174 Larysa Levchenko
before the war . During the Second World War , the archives of Ukraine were only partially evacuated beyond the Urals . Most of the archives remained on Nazi-occupied territory and operated under the Nazi archival administration suffering significantly as a result . In fact , almost all the records created by institutions in the decade before the war were destroyed . By the end of the period , the decision had been made to transfer control of the archival branch to the Council of Ministers of the UkrRSR ;
– during 1960-1991 the archival branch of the UkrRSR developed rapidly : buildings for archives were erected in some central cities of regions , archival theory and practical methods were improved , international cooperation was initiated . The archival repositories acquired new complexes of historical documents including photographs , audiovisual records , and manuscripts . Much attention was given to the professionalization of archive staff , microfilming of the most valuable archival documents , and creating of archival guidebooks and catalogs ;
– the period of Independence ( from 1992 ) in the archival field began with the merger of state and party archival systems into a single unit , the partial transfer of archival fonds from the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine to the state archives , and the adoption of the Law ‘ On the National Archival Fonds and Archival Institutions ’ by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine . Significant steps were taken in expanding of the network of archival institutions ( two central archives , ministerial archives and almost 2000 labor archives for the storing of liquidated institutions records were created ), improving regulatory and normative functioning in the archival field , creating search aids , introducing information technologies in archives , and developing international cooperation . However , in the second half of the 2000s , the archival branch of Ukraine gradually entered into a crisis and ceased to respond adequately to challenges of our time and society . The reasons for this were the growing political influence on archives , the removal of highly qualified professionals from the management of the State Archival Service , massive downsizing of archival staff ( including a reduction in the number of archive staff with special archival education to fewer than 2 % of employees ), and the decrease in funding for archives from the State Budget . Today the archival branch of Ukraine has faced the issue of reforming .
Give the above historical outline , the aim of this article is to review changes in the management and the structure of the archival branch in Ukraine from 1917 to 1960 .
The Library and Archival Division of the Arts Department of the General Secretariat on Education of the Ukrainian Central Council was headed by Olexander Hrushevskyi ( 1877 – 1943 ) – an outstanding historian , ethnographer and literary critic – who was brother of the President of the Central Council , Mykhailo Hrushevskyi ( 1866 – 1934 ). There were two sections in the Division :