Materials of the Ukrainian Diaspora in the Funds of the Repository of Manuscripts of Shevchenko Institute of Literature

Abstract

From the beginning of 1990s more than twenty personal funds of writers and literary critics from abroad, who were writing in Ukrainian and whose works are constitutive parts of our culture, were included to the Repository of Manuscripts of Shevchenko Institute of Literature. The article highlights the arrangement of materials and the history of incomings. In particular, the authors point out that archives of Oleksandr Oles', Ulas Samchuk and Leonid Poltava contain a lot of creative materials, some of which have not been even published yet. Furthermore, Zina Genyk-Berezovska’s collection includes not only the founder’s materials but several sets of documents of other artists as well. Vynnychenko’s Archives hold hundreds of his original paintings. Moreover, the authors suggest that the materials from the funds of Hryhoriy Kostiuk and Oleksandr Dun characterize these figures as active literature researchers. In addition, in the article they underline the importance of preservation of the unique library of Hryhoriy Kostiuk. Finally, it is underlined that in every case personal correspondence constitutes the bulk of each archive. Therefore, these materials are considered to be the source base to characterise the personality in particular and the era in general.