Draft:Ukrainian Studies Fund

• Comment: Primary sources do not establish notability per WP:ORG. DoubleGrazing (talk) 15:03, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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Ukrainian Studies Fund

Formation	1958
Location	United States of America
Leader	Taras Ferencevych
Website	https://www.ukrainianstudiesfund.org/

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Mission

The main goal of the Ukrainian Studies Fund is to support and develop university educational programs and disseminate knowledge and information about Ukraine and Ukrainians. The largest project of the USF was the funding of the Ukrainian Studies program at Harvard University. Still, over time, the Foundation has supported many programs at other universities, most notably the Ukrainian Studies program at Columbia University in New York, as well as numerous research projects in North America, Europe, and Ukraine.

History

The Ukrainian Studies Foundation was founded in 1957 at the annual convention of The Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations of America (SUSTA), where Stepan Chemych, a student from New York, together with his friends, raised the issue of the need to spread knowledge about Ukraine in academic circles in the United States. As a result of the discussions, in 1958, the Foundation was officially registered under the name “The Foundation of the Ukrainian Studies Department, Inc.”. The goal of the organization was to establish a professorship in Ukrainian studies at a leading American university. Initially, Stepan Сhemych and his colleagues organized a massive fundraising campaign among the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, mostly among people who arrived after World War II. Most contributions ranged from $10 to $100, but by the end of the Foundation's first decade, more than a quarter of a million dollars had been raised.

Chairmans

Stepan Chemych — founder and first chairman of the Foundation (1958-2001). He managed the activities on a voluntary basis and was responsible for spreading the idea of the organization and its practical improvement.

Bohdan Kudryk — President of the Foundation (2001-2014).

Bohdan Vytvytskyi — President of the Foundation since 2014.

Bohdan Tarnavsky — organizational advisor and executive director (1961-1986).

Roman Protsyk — Executive Director (1987-2024).

Taras Ferentsevych — Executive Director since 2024.

Before 1991

In the 1960s, the Foundation raised enough money to search for a university where it could establish a chair of Ukrainian studies. Among the options under discussion were Columbia University and the University of Minnesota. However, the key moment was the involvement of Professor Omeljan Pritsak from Harvard, who proposed a more ambitious plan to the Foundation: to fund not just one chair, but three chairs of Ukrainian studies at Harvard and to create a Ukrainian Research Institute.

In 1967, the Scientific Council of the Foundation approved Pritsak's proposal and a large-scale fundraising campaign was launched to raise money for three departments: Ukrainian History, Ukrainian Literature, and Ukrainian Linguistics. At the time, the cost of establishing one chair at Harvard was $600,000. Thanks to the efforts of the Foundation and volunteers, the required amount was raised, and three professorships were established in 1973. After that, efforts focused on raising $2 million to establish and support a Ukrainian research institute known as the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), which officially opened by a decision of the Harvard University Humanities Department in June 1973.

Harvard University

The Ukrainian Studies Foundation and Harvard University had a fruitful cooperation that began on the initiative of Professor Omelan Pritsak and Stepan Khemych. The USF not only established three professorships, but also became the main financial driver for the creation of the Ukrainian Research Institute. The Institute, which initially had a modest financial base, received ongoing support from the Foundation, enabling it to develop new projects, publications, fellowships for graduate students and faculty, and to expand the Ukrainian book collection in Harvard libraries.

Throughout the 1980s, the USF fostered the emergence of new research areas, such as Holodomor studies, which led to the publication of landmark works: “The Harvest of Sorrow” by Robert Conquest in 1986 and Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum in 2017. This research has been of great importance both to academia and to the general knowledge of the English-speaking community about the history of this tragedy. Other important projects include the commemoration of the millennium of the baptism of Rus-Ukraine, carried out in 1987-1991, the organization of international congresses of Ukrainian studies, and the preparation of guides to important Soviet archival collections.

After 1991

After Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, the Ukrainian Studies Fund expanded its activities and began supporting Ukrainian studies programs not only in the United States, but also in Canada, Ukraine, and other European countries. Among the most essential initiatives were the strengthening of Ukrainian studies programs at the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta, and support for research projects at a number of institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

The Ukrainian Studies Fund also provided funding for source research and electronic copying of the valuable archives of the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences (UVAN) in New York. Thanks to the Foundation's efforts, the Ukrainian Studies Department has formed a generation of scholars who work on Ukrainian issues in the academic environment and spread the truth about Ukraine, Ukrainian history and culture around the world.