Archival search under martial law (part II)

The full-scale war in Ukraine has been going on for more than 1.5 years (as of October 2023), and this naturally affects the activities of Ukrainian archival institutions.

Despite a very difficult period in the state’s history, the archives of Ukraine are working. This is often work at the limit of possibilities. Unfortunately, there were some losses of documents from the Ukrainian archival collection:

• On February 25, 2022, Russian troops shelled the building of the SBU Office in Chernihiv region. As a result of the missile strike, a fire broke out, burning thousands of declassified files of citizens repressed during the Soviet era and other documentation related to the activities of the Soviet special services. Unfortunately, the lost documents were practically not digitized and therefore these losses are irrecoverable.
• In the fall of 2022, the State Archives of the Kherson region was looted by the occupants. As far as we know, these documents were taken to the annexed Crimea. A substantial part of the archival documents in the State Archives of the Kherson region was digitized by February 2022, but not all of them were stolen. The return of these documents to the home is extremely important both for the archival industry and for the citizens of Ukraine.

All archives in Ukraine are working and fulfilling citizens’ requests. Several exceptions and clarifications:

• One of the buildings of the State Archives of Kharkiv region was damaged by shelling, and repairs are in progress. The documents from this building have survived, but archivists are currently unable to fulfill requests based on these documents. Once the repairs are completed, the situation will obviously change.
• The State Archives of the Mykolaiv region does not fulfill genealogical requests, so it is somewhat difficult to conduct family research in this area. At the same time, the metric books of the Mykolaiv Archives are presented as scanned copies on their website, which allows for searching. There are no civil registration online books. There are only alphabetical books to them.

Reading rooms are not open in all archives, which is quite logical given the current situation in the country. Despite the air raids and shelling, the archives of Ukraine continue to work in a coordinated and efficient manner. Employees of Ukrainian archival institutions deserve undoubted respect and support in these difficult times.

photo – State Archives of Kherson region