Stauropegion Institute

The Stauropegion Institute was founded in Lviv in 1788 on the orders of Joseph II, Emperor of Austria soon after Austria annexed Eastern Galicia, now western Ukraine, from Poland during the First Partition of Poland.

It operated a printing press, bound and sold books, maintained a scholarship fund, and published textbooks and spelling primers.

From the late 19th century its publications were written in Iazychie (a Western Ukrainian academic language that combined Russian, Church Slavonic, western Ukrainian and Polish speech) before switching to the Russian language in the 20th century.

The Stauropegion Institute was liquidated by the Soviet authorities when they annexed western Ukraine in 1939 and its collection was transferred to the Lviv's branch of the Central State Historical Archives of the Ukrainian SSR.

[1] The Stauropegion Institute had a large endowment and owned several parcels of land and buildings throughout Lviv.