Rare Editions of Shevchenko’s Works and Studies of His Legacy Brought from Canada Presented in Ternopil

At the Museum of the National Liberation Struggle of Ternopil Region, the exhibition “Shevchenkiana: Rare Editions from the Library Collections of the Ukrainian National Federation – Toronto Branch” was opened, dedicated to the 212th anniversary of the birth of Taras Shevchenko.

This was reported by Ukrinform.

“Today we are presenting to our visitors unique editions of Shevchenko’s works and studies of his творчість from the library of the Toronto branch of the Ukrainian National Federation, which recently replenished the museum’s collections. These books were collected and published over decades by representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora,” said Yevhen Fil, director of the Museum of the National Liberation Struggle of Ternopil Region, during the opening.

The collection transferred from Canada to Ternopil includes about 200 editions of the Kobzar’s works and studies about his life and legacy. Some of them were printed abroad — in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Munich, New York, and Buenos Aires.

“In the exhibition, visitors can see Roman Zadnipryanskyy’s study Was Shevchenko a ‘Little Russian’? from the collection of prominent OUN figure Zenoviy Knysh, the four-volume edition of Kobzar printed by the Tryzub Publishing Union in Winnipeg, and Dmytro Dontsov’s book The Invisible Tablets of the Kobzar, published in Toronto. There is also an anthology of translations of Shevchenko’s works into various languages printed in Chicago,” said the museum’s chief collections keeper, Oksana Vavryk.

Visitors to the museum can also ознакомиться with the Shevchenko yearbooks published in New York in the 1950s, which compiled studies of Shevchenko’s work, the brochure The Pedagogical Work of Taras Shevchenko, published in Toronto in 1959, and publications about the construction of monuments to the Kobzar in Argentina and the United States.

As Ukrinform reported in the publication “The Journey of a Ukrainian Library from Toronto to Ternopil,” the history of the library of the Toronto branch of the Ukrainian National Federation goes back about 90 years. It was formed thanks to generations of emigrants who published books and periodicals in Ukrainian and contained around 20,000 books and periodicals.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, the library closed. At the end of 2025, the collection of books was transferred to the Museum of the National Liberation Struggle of Ternopil Region. The books are also planned to be digitized to ensure access for readers and researchers both in Ukraine and abroad.