East View Research Collections

In August-September 1941 the Battle of Kyiv was fought by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. At one point, the enemy pushed forward hundreds of kilometers. In reaction, the Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee recommended the creation of underground resistance movements in areas captured by the enemy. This collection brings together a wealth of documentary evidence from these underground and guerilla movements. Organized into six major parts, the collection contains holdings rich in a variety of areas of interest: reports dealing with the operation of underground Bolshevik organizations and guerrilla units; a complete list of the guerrilla units, their locations and members; lists of built-up areas destroyed by Nazi troops in retaliation for armed resistance by guerrilla units; information about concentration camps for prisoners of war or about the civilian population killed or deported as forced laborers to Germany; reports on armored train operations during the Soviet defense of Kyiv; minutes of secret meetings held by underground fighters; and documents of the commissions for the affairs of former guerrillas of the urban and rural executive committees of Kyiv Oblast.

Generalkommissariat was created in Ukraine when it was occupied by Nazi Germany in September 1941. The documents (orders, instructions, memos, correspondence, reports, summary reports, etc.) shed light on the Generalkommissariat’s organizational, economic and political activities, including issues concerning health, labor, agriculture and foodstuffs, economic, politics, law, transport, and forestry.

On September 19, 1941, soon after the Nazi Germany’s forces invaded the USSR, they occupied the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. One of the first measures taken by the occupation forces was the establishment of the new Kyiv City Council, the municipal executive body run by local officials appointed by Germans. Previously unavailable, this collection consists of a vast number of unique historical records (over 90,000 pages), including: appeals to population by the City Mayor and the Nazi German command; the establishment of loyal police force; gathering information on political moods among population; conducting inventory of factories, plants and workshops; maintenance of rail and road transport; distribution of bread rations; reopening of schools, libraries and theaters; lists of City Council employees, their personal dossiers and ID papers; transporting local civilians to Germany for forced labor; registration of people of German descent and much more.

Several months after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the capital of Ukraine fell to the Nazi occupying forces. Immediately, the Germans established a bureaucratic infrastructure made up of both German and local occupation authorities. This collection contains four groups of documents from some of those organizations.

The Polish Legions (“Pol’skie Legiony”) were formed in June 1917 by the Poles serving in the tsarist army. In the wake of the 1917 October coup, they resisted the Bolsheviks’ attempts to establish Soviet rule in Ukraine. Their aspirations for reviving the Polish state and incorporating considerable territories of land in western Ukraine were strongly opposed by the Ukrainian Central Rada. The German and Austrian military commanders also didn’t want to see the well-armed Polish units in Ukraine with their controversial political agenda. Eventually, some of the Polish Legions were defeated, others were disbanded, ending this unique episode of the Polish independence movement. Documents in this collection provide insights that are key to understanding Polish fervor for national self-determination, including: orders by the High Command of Polish Legions; personnel listings; local Polish military newspapers; documentation on the wages of Polish officers and soldiers; Romanian front correspondence regarding aid to Polish POWs; minutes of conferences held by Polish officers; and materials on the disbandment of Polish Legions in Ukraine.

The November Uprising (1830–1831)—also known as the Cadet Revolution—was an armed rebellion against the rule of the Russian Empire in Poland and Lithuania. The uprising began on November 29, 1830 in Warsaw when a group of young non-commissioned officer conspirators from the Imperial Russian Army’s military academy in Warsaw directed by Piotr Wysocki revolted. They were soon joined by large parts of Polish society. Despite several local successes, the uprising was eventually crushed by a numerically superior Russian army under Ivan Paskevich. The collection contains a total of 432 cases (dela), all included in one index (Opis’). The index (Opis’) is arranged in chronological order inside each year. The documents in the collection provide a wealth of information; the majority of which are originals. They make it possible for scholars to gain insight into the operation of investigating committees and those who took part in the uprising. The collection features the names of many individuals and is thus of interest to researchers and students of Polish and Russian History.

The Prosvita Society was a cultural and educational public organization originally founded in Lvov in 1868 to promote education among the Ukrainians. Much later, after the 1905 revolution and the emperor’s manifesto of October 17, promising to guarantee freedom of religion, speech, assembly and associations, Prosvita came to Eastern Ukraine and to other regions of the Russian Empire. In 1905 and 1906, branches of Prosvita were formed in Kyiv, Ekaterinoslav, Odessa, Kamenets-Podol’sk, Zhitomir, Chernigov, the Kuban Region, Baku, and Vladivostok. The society’s goal was to “promote Ukrainian culture and, more importantly, education of the Ukrainian people in their own language.”

Soon after German troops occupied Ukraine in 1941, they took control of local newspapers, turning them into organs of Nazi propaganda that promoted the ideas of the “new German order.” These newspapers were published not only in Kyiv, but also in a number of provincial cities under German occupation.

On April 28, 1918, after disbanding the Central Rada (Parliament) of the Ukrainian National Republic, the Hetmanate, a short-lived provisional government of Ukraine, was installed by Germany. The coup organizers appointed the conservative general Pavlo Skoropadsky as Hetman of what was termed the “Ukrayinska Derzhava,” or Ukrainian State. During the short period of his rule, Hetman Skoropadsky established diplomatic ties with many countries, concluded a peace treaty with Soviet Russia, and built schools and universities. He also set up a secret Informer Division within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The regime of Skoropadsky, accused by some Ukrainian politicians as the puppet regime of German government, did not last long: after losing the support of Germans and Austrians, the Hetman was overthrown by the insurgent forces of Semyon Petliura and forced into exile in Germany, thus ending this short but significant period of Hetmanate rule in Ukrainian history. The collection contains materials from the State Archives of Kyiv Oblast and documents the Division’s searches and arrests. Materials include evidence of secret agent recruitment and training as well as surveillance of Bolshevik party members. These resources also shed light on the moods of the local population.