetman State of Pavlo Skoropadsky and the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1918-1919 he served as Ukraine's ambassador to Austria. He died of tuberculosis in Austria in 1931 at the age of 49 and is buried in his native Zaturtsi.

Lypynsky's outstanding contributions are in political theory. His analysis of socio-political systems and the development of his theory of the circulation of elites place him among the leading European political theorists of his time. As the principal founder of the state school in modern Ukrainian historiography, he was concerned throughout his active life with the crucial problems of Ukrainian national independence and Ukrainian statehood. Lypynsky maintained that without a state there can be no nation - only a people in the ethnic sense. That is why he ascribed a particular role in the nation-building process to the state.

Lypynsky's intellectual and theoretical legacy is enormous. Besides his numerous published books, his unpublished archival materials, including his invaluable correspondence, amount to over 20,000 pages.

Preserving archival materials

In accordance with its objectives, the Lypynsky Research Institute collects and preserves archival materials of leading 20th-century Ukrainian personalities. Among its numerous archives, the Lypynsky collection is the most important. It was rescued from Soviet-occupied Vienna in 1945-1955 through the joint efforts of Cardinal Theodor Innitzer and the Rev. Theophil Hornykiewicz and deposited in Rome. Other archival materials of great value are those of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky and his family, including the Skoropadsky family's collection of paintings and art objects.

The archives and a library are all comfortably housed in the institute's 28-room building located in northwestern Philadelphia at 469 Flamingo St. Built in 1897 for John Dearnley, a prominent and wealthy Philadelphia citizen, this stately Victorian mansion is surrounded by two acres of wooded gardens, part of the former Dearnley Park.

Another objective of the Lypynsky Research Institute is to conduct research on its patron with a concentration on the Ukrainian state, its relations with neighboring countries, on state-oriented trends in Ukrainian history and political thought, and on the Ukrainian famines of 1921-1922, 1932-1933 and 1946-1947.

The Lypynsky Institute sponsors conferences on the above-mentioned topics in collaboration with other Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian scholarly institutions, especially those in Ukraine following the proclamation of independence in 1991 and, in particular, the East European Research Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine established in 1992-1993 under the directorship of Prof. Pelenski.

Among the most important conferences sponsored by the institute are the following:

• two conferences devoted to the centennial of Lypynsky's birth in 1982, co-sponsored by the Lypynsky Research Institute and Harvard University's Ukrainian Research Institute: one held at Harvard in October of 1982 and the other at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York City in December 1982;
  
  
• a major scholarly congress commemorating the Millennium of Christianity of Rus'-Ukraine, sponsored by the Lypynsky Research Institute in collaboration with other scholarly institutions of the Ukrainian diaspora and held in Munich in the spring of 1988;
  
  
• an international conference (known as the Rome I Conference), devoted to the topic "Foundations of Historical and Cultural Traditions in Eastern Europe: Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine" held in Rome in April-May 1990 and co-sponsored by the Lypynsky Research Institute, the Polish Institute of Christian Culture (the Pope John Paul II Foundation in Rome), the Belarusian Academy of Sciences in New York and the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Sciences in Rome, with participation of scholars from these four countries;
  
  
• an international conference (Rome II Conference) on Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, held in Lublin, Poland, in the summer of 1991 and co-sponsored by same institutions involved in the Rome I Conference;
  
  
• an international conference (the Rome III Conference) on "Citizen, Civil Society and State in View of the New Political Realities in East-Central Europe" held in Kamianets Podilskyi, Ukraine, in May 1992 and co-sponsored by the institutions responsible for the Rome I and Rome II conferences;
  
  
• an international conference devoted to the patron of the institute, titled "Viacheslav Lypynsky: Historico-Politological Legacy and Contemporary Ukraine" held in Kyiv, Lutsk and Kremenets, Ukraine, in June 1992, co-sponsored by the Lypynsky Research Institute and scholarly institutions of Ukraine;
  
  
• the international conference "Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky" held on the occasion of 120th anniversary of his birth and the 75th anniversary of the proclamation of the Ukrainian Hetman State in 1918; the conference took place in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Trostynets, Ukraine, in May 1993 and was sponsored by the Lypynsky Research Institute in collaboration with scholarly institutions of Ukraine;
  
  
• a conference devoted to "The Legacy of Vasyl Kuchabsky (1895-1945)" held in Lviv in September 1995 and sponsored and initiated by the Lypynsky Research Institute in collaboration with Lviv scholarly institutions;
  
  
• a conference devoted to "The Memory of Vasyl Kuchabsky and his Contribution to the Ukrainian State Historiography and Political Thought" held in Lviv in September 1996, sponsored by the same institutions as the 1995 conference about Kuchabsky;
  
  
• a scholarly conference on "The Famine of 1946-1947 in Ukraine: Causes and Consequences" - the first of its kind in Ukraine - held in Kyiv in May 1997 and sponsored the Lypynsky Research Institute, the Institute of Ukrainian History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Association of the Researchers of Famines in Ukraine;
  
  
• an international conference on a practically unresearched topic in Ukrainian history, "The Ukrainian State School: History, Politology, Law" held in Kyiv in December 1997, sponsored by the Lypynsky Research Institute and the East European Research Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine;
  
  
• an international conference devoted to the topic "Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky and the Ukrainian State in 1918" and held in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Trostynets in May 1998 on the occasion of 125th anniversary of Skoropadsky's birth and the 80th anniversary of the proclamation of the Ukrainian Hetman State in 1918, sponsored by the Ukrainian government (making it an official state event) with the participation of the Lypynsky Research Institute and its fraternal institute in Kyiv;
  
  
• a conference about the hetmanate of Pavlo Skoropadsky held at Columbia University in New York in January 1998 and co-sponsored by the Harriman Institute, the Lypynsky Research Institute, the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

Publications of primary importance

The Lypynsky Research Institute considers its publication activity to be of primary importance. In the years 1995-1999, for example, its publication output reached two books per year. Many publications are materials from the institute's own archives.

