Donetsk Collection of Stepan Myshanych

The archival collection of the renowned Ukrainian scholar‑folklorist Stepan Myshanych (1936–2013), who worked at Donetsk National University, is a unique body of folklore with a long and compelling history of its journey across Ukraine.

At its core is a corpus of field recordings made between 1991 and 2005 in villages of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Sumy, and Poltava regions of Ukraine, as well as in the Kuban region.

In 2010, facing the risk of destruction, the researcher and educator moved the archive from Donetsk to his native Zakarpattia (Transcarpathia). Following his passing, these materials were transferred to the Research Laboratory for Musical Ethnology at the Lviv National Music Academy named after Mykola Lysenko.

The interregional cultural and research project “Returning the Voices of Slobozhanshchyna: The Folklore Collection of Stepan Myshanych” brought together specialists from Kharkiv and Lviv to preserve and promote the song and narrative folk tradition of the historical‑cultural region of Slobozhanshchyna (Sloboda Ukraine).

On our website we have published the portion of the collection that relates to Slobozhanshchyna and the Poltava region. The recordings (audio and transcripts) present invaluable folkloric material that can no longer be documented today: most tradition‑bearers have passed away, and many villages have disappeared or suffered as a result of the Russo‑Ukrainian war.

The geography of the fieldwork is extensive: Antratsyt, Bakhmut, Debaltseve, Chasiv Yar, Yenakiieve, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, and other localities of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The collection also includes folklore from villages in the Myrhorod, Poltava, and Kremenchuk districts of the Poltava region; the Sumy, Nedryhailiv, and Romny districts of the Sumy region; the Lozova, Barvinkove, and Kupiansk districts of the Kharkiv region, and more.

These materials bear witness to deep Ukrainian roots, reflected in local speech, songs, and oral narratives.

The project was implemented by the NGO Local Development Support Fund in partnership with the Lviv National Music Academy named after Mykola Lysenko and the Kharkiv Regional Organizational and Methodological Center for Culture and Arts, with support from the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.

If you’d like, I can also provide a shorter teaser version for the page header or adjust place‑name spellings (e.g., “oblast/raion” vs. “region/district”).