We in the West have gotten used to the idea that farmhouses are physically separate from the "barn", where livestock and grain are kept. This was not the case for traditional village houses in Ukraine.
In the 1930s, the anti-religious zeal of the Communist government resulted in the destruction of architectural masterpieces. Today, it is capitalist development.
One of the oldest written records in our collections is this legal document from 1731. It is written in Polish (not surprisingly, since much of Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonweath at the time), and concerns the raising of funds for the monastery in Mezhyrichia, Ukraine.
The birds on this pysanka (Ukrainian decorated Easter egg) are strong and serious animals, not "tweety-birds" or baby chicks. They have no-nonsense beaks and big claws. In fact, they're almost scary-looking.
What can we learn about the prehistory of the residents of present-day Ukraine from a scholarly analysis of the Ukrainian word for "sausage"? Not much, probably, but that didn't stop one person from trying...
The UkrHEC archives have a letter written by Danylo Skoropads'kyi (son of Het'man Pavlo Skoropads'kyi) in 1946 offering his contacts with high-level individuals in the Church of England to assist the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church to obtain help for Ukrainian refugees, particularly students.
