Avhustyn Shtefan papers

Avhustyn Shtefan was a Ukrainian and Ukrainian American educator, politician, and social activist. This collection contains correspondence, writings, photographs, and family history materials. The photographs document his life and career in Transcarpathia, Slovakia, Prague, Augsburg, and the United States. The collection also includes 19th and 20th century photographs and family records.

Summary Information

Creator Shtefan, Avhustyn, 1893-1986
Title Avhustyn Shtefan papers
ID g.40
Dates 1918-1981
Quantity 0.75 Linear Feet
Languages Multiple languages
Languages Primarily Ukrainian, but also contains materials in Hungarian, Slovak, German, English, and other languages. Additional language notes can be found at the series and file level below.
Repository Ukrainian History and Education Center Archives

Biographical / Historical

Avhustyn Shtefan was a Ukrainian and Ukrainian American educator, politician, and social activist. He was speaker of the Carpatho-Ukrainian Soim (legislature) during that region's autonomy/independence in 1938-1939.

He was born in the village of Poroshkovo (currently in Perechyn raion, Zakarpats'ka oblast', Ukraine) in a family of Greek Catholic clergy (his father Omelian Shtefan and maternal grandfather Ievhenii Fentsyk were both priests and well-known social activists). He studied at the University of Budapest (1914-1918) and became professor of mathematics and physics at the Uzhhorod teachers college. After creation of the Czhechoslovak Republic, he taught at the Uzhhorod Gymnasium (1920-1922) and then became director of the Commercial Academies in Uzhhorod and Mukachevo (1922-1938).

During this period, he was also heavily involved in politics. This culminated with the autonomy of Carpatho-Ukraine, when he was named Minister of Education and Religion, was elected to the Soim, and became its speaker. After the annexation of Carpatho-Ukraine by Hungary in March 1939, he became a political refugee, living in Bratislava, where he was director of the Ukrainian Academy of Commerce, and then in Prague, where he was director of the Ukrainian Gymansium in Modřany.

At the end of World War II he along with his fellow Modřany faculty became displaced persons in Augsburg, Germany, and resettled in the United States in 1949. He taught at the Mother of God Academy (a Catholic girls high school) in Stamford, Connecticut until his retirement in 1969, and continued to be active in Ukrainian and Transcarpathian social and political organizations.

Scope and Contents

This collection contains correspondence, writings, photographs, and family history materials of Avhustyn Shtefan. It includes letters, articles, speeches, and other textual records related to Transcarpathia and his professional life as an educator.

The photographs span his professional career as an educator in Transcarpathia, Slovakia, Prague, Augsburg, and the United States. In addition, they include photographs of individuals and events in Transcarpathia, Slovakia, and the United States, as well as 19th century photographs of ancestors and other related individuals (including Fr. Avhustyn Voloshyn).

The collection also includes 19th and 20th century family records.

Зміст фонду

Фонд складається з листування, рукописів, фотографій та матеріали з сімейної історії Августина Штефана. Вона включає листи, статті, промови та інші тексти, пов'язані із Закарпаттям та його педагогічною діяльністю.

Фотографії охоплюють його цілу педагогічну кар'єру на Закарпатті, та у Словаччині, Празі, Аугсбурзі та США. Між ними також фотографії осіб та подій у Закарпатті, Словаччині та Сполучених Штатах, та його предків та інших споріднених особистостей 19-го століття (у тому числі о. Августина Волошина).

Фонд також включає родинні документи 19-го і 20-го століття.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Published citations should take the following form: Identification of item, date (if known); Avhustyn Shtefan papers; box number; folder number; Ukrainian History and Education 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

This collection consists of folders and albums separated on the basis of inferred provenance from materials initially attributed to Vikentii Shandor. It is likely that these items were given to Shandor by Shtefan. Order within folders has been retained, but all other order has been imposed by the processing archivist.

Controlled Access Headings

Subjects

  • Exiles

Places

  • Ukraine--Zakarpatsʹka oblastʹ
  • Slovakia--Bratislava
  • Czech Republic--Prague
  • Germany--Augsburg

Genres

  • Personal correspondence
  • Photographs
  • Ephemera
  • Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)

Related Materials

Additional papers of Avhustyn Shtefan are located at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Augustin Stefan papers (HOLLIS 009834767)

Container List

Series 1.  Correspondence and writings, 1925-1983. 0.2 Linear Feet   8 folders  
Correspondence, 1926-1981.

Scope and Contents

May include third party materials.
  • box 1 folder 1-4
Writings, letters, newspaper clippings, and documents, 1925-1983 and undated.
  • box 1 folder 5-7
Speeches, event flyers, and ephemera
  • box 1 folder 8
Series 2.  Photograph albums and scrapbooks, 1918-1981. 0.3 Linear Feet   5 folders

Processing Information

Scrapbooks consisted of spiral-bound "magnetic" photo album pages. These have been disassembled, sleeved as necessary, and foldered. Original album pages where the attached items could not be safely removed have been foldered in their original state.

  
Album

Scope and Contents

Contains family photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings, photocopies of family documents, class photographs from the Modřany gymnasium, and maps showing Shtefan's travels.
  • box 2 folder 1
Scrapbook

Scope and Contents

Contains photographs, originals and photocopies of family records (including baptism and marriage certificates), ephemera, and newspaper clippings.
  • box 2 folder 2
Album

Scope and Contents

Contains postcards, photographs of family and others, newspaper and periodical clippings, ephemera, and fragments of writings.
  • box 2 folder 3
Album

Scope and Contents

Contains Shtefan's employment records, biographical information, family documents, published writings, membership cards, newspaper clippings, and photographs. The latter include photographs of events, as well as class, faculty and student photographs from the Mother of God Academy.
  • box 2 folder 4
Scrapbook

Scope and Contents

Contains primarily notes and photographs related to Shetefan's family history.
  • box 2 folder 5
Series 3.  Photographs; personal and family records 0.25 Linear Feet   8 folders, 1 bound volume  
Photographs

Scope and Contents

Contains 19th century photographs of Shtefan's ancestors, photographs of individuals, groups, and events from the 1920s to the 1970s, class photographs of the Commerce Academy in Mukachevo, as well as photocopies of family documents and other scrapbook-type assemblages.
  • box 2 folder 6-8
Photographs and records

Scope and Contents

Contains Shtefan's Czechoslovak passport, photographs, family documents, and photographs (including 1893 photograph of Fr. Avhustyn Voloshyn and family).
  • box 2 folder 9
Personal documents
  • box 2 folder 10
Fr. Omelian Shtefan diary

Language of materials

Hungarian

Scope and Contents

Contains a diary kept by Avhustyn Shtefan's father from 1890-1893.

Processing Information

Inserted loose sheets have been stored unfolded in a separate folder.
  • volume 1
  • box 2 folder 11
Family records

Language of materials

Church Slavonic and Hungarian

Scope and Contents

Contains original ordination certificates and other documents dated 1853-1869.
  • box oversize 1 folder 1
Family history notes
  • box 2 folder 12