CIUS Archives

In May 1985 Mrs. Stephania Bukachevska-Pastushenko of Toronto donated $100,000 to the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies to establish an endowment fund for archival fellowships to be awarded by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. The main purpose of the fellowships was to collect archives and especially to assist existing archival institutions to catalogue their Ukrainian or Ukrainian Canadian holdings. Beginning in 1987, at least one Bukachevska-Pastushenko Archival Fellowship was awarded annually to graduate students and researchers working with archival collections.The Bukachevska-Pastushenko Archival Fund endowment was dedicated to the memory of Stephania's mother, who valued learning and encouraged knowledge of one's own heritage.

With an intent to assist scholars to study the Ukrainian heritage by encouraging the collection and preservation of the archival holdings on which scholarly work depends, Bukachevska-Pastushenko's Fund has grown and produced a substantial archival collection on its own, some of which - in particular, a number of research reports - have been now digitized and made available on the CIUS Digital Archive repository.

Developed in close cooperation with the University of Alberta Libraries and the Arts Resource Centre, CIUS's Digital Archive aims to digitize, systematize and describe the core publications of the Institute that have been produced over the last 40 years - essentially since CIUS was founded in 1976.

In the future, the digital collection will be expanded to include the majority of video materials at CIUS, containing historical material on CIUS and video recordings of CIUS events, such as lectures and conferences/symposia. Plans are being made to digitize collections of important historical documents that have never been previously available in a digital format, such as the British Foreign Office documents related to Ukraine covering the years 1917-1948, and more.