Research Institute of Volyn (Інститут дослідів Волині; Instytut doslidiv Volyni). An émigré institution established in Winnipeg in 1951 to conduct and publish research on the history and culture of Volhynia. Its directors have been Yu. Mulyk-Lutsyk (1951–2, 1954–6), A. Shumovsky (1952–4), Mykhailo Borovsky (1956–68), and S. Radchuk (after 1969). Metropolitan Nykanor Abramovych was an honorary president, and Metropolitan Ivan Ohiienko was an honorary head of its council. In 1961 the institute had 17 full scholarly members, 20 scholarly members, and 46 corresponding members, most of them in North America. By 1989 the institute had published 15 volumes of Litopys Volyni (Chronicle of Volhynia, starting in 1953) and 60 books and brochures, including I. Levkovych’s survey history of Volhynia to 1914 (1953); Stepan Kylymnyk’s monograph on Ukrainian calendric folk customs (5 vols, 1955–63); Metropolitan Ohiienko’s books on the Pochaiv Monastery (1961), the life of Arsenii Matsiievych (1964), and Ukrainian pre-Christian beliefs (1965) and his dictionary of Taras Shevchenko’s language (1961); Petro Shumovsky’s book on the history of Ostroh (1964); Yevhen Pasternak’s history of the Kholm region and Podlachia (1968); Oleksander Tsynkalovsky’s geographic dictionary of Volhynia and Volhynian Polisia (2 vols, 1984, 1986); and the memoirs of Lev Bykovsky, Ulas Samchuk, Michael Huculak, Taras Borovets, Mykhailo Podvorniak, O. Semmo, H. Stetsiuk, and M. Dubylko. This scientific research institute’s publications have been financed by branches of the Society of Volyn in Winnipeg, Toronto, New York, Cleveland, Germany, and England.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]


Encyclopedia of Ukraine