Association of Ukrainians in Victoria Archive to be Launched on 27 July 2023
The Association of Ukrainians in Victoria (AUV) Archive Project that commenced in 2018 will reach an important milestone on 27 July, when the AUV Archive is to be officially opened. The ceremony will take place at Ukrainian House in Essendon, Melbourne, where the Archive is physically located. The AUV has invited members of the public to make a booking to attend this event.
Information about the Archive, its objectives and contents, as well as the AUV Archive Policy and a guide for the archive’s potential users are accessible through the Archive page of the AUV website.
Members of the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand have played significant roles in the AUV Archive Project. Initial discussions involved Dr Ryna Sharp (at that time Ms Ryna Ordynat, a PhD student in History at Monash University), Professor Marko Pavlyshyn and Dr Alessandro Achilli of Monash University’s Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies, and Mr Slawko Kohut (at the time president of the AUV); the group was soon joined by the historian Dr Yana Ostapenko.
The AUV and the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies jointly applied to the Ukrainian Studies Foundation in Australia for funding to commence the work of ordering, preserving and cataloguing the archival materials that were informally housed at Ukrainian House. Ms Ryna Ordynat drafted the successful initial, 2019, grant application; the follow-up application of 2020 was authored by Dr Yana Ostapenko. Dr Ostapenko also led the dedicated team of project staff and volunteers who implemented the project, which was administered through Monash University.
The AUV Archive is governed by the AUV through its Archive Committee, which currently comprises the Chair of the AUV Board Ms Tatiana Zachariak, Dr Yana Ostapenko (the AUV archivist), Ms Val Wasil of the AUV Board, and Emeritus Professor Marko Pavlyshyn.
The AUV Archive project has generated a number of conference presentations:
- Ryna Ordynat, “Rediscovering Records: The AUV Archive and Heritage Project at the Ukrainian House, Essendon” (“Ukraine and the World: A Conference of the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies at Monash University, the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand and the Shevchenko Scientific Society,” Monash University, 12-14 July 2018);
- Yana Ostapenko, “Ohranizatsiia ta stvorennia katalohu Arkhivu Ukrains’koi Hromady Viktorii (Arkhiv UHV)” [Organising and Creating the Catalogue of the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria Archive (the AUV Archive)] (9th International Scholarly Conference on the “Ukrainian Diaspora: Research Problems”], Ostroh Academy National University, 21-22 October 2021); and
- Yana Ostapenko, “Creating a Community Archive: The Association of Ukrainians in Victoria Archival Project (AUVAP), 2020-2021” (“Independence. Archive. Prognosis. Ukraine in 1991-2021 and Beyond: A Conference of the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand in partnership with the University of Melbourne, the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria, and the Ukrainian Studies Foundation in Australia,” 3-5 February 2022).
The significance of the AUV Archive in the general context of Ukrainian community archives in Victoria was highlighted in a paper presented at the “Independence. Archive. Prognosis” conference by Dr Alessandro Achilli, Emeritus Professor Marko Pavlyshyn and Dr Olha Shmihelska-Kozuliak. The paper has subsequently been published as a scholarly article titled “Ukrainian Community Archives in Victoria, Australia: A Stocktake” in East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies.
Three exhibitions based on materials from the AUV Archive have been held at Ukrainian House: the first to illustrate work on the commencement of the Archive Project (2019), the second to trace the history of celebrations of the Taras Shevchenko anniversary at Ukrainian House from the 1950s onward (2021), and the third to showcase the Archive’s records of significant events in the evolution of the AUV (2023).