The institute's publications, listed in chronological order are:

• "Events in Ukraine, 1914-1922: Their Importance and Historical Background" (in German), documents from the Austrian State Archives in four volumes; edited by Theophil Hornykiewicz (Philadelphia: 1966-1969, 2,270 pp);
  
  
• "Letters of Dmytro Doroshenko to Viacheslav Lypynsky" (in Ukrainian) from the EERI archives; edited by Iwan Korowytsky (Philadelphia: 1973; 490 pp);
  
  
• "Letters of Osyp Nazaruk to Viacheslav Lypynsky" (in Ukrainian) from the EERI archives; edited by Ivan Lysiak-Rudnytsky (Philadelphia: 1976; 628 pp);
  
  
• Viacheslav Lypynsky's "Participation of Nobility in the Great Ukrainian Revolution under the Command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky" (in Polish), including the Ukrainian translation by Yurii Kosach from the EERI archives; edited by Lew Bilas (Philadelphia: 1980; 735 pp);
  
  
• "The Political and Social Ideas of Viacheslav Lypynsky (in English); edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski (Cambridge, Mass.: 1987; 280 pp.);
  
  
• Viacheslav Lypynsky's "Ukraine at the Turning Point: Notes on the History of Ukrainian State-Building in the 17th Century" (in Ukrainian); the first scholarly edition, edited by Lew Bilas and Jaroslav Pelenski (Kyiv-Philadelphia: 1992; 416 pp);
  
  
• "Viacheslav Lypynsky: Historico-Politological Legacy and Contemporary Ukraine" (in Ukrainian); edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski (Kyiv-Philadelphia: 1994; 225 pp).
  
  
• "Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine: The Foundations of Historical and Cultural Traditions in East Central Europe" (multilingual); co-edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski et al (Lublin-Rome: 1994; 562 pp);
  
  
• Pavlo Skoropadsky's "Memoirs (End of 1917 - December 1918) (in Russian) from the EERI archives; edited with a Ukrainian-language introduction by Jaroslaw Pelenski (Kyiv-Philadelphia: 1995; 496 pp);
  
  
• Viacheslav Lypynsky's "Letters to Fellow Farmers (About the Idea and Organization of Ukrainian Monarchism)" (in Ukrainian); the first scholarly edition, edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski (Kyiv-Philadelphia: 1996; 532 pp);
  
  
• Dmytro Doroshenko's, "Survey of Ukrainian Historiography" (in Ukrainian); co-edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski and Pavlo Sokhan (Kyiv-Philadelphia: 1996; 254 pp);
  
  
• "Famine in Ukraine, 1946-1947 (Documents and Materials)" (in Ukrainian), published in the series Sources of the History of Ukraine, Series V, Sources of Modern History (Kyiv-New York: M.P. Kots Publishers, 1996; 376 pp);
  
  
• "Black Harvest: Famine of 1932-1933 in the Valki and the Kolomak Districts of the Kharkiv Region (Documents, Memoirs, Lists of Deceased)" (in Ukrainian), (Kyiv-New York-Philadelphia: M.P.Kots Publishers, 1997; 368 pp);
  
  
• "Dialogue of Cultures (Materials of the First Scholarly Seminar in Memory of Dmytro Czyzhevsky)" (in Ukrainian), (Kyiv, 1996; 150 pp);
  
  
• Volodymyr Panchenko's "Emblems of the Cities in Ukraine" (in Ukrainian), (Kyiv-New York: M.P. Kots Publishers, 1997; 192 pp); and
  
  
• "Milena Rudnytska: Articles, Letters, Documents" (in Ukrainian); co-edited by Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak, Jaroslaw Pelenski, Myroslava Diadiuk (Lviv: 1998; 844 pp).

In addition, the following two volumes are forthcoming:

• "Viacheslav Lypynsky, Correspondence," Vol. 1 of the projected five-volume edition (in Ukrainian) from the EERI archives; co-edited by the late Roman Zalutsky et al (Kyiv-Philadelphia: 1999; 900 pp); and
  
  
• "Peace Negotiations Between the Ukrainian State and the Russian Federal Socialist Soviet Republic in 1918" (in Ukrainian and Russian) from the Kyiv archives; co-edited by Jaroslaw Pelenski and Valerii Smolii (Kyiv-Philadelphia: 1999; 398 pp).

In conclusion, it should be emphasized that the wide-ranging activities of the Lypynsky Research Institute need support from the Ukrainian diaspora community, particularly in view of the unstable and grave political situation in present-day Ukraine and the continuous imperialist Russian and Communist threats to Ukrainian statehood and sovereignty.

For information contact: V.K. Lypynsky East European Research Institute, 469 Flamingo St., Philadelphia, PA 19128.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 30, 1999, No. 22, Vol. LXVII

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