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ЗБЕРЕЖЕННЯ АРХІВІВ

The UBC would not exist today without the sacrifices of the men and women who came before us. The UBC is dedicated to preserving their memory so that it can serve as a guide for future generations.

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Archives
Events

Have you ever been curious about how we study the journals our musicians wrote during World War II? Or about how we preserve and use the materials in our historical collections to inform our work today?

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An Archive is an education of an institution’s past. The UBC has launched a fundraising campaign to help ensure that we can document, preserve, analyze, and exhibit materials relating to the origins and development of the UBC.

 

The funds raised for the UBC Archive will be specifically geared towards ensuring that the photos, documents, music, and mementos from our history are professionally preserved and appreciated. For the past two years, a Research Fellow has teamed up with summer interns to start this work. We estimate that it will take an additional 3-4 years to completely catalog the Archive and establish an online access portal for researchers and the public. We invite you for a presentation of these efforts, where we will discuss the work completed thus far and our vision to share our Archive with the world.

UBC Archives Preservation

We are launching a historical preservation program that will document, preserve, analyze, and exhibit materials relating to the origins and development of the Ensemble.

 

Many of the photos you see on this website, like the photo above from the Ensemble's Central Asia tour in 1935, belong to the descendants of the Ensemble's members. The UBC safeguards and preserves these materials to ensure their availability to researchers and historians.

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Preservation includes making photo-copies, digital files, and public digital files. The Digitization project, at this point, consists of two main priorities: digitizing all UBC recordings since the original 1930s recording of the Poltava and two Kyiv Kapelias through the present, as well as digitally cataloging the materials from the 2018 100th Anniversary Tour. 

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Public Plea

Many documents and photos from the Ensemble's rich history have been lost, forgotten, or—in the worst cases—destroyed in the tumult of World War II. The UBC needs your help to locate documents, photos, and stories, so that they can be photo-copied (or, if applicable, transferred) in order to be studied and exhibited.

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If you have heard about where any of the following materials might be, please reach out to archivist@bandura.org as soon as possible. Our focus us currently on materials from before 1950, which can quickly degrade without proper storage and preservation.
 

The UBC Archives are unable to trace the locations of the following materials:

  • Note: There are documents, photos, videos, and recordings that pertain to the UBC's early history that we may not know about, and that therefore can't be included in this list. If you have information about the locations of any materials that touch on the early history of bandura ensembles in Ukraine (1900–1948), please reach out to archivist@bandura.org.

  • UBC founding members recollections, including but not limited to:

    • Honcharenko memoirs written in the early 1970s

    • Kytasty memoirs written in the early 1970s

    • Nazarenko memoirs written in the early 1970s

    • Evhen Ciura memoirs written in the early 1970s

    • Chernenko memoirs

  • NKVD files on State Kapelle members from the 1920s-1940s, in particular the NKVD files on Dziubenko, Kytasty, Pika, Kabachok, and others.

  • German files on UBC members and activities in the 1940s

  • Any posters from before 1949

  • Records and documents from concerts in Displaced Persons camps 1945-1949

  • Documents and photos relating to performances in labor camps and elsewhere during World War II

  • Documents from the papers of Chernenko, Nazarenko, Ciura, Yemetz, Miniaylo, Pivko, Panasenko, and many others.

  • Historical UBC Bylaws and internal codes

  • Recordings dated before 1949

  • Publications on bandura history by Nazarenko, Yemetz, Ciura, and others.

  • Administrative and artistic artifacts from the Leontovych Kapelia from the 1940s

  • Visti (Вісті) articles published in Minneapolis from the 1960s onward about the history of the UBC. As an example, we are unable to locate:

    • "Сорок років з ім'ям великого кобзаря в серці," Вісті №7. Грудень 1963. Міннеаполіс, США. (Sorok Rokiv z Imyam Velykoho Kobzarya. Visti No. 7, December 1963. Minneapolis.)

    • "До історії розвитку Капели бандуристів," Вісті, 1963. Міннеаполіс, США. (Do istoriyi rozvytku Kapely Bandurstiv," Visti, 1963. Minneapolis.)

  • UBC Costumes and performing attire from 1920s through 1980s.

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The UBC Archives have been able to identify the locations of the following materials:

  • Havrylo Makhynia journals from 1942-1949 (located in Atlanta, Georgia)

  • Havrylo Makhynia's handwritten biography of Hryhory Nazarenko (multiple drafts, located in Atlanta, Georgia)

  • Mykola Liskiwsky Archives (Hamtramck, Michigan)

  • Hnat Khotkevych's publications (copies held in archive of Victor Mishalow in Ontario)

  • Bandura belonging to Osyp Panasenko (Hamtramck, Michigan)

  • Bazhul Archive (located in Toronto, Ontario, with Victor Mishalow)

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The UBC Archives has custody of the following archival materials:

  • Limited artifacts from Pivko's papers. (Timofiy Pyvko was one of the original members of the Kyiv Kapelle from 1923). Covers time period 1935–1950.

  • Honcharenko Archive, selections.

  • Limited documents from Panasenko's papers. (Yosyp Panasenko was one of the original members of the Poltava Bandurist Kapelle). Covers time period 1935–1950.

  • Assorted (some unmarked) photos from the 1920s of the Kyiv and Poltava ensembles.

  • UBC administrative paperwork from the 1958 Western European Tour

  • All vinyl albums, VHS tapes, CDs produced after 1949.

  • Original (or semi-original) copies of all post-1920 photographs that appear in Zhyvi Struny by Ulas Samchuk

  • Reel-to-reel recordings of the UBC from the 1950s onward

  • Selection of posters from 1950s through the present

  • Bandura belonging to Pavlo Minyaylo, built in the 1920s and used by him through 1950. This bandura was one of the only items to survive a bombing raid in World War II, and it can be seen in some of the photos on this site.

  • Bandura built jointly by Hryhory Kytasty and Petro Honcharenko

  • UBC concert costumes from 1980s through the present.

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