Scope: 1947-1978
Bulk: 1947-1972
Size: .3 c.f.
Language: Ukrainian
The Dushenko collection contains correspondence from Ukrainian community, political, and military leaders.This letters are arranged alphabetically by correspondent.The collection overall is a good source for the study of Ukrainian history and politics from 1917 to 1921, and émigré life. Several of Dushenko's correspondents were closely involved with the Ukrainian National Republic. They include Borys Homzyn and Oleksander Shapoval, who were both officers in the UNR army, and Iakiv Zozulia, who served as departmental director in the UNR Ministry of Economic Affairs. Zozulia's letters in particular outline the history of the Central Rada and the textual history of the Fourth Universal.The correspondence to Dushenko also provides insights into the publishing activities of Homzyn and Shapoval, the latter who edited the pro-hetmanite newspapers Nash stiah and Nasha Derzhava.The correspondence also sheds light on the publishing activities of Olena Kysilevska*, president of the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations (1948-1956), and Matvii Stakhiv, editor of Narodna volia (1949-1971).
*The collection contains copies of Olena Kysilevska's correspondence to Dushenko.
The original letters are deposited in the Stephan Dushenko Papers, Public Archives of Canada
(call no. MG 31 H 88)
BIOGRAPHY
Stepan Dushenko was born in 1919 in Galicia. In 1936 he began to contribute articles to Svit molodi, a monthly supplement to Zhinocha Dolia. Dushenko worked as the magazine's agent until 1939. Zhinocha dolia was a semimonthly women's magazine published and edited by Olena Kysilevska in Kolomyia in 1925 to 1939. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Dushenko moved to Berlin and worked as a librarian for the Ukrainian Hromada. Later, while in a DP camp in Heidenau, he ran a bookstore. Dushenko emigrated to the United States in 1950, and settled in Buffalo, New York. He contributed articles to Ukrainian periodicals such as Vilne slovo and Narodna volia.