OBITUARY: Bohdan Yasinsky, 79, veteran, activist, librarian-bibliographer (08/11/02)

OBITUARY: Bohdan Yasinsky, 79, veteran, activist, librarian-bibliographer

by Jurij Dobczansky

WASHINGTON - Bohdan Yasinsky, of Silver Spring, Md., veteran, community activist and librarian-bibliographer, died Sunday, July 28, in Kyiv, while on an extended visit to Ukraine.

Mr. Yasinsky was born in Ivano-Frankivsk on January 1, 1923. Serving in the Ukrainian Galicia Division, he survived the Battle of Brody in 1944 to become a member of the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army. Following the war he studied at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich and received a B.A. from Georgetown University in Washington.

He spent most of his professional career at the Library of Congress. In 1959 he worked for the Aerospace Technology Division, where he prepared abstracts of Soviet scientific literature. In 1970 he became assistant preservation microfilming officer and was promoted to chief of the Preservation Microfilming Office in 1982.

From February 27, 1989, until his retirement in December 2001 he was the Ukrainian area specialist in the European Division. Responsible for developing the Ukrainian collections, he frequently hosted visitors from Ukraine and assisted readers in the European Reading Room. His frequent trips to Ukraine made him well-known in library circles there.

He compiled a number of useful bibliographies and indexes, some of which are available online: "Independent Press in Ukraine 1988-1992" (www.loc.gov/rr/european/upress/upin.html), "Taras Shevchenko in the Library of Congress" co-authored with Valentyna Pashkova in 1998, www.loc.gov/rr/european/shevchenko.html), "Mikhail Bulgakov in the Western World," co-authored with Katherine Konchakovska in 1998 (www.loc.gov/rr/european/bulgaklc.html).

In 2000, Mr. Yasinsky's project of many years, a 540-page index to the Literaturno-Naukovyi Vistnyk (1898-1932), was published by the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian community of Washington will remember Mr. Yasinsky as a dedicated community leader. For many years he taught and served as director of the Taras Shevchenko School of Ukrainian Studies and was a member of the Educational Council of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.

He was president of both the Baltimore-Washington District Committee and Branch 15 of the Ukrainian National Association. He was an active member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, the Society for the Promotion of the Patriarchal System in the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Association of the Washington Metropolitan Area. A member of the executive board for many years, Mr. Yasinsky was president of the Ukrainian Library Association of America in the 1980s.

Mr. Yasinsky was laid to rest in the family plot in Kniahynyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, according to his last will. He leaves behind his wife, Tetiana, and their children, Iryna, Roman and Marta, as well as three sisters in the United States.

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