The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine Has returned a Historical Old Printed Book of the 18th Century

The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine continues to return to our Motherland the cultural property that was stolen and exported both in the years of World War II, and during the war unleashed by russia against Ukraine.

Thus, the officers of the Service have found and returned to Ukraine a rare old printed book – a complete liturgical book “Oktoyikh” (“Osmyhlasnyk”), published in 1758 in the printing house of the Pochayiv Holy Dormition Lavra.

It has been established that during World War II, the Nazis took away many rare old printed books that were stored in Ukrainian museums, in the Vinnytsia Museum of Local Lore included.

“To date, copies of this edition have been recorded in only four collections. All of those copies are damaged and incomplete. The one we have returned is complete and has all the pages,” said a representative of the Foreign Intelligence Service while handing the old book to the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine.

The capabilities of the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence made it possible to establish that one of the auction houses was selling a collection of old printed books published by the Kyiv-Pechersk and Pochayiv Holy Dormition Lavras. During the attribution of the old editions, the auction experts found out that the 1758 edition contains stamps of the institution where the book was kept. Subsequently, it was sold to a person who was involved in forming Ukrainian entrepreneurs’ collections of old printed books. Later, the “Oktoyikh” was kept in a private collection in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Ukraine.

Subsequently, the officers of the Service found out that the book contained original stamps used by the Vinnytsia Museum of Local Lore to register its exhibits since 1920.

The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine emphasizes that 101 museums with more than 1,700,000 items from the state part of the museum collection are currently located in the temporarily occupied territories, so the work aimed at returning our cultural property will continue.