Iurii and Ol'ha Perkhorovych papers

Biographical / Historical

Iurii Perkhorovych (Юрій Прехорович, also spelled Perchorowycz) was a Ukrainian educator and avocational historian of Volyn' region.

He was born October 1, 1894 in the village of Syniv (today in Hoshcha raion, Rivne oblast', Ukraine). He studied at the Volyn' Religious Seminary in Zhytomyr, and in 1914 he matriculated in the history division of the Faculty of History and Philology of Warsaw University. He completed his studies after wartime evacuation to Rostov-on-Don in 1918, receiving a "Candidate" degree and pedagogical certification in History and Latin.

He worked as a teacher of Ukrainian and Latin language and literature in private gymnasiums in the cities of Rivne, Zdolbuniv, Ostroh, and Dubno, and received a teacher's diploma in 1928 and the title of "professor" in 1933. From 1939 to 1941 he taught Ukrainian language and literature at the "ten year school" ("desiatyrichka") in Dubno, and in September of 1941 he organized and became the first director of the S. Petliura Ukrainian Gymnasium in Dubno ("Dubens'ka Ukrains'ka Gimnaziia im. S. Petliury").

In 1933 he married Ol'ha Sliuzyns'ka, who was born in 1909 in Kyiv, but at the time of her marriage was living in the Dubno suburb of Surmychi (Surmicze). She worked as a practical nurse during the post-World War II years and appears to have assisted her husband in some of his historical research work. Unfortunately there do not seem to exist any published materials or other summeries of Ol'ha Perkhorovych's biography.

From an early age, Iurii Perkhorovych was interested in the history, prehistory, and natural history of the Volyn' region. While at university, he became intruiged by the similarities of names in Latin texts and current toponyms and traditional terms in Volyn'. Under the influence of Prof. S. Shelukhin, he began to develop a theory about Celtic settlements in Volyn', among other things proposing that the toponym "Dubno" is of Celtic origin.

As displaced persons, Iurii and Ol'ha lived in the Sonthofen, Grafenaschau, and Ingolstadt DP camps. Iurii served several months as director of the Ukrainian Gymnasium in Sonthofen. Later, he took a course in building construction methods using "xylolith" (a sawdust and magnesia cement mixture used to make seamless floors), after which he took over the teaching and direction of the same course.

Iurii and Ol'ha arrived in the United States in September, 1951. He likely could not find work as an educator due to insufficient knowledge of English, and instead worked as a manual laborer. In his free time, he served as editor of the scholarly periodical "Chronicles of Volyn'" ("Літопис Волині") from 1952 to 1958, and as secretary of the New York branch of the Volyn' Society ("Товариство 'Волинь'"). He also continued to research and write on a wide variety of topics related to Ukrainian (mostly Volynian) history, prehistory, and natural history, as well as on religion and church history. He published several books and numerous articles under his own name as well as under the pseudonyms Iurii Dzikovets'kyi (Юрій Дзіковецький) and H. Synivs'kyi (Г. Синівський).

[sources: curricula vitae, obituaries, and official documents in the present collection]

Scope and Contents

This collection contains the papers of Iurii and Ol'ha Perkhorovych, who were from the Volyn' region of Ukraine, but who became World War II displaced persons and resettled in Brooklyn, New York. It contains extensive correspondence (both incoming and outgoing) with family members, friends, and a very wide range of prominent individuals, including bishops, clergy, scientists, historians, and archaeologists, as well as political activists, diplomats, and army veterans of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Many of these individuals were also from Volyn', or had a personal or scholarly connection to the region.

The collection also contains a considerable quantity of material related to Iurii's avocational historical research and publications. It includes the published and unpublished texts of articles and lectures that he wrote on a wide variety of topics related to archaeology, history, biography, and physical geography, primarily of the Volyn' region and its people. It includes extensive research notes and correspondence with colleagues and scholars on the topics that he was researching. In addition, Iurii Perkhorovych was heavily involved in several Volyn'-oriented diaspora institutions, including the Chronicle of Volyn' and the Volyn' Society, and the collection contains some records of those organization's activities.

In addition to the correspondence and research files, the collection also contains several photograph albums containing family photographs; images of Volyn' from the 1930s to the 1960s, including churches, monasteries, and natural and architectural landmarks, as well as events associated with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church of the 1940s; and photographs related to Iurii's research work. There are also documents, writings, and ephemera from the period when Iurii and Ol'ha were refugees in Slovakia and southern Germany during and after World War II, as well as personal and official documents, newspaper clippings, address books, pocket diaries, and ephemera, primarily from their life in New York City.

Зміст фонду

Фонд сладається з особистих документів Юрія та Ольги Перхорович, волиняки які виїхали під час Другої Світової Війни, жили як переміщені особи, та врешті поселилися в Брукліні, шт. Нью-Йорк. Фонд містить значну кількість листування з родиною, друзями і дуже широким колом відомих осіб, в тому числі єпископи, духовенство, вчені, історики і археологи, а також політичні діячі, дипломати УНР і ветерани Армії УНР. Більшість із них волиняки, або мали особистий або науковий зв'язок з Волинню.

Фонд також містить значну кількість матеріалів, пов'язаних з історичними дослідами та публікаціями Юрія Перхоровича, включно з опублікованими та неопублікованими статтями і лекціями на різноманітні теми археології, історії, біографії, фізичної географії (особливо Волині та її населення). У фонді записки та листування з вченими про питання, які він досліджував.

Крім того, Юрій Перхорович активно брав участь у роботі діаспорних організацій волиняків, в тому числі Літопис Волині та Товариство "Волинь". У фонді можна занйти матеріали, які свідчать про діяльність цих організацій.

Крім листування та дослідних праць, фонд містить фотоальбоми, у яких родинні фотографії; види міст та сільських місцевостей Волині з 1930-х до 1960-х років (церкви, монастирі, природні та архітектурні пам'ятки, а також події, пов'язані з Українською Автокефальною Православною Церквою 1940-х років); та фотографії, пов'язані з дослідницькою роботою Юрія. Існують також матеріали з часу перебування Перхоровичів в Словаччині та південній Німеччині як біженці під час і після Другої світової війни, а також особисті та офіційні документи, газетні вирізки, адресні книги, кишенькові щоденники та інші матеріали пов'язані з їх життям в Нью-Йорку.

Arrangement

Arranged in 5 series:

The physical arrangement does not fully mirror the intellectual arrangement in order to economize on storage.