Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv (CSHAK) is one of the oldest and biggest archives in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. CSHAK contains documents on the history of Ukraine from the 19th century to the founding of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

and the Commonwealth (from the 14th to the end of the 18th century), as well as the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(from the first half of the 17th century to the

February Revolution of 1917 The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of two revolutions which took place in Russia in 1917. The main ...

in Russia). There are also documents on the history of the Hetmanate (the other half of the 17th century to the 18th century). The archive is located at the University of Saint Vladimir. CSHAK contains 2245 funds. Some of the archival funds are presented online.

History

CSHAK stores documents about the history of Ukraine from 1369 until 1917. The oldest document is certificate of Russian praepostor Otto from Pilche dated 1369. The archive was founded in 1852 as Kyiv Central Archive in the university of St. Volodymyr. Eventually it received funds from the Central Revolution Archive in

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

and Kyiv Oblast Archive. During the occupation of Ukraine by Nazi Germany, the KCADA lost two-thirds of its holdings. Only what the Nazis had taken out of the city before the Soviet invasion of Kyiv survived. In 2018, archivist and genealogist

Alex Krakovsky Alexander Krakovsky (; born 28 February 1982) is a Jewish-Ukrainian archivist, activist, and genealogist. He is a leader in the Jewish genealogy, Jewish genealogical community in efforts to legalize the digitization of Jewish records from Ukrain ...

filed a lawsuit against the archive for refusing to provide paid services to him for copying 100 sheets of archival documents dated from 1767. By the decision of the District Administrative Court of Kiev, the legal statutes used to deny services to private citizens was declared illegal under Ukrainian law.

References

{{Reflist Archives in Ukraine 1852 establishments in Europe 1850s establishments in Ukraine Organizations based in Kyiv