The Holodomor Museum received a gift: Volodymyr Vasylenko’s personal library

The Holodomor Museum received as a gift the personal library of Volodymyr Vasylenko (1937–2023), an international lawyer, diplomat, author of the legal assessment of the Holodomor as genocide, and, in the past, our colleague and museum employee. The official transfer of the book collection occurred on the 15th of April as part of the public dialogue, “Life after Life. Personal Book Collections in Ukrainian Cultural Institutions.”

His daughter Lesia Vasylenko, students and colleagues: Serhii Kyslytsia, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Volodymyr Khandohii, President of the Ukrainian Foreign Policy Association, and Taras Marusyk, journalist, translator and public activist, came to share memories of the outstanding figure that Volodymyr Vasylenko undoubtedly was. The ideological inspirers of donating the collection, People’s Deputy of Ukraine, Yevheniia Kravchuk, and Executive Director of the Ukrainian Association of Publishers and Book Distributors, Ihor Stepurin, spoke about how the idea to ​​donate Vasylenko’s book collection to our museum originated and was carried out. Oleh Serbin, Director General of the Yaroslav the Wise National Library of Ukraine, Liliia Pravovierova, Head of the Department of Depository Storage of Scientific Funds of the National Scientific Medical Library of Ukraine, and Svitlana Starovoit, Acting Director of the Branch State Archive of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance shared their experience of processing the collections of famous people in their libraries.

The donated book collection contains 402 copies, including monographs, document collections, testimonies, books by Ukrainian and foreign researchers of the Holodomor, and works by scholars of the Ukrainian diaspora. Of particular value are the first edition of Robert Conquest’s “Harvest of Sorrow” (1986) and “The First Interim Report of the US Congressional Commission on the Famine in Ukraine” (1986). Many books were published in limited editions of 50 to 100 copies, making them quite rare today. Books that include dedicated inscriptions from authors are particularly interesting. Additionally, those in which the owner has personally made notes add a unique perspective to the collection. Many books are in foreign languages because Volodymyr Vasylenko developed the library over many years during his trips abroad and his stay on diplomatic duty.