Activity of the "History of Cities and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR" Main editorial board aimed at establishing archival collections of the project

The paper deals with the establishment of archival collections of the “History of cities and villages of the Ukrainian SSR: In 26 volumes”, which is an unique encyclopedic project. It was being realized according to the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine 16/18-z “On the publication of the History of Cities and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR” (May, 29, 1962). As a result, 26 volumes on 25 regions and the Kyiv city history were prepared and published in Ukrainian from 1967 until 1974 and 14 volumes were republished in Russian since 1974 until 1983.

The Main editorial board of the project, headed by Petro Tronko, a Deputy Head of the Council of Ministers of the Ukr. SSR was formed. Its regional editorial boards headed by the Secretaries of the regional committees of the Communist Party of Ukraine worked in each regional center etc. The “History of cities and villages of the Ukrainian SSR” department formed in the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukr. SSR dealt with scientific and methodological issues. The appropriate editorial board to prepare volumes for printing was formed within the Main editorial board of the Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia. The republican archives, libraries, the communist party organizations, ministries, academic institutes and universities and their staff were encouraged to realize the project.

During the project implementation, the mentioned editorial boards, in particular, accumulated a large amount of documents, such as author’s texts of essays, reviews, records of proceedings, guidelines, correspondence, copies of documents and photo, etc. accumulated. In the late 1969, the Main editorial board of the project came up with an idea to systematize all the materials and deposit them in the present Central State Archives of the Higher Authorities and Management of Ukraine and regional archives. Since that time it supervised its realization. Thus, the Fonds 4633 “Documents and materials on the History of cities and villages of the Ukrainian SSR” consisting of three series, created in 1971 in the Central archives contains circa 2000 files dated 1964–1976 years.