Lviv = Lviv: A Collection of Works Commemorating the City's 750th Anniversary.New York, 1962

Lviv: a symposium on its 700th anniversary / Shevchenko Scientific Society, Ševčenko Société Scientifique; [compiler and author of the introduction] Vasyl Mudryi.

New York: Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1962. — 397, 30 p.: illus. — 26 cm. — Published by the Alumni of Institutions of Higher Education in Lviv. English text, parallel Ukrainian title page.

Publisher’s binding in dark blue grained leatherette: the city seal of Lviv from 1353 is stamped in gold on the front cover—a lion in a gate between three towers, surrounded by a Latin inscription; “LVIV” at the top left, “ЛЬВІВ” at the bottom right. Spine with the title and subtitle stamped in gold, double gold lines at the top and bottom, and a decorative element in the center. Back cover plain. Rubbing and occasional light scratches on the back cover, worn fabric along the top and bottom of the spine; a faint reddish stain in the upper corner of the title page. Paper clean, no yellowing, tight block, no inscriptions or stamps. Condition: very good.

The book has historical and cultural value and is of collector’s interest.

INFORMATION

The idea for the book was born at the congress of alumni of Lviv higher education institutions on November 10–11, 1956, in New York: the participants resolved to publish a collection of works about Lviv in English. There were about three thousand such alumni in the United States at the time—professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, agronomists, writers, musicians. The collection traces the history of the city from its founding by King Danylo through the Magdeburg Law, the patriciate, and the merchant classes—Armenians, Greeks, Italians, the Cretan Korniakt, the Hungarian Boim—to the Austrian era, education, the church, and the national revival. A separate section is devoted to photographs: St. George, streets near the Old Castle, the city seal of 1353; most of the illustrations come from Apolinar Osdets’s photo collection.

Vasyl Mudryi (1893–1966) was a journalist and politician, head of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, vice-marshal of the Polish Sejm, editor of Dil, and head of Prosvita; in exile from 1944, executive director of the Ukrainian Catholic Ukrainian Association, and member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society’s board. He compiled this volume and wrote its introduction. The publishing committee was headed by Volodymyr Bohachevsky and included Oleksandr Hladyshovsky, Nataliia Koval, Roman Osynchuk, and Roman Stefanyuk; the funds were raised among the alumni themselves.

The volume was published in 1962, when Lviv was part of the Soviet Union, and the official celebration of the city’s 700th anniversary presented its history without a Ukrainian component. The diaspora’s English-language publication became a way to introduce the Ukrainian perspective on Lviv’s past into Western scholarly circles—in 1964, the book was reviewed by Slavic Review. The Shevchenko Scientific Society’s scholarly volumes were printed in small editions in America and distributed mainly to university libraries, so they are rare in private collections.