During his Memory Savers internship at the Center's Urban Media Archive, Mykyta Bilyi worked not only on the archive's materials but also on digitizing his family collection. The collection contains 36 photographs and 20 documents of Mykyta's family, namely the Arakelyan branch.

There are photographs from the Ottoman Empire (the city of Artvin) from the period 1890-1915, from Russia as part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union from 1921-1959, and a photograph from the city of Drohobych, Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR at the time of the photo) from the 1950s. Most photographs are cabinet portraits of family and family friends, created in various photo studios and later given to family members as mementoes.

The documents date from 1919 to 1979. Among them are those that attest to the escape from the Armenian Genocide and hiding in the Russian Empire, the impact of World War II on the family, and the education of family members.

The collection is available on the website of the Urban Media Archive: https://uma.lvivcenter.org/en/collections/173/photos 

Credits

Cover Image: Group portrait of a family, 1926 /

Mykyta Bilyi

collection of Mykyta Bilyi / Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History