Zuievskyi Oleh

Oleh Yosypovych Zuievskyi (1920–1996) was a Ukrainian poet, translator, professor at universities in the United States and Canada, and a member of the literary association Slovo (Association of Ukrainian Writers in Exile) as well as the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine.
In 1998, Tamara Zuievska, Oleh Zuievskyi’s daughter, donated her father’s book collection to the NaUKMA Scientific Library. In 2004–2005, she also transferred his personal archive.
The book collection of Oleh Zuievskyi comprises 4,851 items representing 390 titles. Its value lies in the owner’s careful and professional selection of outstanding Ukrainian, Russian, and English language publications in linguistics, particularly translation theory, literary studies, and fiction.
The collection originated with Ukrainian and Russian publications acquired during 1946–1947, when Zuievskyi was living in Germany. The holdings consist primarily of twentieth-century literature published in the former Soviet Union, Ukraine, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, and Canada in Ukrainian, Russian, English, and German.
A substantial part of the collection consists of gifts from close friends and relatives, including his godfathers Petro Odarchenko and Ihor Kostetskyi, colleagues involved in Ukrainian studies in the United States and Canada, as well as publications acquired during visits to independent Ukraine. Foreign scholarly literature is represented by publications issued by American and Canadian universities.
A person of broad artistic interests, Oleh Zuievskyi was for many years a member of the Alberta Ukrainian Arts Council. Nearly one-third of the collection consists of publications devoted to the history and theory of art.
Presentation inscriptions found in many donated volumes provide valuable insight into Zuievskyi’s intellectual and personal network. In a copy of An Outline of Comparative Metrics, Ihor Kachurovskyi wrote: “This work waited forty years before finally seeing the light of day… To O. Zuievskyi from I. Kachurovskyi.”
Yurii Klynovyi, son of Vasyl Stefanyk and a long-time acquaintance of Zuievskyi, dedicated his book To My Sons, To My Friends with the inscription: “To dear Oleh Yosypovych, with enduring devotion and equal admiration for his poetic творчість. September 10, 1981. Yurii Klynovyi.”
Petro Odarchenko inscribed a copy of Literary and Scholarly Collection, Issue 1 (New York, 1952): “To dear Oleh Zuievskyi on his birthday, with sincere greetings and affection from one of the reviewers. P. Odarchenko. February 16, 1952.”
A presentation copy of Einige Fragen der Shakespeare-Übersetzung in Slawische Sprachen by Ihor Kostetskyi bears the inscription: “To my dear godson Oleh Zuievskyi.”
Another notable dedication comes from Edward Blodgett, Canadian poet, literary critic, translator, and Zuievskyi’s colleague at the University of Alberta. In his book Configuration: Essays on the Canadian Literatures, he wrote: “For my friend OLEH, Who told me the wonderful story…”
Poetry collections by Oleh Zuievskyi can also be found in the personal collections of prominent scholars and cultural figures preserved at NaUKMA, including those of Viacheslav Briukhovetsky, Petro Odarchenko, Omelian and Tetiana Antonovych, and Vira Vovk.
Archival Collection No. 9, “Oleh Yosypovych Zuievskyi,” comprises more than six hundred files and includes scholarly and creative materials, personal documents, and materials collected by Zuievskyi himself.
The archive documents various stages of his life and creative activity from the early 1940s to the early 1990s and provides valuable opportunities for reconstructing individual episodes of his biography through personal documents and materials related to the institutions where he worked.
The collection is particularly rich in materials documenting Zuievskyi’s poetic and translation legacy. It contains autograph manuscripts and typescripts of his poems, as well as translations of poetry from English, French, German, and other languages. Given the circumstances of his life, especially during the late 1940s, the early manuscripts and publications of his poems are of exceptional value.
The archive also preserves a substantial number of scholarly studies, journalistic articles, lectures, and conference papers prepared by Zuievskyi. Materials from the 1970s and 1980s are represented almost in their entirety. A particularly extensive section consists of notebooks containing research notes, preparatory materials, excerpts for scholarly works and lectures, as well as drafts of poems and letters.
The epistolary component of the archive is equally significant. The correspondence spans the years 1945–1995 and includes extensive exchanges with writers and literary scholars, particularly Ihor Kostetskyi, Petro Odarchenko, Mykhailo Orest, and Bohdan Rubchak.
Selected Publications on the Collection
Oleh Zuievskyi: “I Enter the Temple…”: Poetry, Translations, Articles, and Biographical Materials, compiled by N. Kazakova. Kyiv: Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Publishing House, 2007. 839 pp.
Yovenko, S. “Oleh Zuievskyi (1920–1996).” Vitchyzna, no. 9–10 (2008): 123–124.
Kazakova, N. V. “Book Exhibition of Oleh Zuievskyi.” Slovo i Chas 5 (2002): 94.
Kazakova, N. V. “The Book Collection of Oleh Zuievskyi.” In Personal Book Collections and Personal Archives of Ukrainian Diaspora Figures in the Libraries and Archives of Ukraine: Conference Proceedings. Kyiv, 2004, pp. 98–107.
Kazakova, N. V. “The Cultural Project of the NaUKMA Library ‘Selected Oleh Zuievskyi: Materials for a Biography.’” In The Diaspora as a Factor in the Consolidation of the Ukrainian State in the International Community, Conference Abstracts, Lviv, March 8–10, 2006, pp. 185–187.
Kazakova, N. V. “Oleh Zuievskyi and His Gift to the Library of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.” Kultura i Zhyttia, August 16, 2006, p. 6. A collection of original poems, translations, articles, and biographical materials entitled Oleh Zuievskyi: I Enter the Temple was subsequently prepared for publication.

The collection is fully represented in the Electronic Catalogue.
Collection Profile.