The papers comprise correspondence, writings, memoirs, personal documents, research notes, printed materials, photographs of Iurii Shevel'ov, prominent scholar, Slavic linguist, philologist, literary historian, and literary critic, longtime professor of Slavic philology at Columbia University.
The materials in this collection document personal and professional life of Jurij Lawrynenko (1905-1987), prominent literature figure Ukrainian emigration, as well as the formation and development of the literary, cultural, and social life of the Ukrainian diaspora in Germany and the United States. They are extremely valuable resources for research on Ukrainian literature, journalism, publishing, and political movements, and on the history of Ukrainian emigration in the 20th century.