An important event took place at the Vernadsky National Library on May 29 as Oleksandr Fedoruk, head of the state service monitoring the passage of cultural valuables across the Ukrainian border, handed over archival documents extensively illustrating the first Ukrainian ОmigrО institution of higher learning and research, known as the Ukrainian Free University.
It was officially opened in 1921 in Vienna, and in October that same year it began to function on the campus of the Charles University in Prague, under President Masaryk’s patronage. During the Prague period (1921- 45), UFU became the principal national О migr О center in the West. The teaching staff included noted savants and public figures like literary critic Oleksandr Kolessa, chemist Ivan Horbachevsky, lawyer Andriy Yakovliv, art historian Dmytro Antonovych, theologian and Carpatho-Ukrainian President Rev. Avhustyn Voloshyn, historian and publicist Oleksandr Shulhyn. 335 students were enrolled annually, of whom 221 entered the philosophy department and 104 the law school. The university was destroyed after the Red Army entered Prague in May 1945.
UFU resumed operation in Munich in the fall of 1945. In the Bavarian capital, it was destined to experience numerous hardships with the teaching process reducing and stopping, yet more extensive contacts were established with Western research centers, particularly Ukrainian study centers in the United States, Canada, France, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina. Among its celebrated fellows after World War II were historians Dmytro Doroshenko and Oleksandr Ohloblyn, philologist and pedagogue Stepan Smal-Stotsky, along with philosopher and Slavicist Dmytro Chyzhevsky.
Throughout its existence, the Ukrainian Free University did a great deal to extend its influence to public and political life in Ukraine; its publishing effort was and remains quite extensive, and its archives are still being researched. According to Prof. Liubov Dubrovina, director of the Vernadsky Library’s Institute of Manuscripts, after studying the university’s heritage (twelve volumes of research papers, 48 volumes of works on the history of law, Ukrainian studies, Ukrainian ОmigrО epistolary writings), part of it will be transferred to the National Library and Shevchenko National Museum of Literature.
