Radio Liberty Ukrainian Service Collection

This collection consists primarily of radio scripts that were sent from the director of the Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty to (then) Archbhishop Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA. They provide a record of Western Cold War-era broadcasting of news and political commentary to Ukrainian-speakers living in the Soviet Union.

Summary Information

CreatorMstyslav, Patriarch of Kiev and All Ukraine
Source - dnr:Demkovych-Dobrians'kyi, Mykhailo
TitleRadio Liberty Ukrainian Service Collection
IDg.17
Dates1961-1966
Dates (bulk)1961-1963
Quantity1 Linear Feet, 3 boxes, 19 folders
LanguagesMultiple languages
LanguagesUkrainian, with the exception of two newsletters in English.
RepositoryUkrainian History and Education Center Archives

Biographical / Historical

Radio Liberty (originally Radio Liberation) was formed by the American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Amcomlib) in 1951. Radio Liberty began broadcasting in Russian on March 1, 1953, and by December 1954 it was broadcasting in 17 languages, including Ukrainian. Although ostensibly a non-governmental entity, much of its funding came covertly from the CIA until 1972, when control was transferred to the US State Department, and then to the Board for International Broadcasting. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty continue to serve as a surrogate free press in countries where a free press is banned by the government or is not fully established.

Mykhailo Demkovych-Dobrians'kyi was the director of Radio Liberty's Ukrainian service from 1956 to 1972. He was born in 1905 in the village of Lahodiv near Peremyshliany in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied history and philology at the L'viv University, and law and political science at the universities of Berlin and Vienna. He was active in Ukrainian nationalist politics in Polish-controlled Galicia, and was the editor of a number of Ukrainian Catholic periodicals. He left Ukraine as a displaced person, working as an editor for Ukrainian-language newspapers in Munich and London before becoming an editor at Radio Liberty in 1954.

Patriarch Mstyslav (who was an archbishop at the time of this collections' creation) was one of a group of bishops of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church who left Ukraine ahead of the Red Army during World War II. He was a leading figure in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA from 1950 until his death.

Scope and Contents

The collection consists primarily of spirit-duplicated copies of radio scripts that were sent to (then) Archbishop Mstyslav of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA by Mykhailo Demkovych-Dobrians'kyi. It includes two letters from Demkovych-Dobrians'kyi to Msyslav, and a nearly complete set of daily scripts from October 1961 through January 1962, March 1963, and less-complete sets from other months in the time span covered by the collection. Some scripts appear to have annotations in Mstyslav's and Demkovych-Dobrians'kyi's hands. The content of the scripts consists of daily news reports, political commentary, and features on literature, the lives of Ukrainians west of the Iron Curtain, and other topics. It also includes Ukrainian and English language newsletters from Radio Liberty.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in two series as follows:

Missing Title

  1. Daily broadcast scripts
  2. Newsletters

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Published citations should take the following form: Identification of item, date (if known); Radio Liberty Ukrainian Service Collection; box number; folder number; Ukrainian Historical and Educational Center Archives, Somerset, New Jersey.

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for researcher use. Please contact the archivist (archives@ukrhec.org) for more information and to make arrangements.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright restrictions may apply.

Processing Information

Because this material bears only a tangential relationship with the remainder of Patriarch Mstyslav's papers, it is being treated separately as if it were an artifical collection.

Controlled Access Headings

Individuals

  • Demkovych-Dobrians'kyi, Mykhailo

Organizations

  • Radio Liberty

Genres

  • Radio scripts
  • Newsletters

Related Archival Materials

The bulk of the corporate and broadcast records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are currently housed at the Hoover Institution (Stamford University): http://hoorferl.stanford.edu/RFE/index.php.

File Plan

Orginally located in tall cabinet "E", shelf 4-5.

Container List

Series 1.  Daily broadcast scripts, 1961-1963. 
1961. 0.5 Linear Feet   9 folders 
May-July 1961.
  • box 1 folder 1
October 1961. 0.2 Linear Feet   3 folders
  • box 1 folder 2-4
November 1961. 0.2 Linear Feet   3 folders
  • box 1 folder 5-7
December 1961. 0.1 Linear Feet   2 folders
  • box 2 folder 1-2
1962. 0.2 Linear Feet   4 folders 
January 1962. 0.2 Linear Feet   3 folders
  • box 2 folder 3-5
February 1962.
  • box 2 folder 6
1963. 0.3 Linear Feet   5 folders 
March 1963. 0.1 Linear Feet   2 folders
  • box 2 folder 7
  • box 3 folder 1
April 1963. 0.2 Linear Feet   3 folders
  • box 3 folder 2-4
Loose pages

Scope and Contents

Final pages which became detached and could not be readily reunited with the rest of the script.

  • box 3 folder 5
Series 2.  Newsletters, 1965-1966. 
Informator

Scope and Contents

Issues of the bimonthly Ukrainian-language newsletter "Informator", summarizing news from Soviet Ukraine as reported in the Soviet press.

  • box 3 folder 6
Radio Liberty newsletter, Undated.

Scope and Contents

Two English-language issues of a newsletter published by Radio Liberty.

  • box 3 folder 7