Documentation from the State Archive of the Ternopil Region, Ukraine, 1920-1958

The Ternopil Oblast State Archive began operating on 01 November 1939, following the annexation of Western Ukraine to the Soviet Union. The Dominican monastery was adapted as an archival repository. After the establishment of the Ternopil Oblast in the Soviet Union on 04 December 1939, the Ternopil Oblast State Archive was renamed the Ternopil Oblast Historic Archive. From 1941 it was known as the State Archive of the Ternopil Oblast. The most important documents of the State Archive of the Ternopil Oblast were evacuated during World War II, and the main part was left on site, leading to irreversible losses. In early July 1941 Ternopil and the Ternopil Oblast temporarily became part of the Galicia region. Following the retreat of the German forces, the occupying forces turned the archives' premises into a defense point. It was calculated that only 72 collections (533,813 collection items) survived of the 123 collections (924,166 collection items) that were documented on 01 January 1941. The State Archive of the Ternopil Oblast resumed its work following the liberation of Ternopil by Soviet troops in April 1944. The organization of the services of the regional archive was completed in 1947. Its official name was the Ternopil Oblast State Archive since 1958, and its name has been the State Archive of the Ternopil Oblast since 1980. The collections of the Ternopil Voivodship administration (1920-1939) include documents regarding the economic life and social and political life in the Ternopil area. The collections of the County Wardenship (1919-1939) include protocols of meetings of wardens and district boards, economic and geographical descriptions of the districts, lists of industrial, trade and commercial establishments, and so forth. The cultural life of that time is described in documents of the Kremenets, Terebovla and Ternopil branches of the Prosvita Society. Among the collections of the Soviet period, those of the Ternopil Oblast Executive Committee (1939-1941, 1944-1978), the Statistics Administration of the Ternopil Oblast (1945-1975), the Health Protection department (1944-1960), the Culture Administration (1953-1981) are worthy of mention. These collections include documents related to the activities of various economic enterprises, the situation concerning the protection of health and culture, the activities of commercial and industrial organizations, consumer services, capital and communal housing construction, and so forth. The collection of the Security Service of the Ukraine Administration in the Ternopil Oblast (1941-1953) includes cases of repatriated citizens, cases of servicemen who were in Nazi captivity, and also criminal extrajudicial cases of citizens who were repressed during 1939-1941 and 1944-1950, but who were now rehabilitated. The collection of documents from the former Communist Party Archives consists of collections of oblast committees, municipal committees, district committees of the Communist Party and the Komsomol, local Party and Komsomol organizations, political departments of the oblast military committee, the Ministry of Transport, railroads, the political sector of the oblast administration of agriculture, and others. The archive preserves personal collections of famous people from the area of culture; of scientists; and of other public figures who were born in the region. The information was taken from the EHRI portal: https://portal.ehri-project.eu/institutions/ua-003333 For more information regarding the material that arrived from the Ternopil Archive in the 1990s, see item 10599827 in Sapir.