Archive that preserved Ukrainian language, history when it was banned by Soviets moves to Ukraine

When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian language and writing were repressed and banned.

Wolodymyr Mirko Pylyshenko, a Ukrainian-American in Rochester, New York, gathered Ukrainian poems, books, pamphlets and family histories that told of Ukrainian persecution and identity. His archive, called the Ukrainian Rochester Collection, was moved to the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine — half in 2018, the other half just before the Russian invasion.

Here & Now's Scott Tong talks to Katja Kolcio, Mirko Pylshenko's daughter and a professor of dance and environmental studies at Wesleyan University, about her father's work and why this archive is important. And Nataliya Chernychova, who is on the Dnipro city council, talks about why the archive was moved from Rochester to Dnipro, Ukraine, and what it preserves.

Music: "Ked my pryjshla karta" by Alchymeia (Nadia Tarnawsky, vocals and Brandon Vance, violin). Courtesy of Katja Kolcio.