The Krawciw Memorial Lecture was established in the mid-1970s in honor of Bohdan Jurij Krawciw, poet, journalist, literary critic and a HURI associate from 1973 until his death in November 1975. The lecture series seeks to encourage scholarly discussions of Ukrainian literature with participation of leading literary critics, writers, poets, and playwrights and focusing on the issues that were of lasting interest to Bohdan Krawciw.
Bohdan J. Krawciw was born in the Dolyna region of Western Ukraine on May 5, 1904 and attended gymnasium and university in Lviv. His literary career began with the editorship of the newspaper Molode Zhyttia in 1919. His poetry and contributions to literary and public affairs journals were first published in the 1920s. After World War II Mr. Krawciw continued his literary and journalistic careers in West Germany. In 1949, he and his family emigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia. He became editor of Suchasnist, the Ukrainian literary journal published in Munich, and served as editor of Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia, the two-volume reference book published by the University of Toronto Press, in both its English and Ukrainian versions. For a number of years Mr. Krawciw was also editor of the Ukrainian daily newspapers America and later, Svoboda. He was a member of several scholarly organizations, including the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in the United States and the Shevchenko Scientific Society, in New York, NY. During the last years of his long and productive career, Mr. Krawciw was an associate of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, which in 1973 awarded him a research fellowship.
The first Bohdan J. Krawciw Memorial Lecture at Harvard University entitled "Jurij O. Ivaniv-Mezenko and Modern Ukrainian Bibliography" was delivered by Edward Kasinec, Research Bibliographer and Librarian of the Ukrainian Studies Program, on December 16, 1976. The program of the lecture has come to include opening remarks, reading of Bohdan J. Krawciw's poetry, introduction of the lecturer by the Director of HURI or a HURI Professor, and the Memorial Lecture itself, followed by discussion and reception. The traditional venue of the lecture has been the Exhibit Room of the Houghton Library of rare books and manuscripts.
List of the Bohdan Jurij Krawciw Memorial Lectures
2021 (Nov. 15) Marko Pavlyshyn, Emeritus Professor of Ukrainian Studies, Monash University, "Lesia Ukrainka Symposium. The Limits of Universalism: Lesia Ukrainka, a Foreigner in Egypt." Discussant: Yuliya V. Ladygina, Helena Rubinstein University Endowed Fellow in the Humanities and Assistant Professor of Russian and Global Studies, Pennsylvania State University. Moderator: George G. Grabowicz, Dmytro Čyževs’kyi Research Professor of Ukrainian Literature, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University. Watch
2016 (Apr. 4) Rory Finnin, Head of the Department of Slavonic Studies, Director of Ukrainian Studies Programme, and Chair of Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies, Cambridge University, "'A Bridge Between Us': Literature in the Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar Encounter" 
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2013 (Oct. 7) George G. Grabowicz, Dmytro Čyževs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian Literature, Harvard University, "Bohdan Krawciw (1904–1975): The Poet’s Predicament"
2008 (Apr. 7) Steven Seegel, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Worcester State College, "The Bohdan and Neonila Krawciw Ucrainica Map Collection: Special Lecture and Exhibit Opening Lecture"
2005 (May 2) Symposium Participants: George G. Grabowicz, Dmytro Cyzevs'kyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature, Harvard University, Chair; Halyna Hryn, Senior Editor, HURI; Vitaly Chernetsky, Visiting Scholar, HURI; Tamara Hundorova, Corresponding Member, Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The Bohdan Krawciw Memorial Symposium "Rereading Ukrainian Modernism"
2003 (May 5) Symposium Participants: George G. Grabowicz, Dmytro Cyzevs'kyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature, Harvard University, Chair; Myroslav Shkandrij, Professor, Department of German and Slavic Studies, University of Manitoba; Halyna Hryn, Research Fellow, Ukrainian Research Institute; Alexander Kratochvil, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Studies (Section on Ukrainian Studies), Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald, Germany, Eugene and Daymel Shklar Fellow, HURI; Maria Rewakowicz, Assistant Research Professor, Rutgers University-Newark, Eugene and Daymel Shklar Fellow, HURI; Volodymyr Dibrova, writer, Preceptor in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University. The Bohdan Krawciw Memorial Symposium "Traditionalism and Experimentation: Aspects of Ukrainian Literature in the 1920s"
1992 (Apr. 23) Harvey Goldblatt, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, "Authorship and Textual Identity in the Tale of the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb"
1986 (May 30) Mykhailo Bazansky, journalist and writer, "Ukrainian Poets in Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1945"
1984 (June 8) Omeljan Pritsak, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard University, "The Povest' vremennyx let and Historical Truth"
1983 (June 3) Jaroslav Stetkevych, Professor of Oriental Languages, University of Chicago, "Encounters with the East: the Orientalist Poetry of Ahatanhel Kryms'kyj"
1982 (June 4) Miroslav Labunka, Professor of History, LaSalle College, "Habent Sua Fata Libelli: the Fate of Some Preserved Manuscripts that Originated in the Kievan Rus'-Ukraine"
1981 (May 29) Will Ryan, Academic Librarian of the Warburg Institute, University of London, "Transmission of Scientific Texts in Old Rus: A Bibliographic Study"
1980 (May 30) Robert C. Mathieson, Associate Professor, Department of Slavic Languages, Brown University, "The Printing of the Ostrih Bible"
1979 (Mar. 23) Paul R. Magocsi, Senior Research Fellow, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard Univeristy, "National Bibliography and National Consciousness in the 19th-Century Galicia"
1978 (May 5) Andrew S. Gregorovich, Head, Technical Services Department, Scarborough & Eringdale College Libraries of the University of Toronto, "Audio-Visual Materials for the Study of Ukrainian Culture"
1976 (Dec. 16) Edward Kasinec, Research Bibliographer and Librarian in Ukrainian Studies, Harvard University, "Jurij O. Ivaniv-Mezenko and Modern Ukrainian Bibliography"