Sonevytsky, Leonid

Sonevytsky, Leonid [Соневицький, Леонід; Sonevyc'kyj], b 25 April 1922 in Chortkiv, Galicia, d 6 August 1966 in New York. Historian; son of Mykhailo Sonevytsky. He studied at Lviv University (1940–1), Vienna University (1945–6), Munich University (1946–8), and at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich (PH D, 1948). He served as secretary of the Historical Commission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Europe (1949–50). After emigrating to the United States of America Sonevytsky studied at Columbia University (1952–3, 1957–9), lectured at Seton Hall University, and worked as a librarian at Brooklyn College (from 1960). He served as secretary of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences [in the US] (1954) and editor of the Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States (from 1959), and as editorial co-ordinator (1958–60) of Entsyklopediia ukraïnoznavstva and Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia.

Sonevytsky researched the history of the Ukrainian church and studied Ukrainian diplomatic history of the 20th century. Of note is his Istoriia Ukraïny: Synkhronistychno-khronolohichna tablytsia (The History of Ukraine: A Synchronic and Chronological Table), published in vol 3 of Entsyklopediia ukraïnoznavstva and separately (1960). Most of Sonevytsky’s works appeared in the monograph Leonid Sonevyts'kyi: Studiï z istoriï Ukraïny (Leonid Sonevytsky: Studies of the History of Ukraine, vol 202 [1982]) of Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka.

Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]