Representative trends in the Ukrainian media space in the middle of the XIXth century

Over time, newspapers still retain their main value – not reliable information about their time, their era. They have been and continue to be referred by scientists, researchers of socio-political, cultural life of the period. Especially this refers to the middle of the XIXth century, when there was a newspapers shortage and the Ukrainian press only appeared and had to develop in difficult conditions, avoiding various oppressions. Nowadays, when press and media industries have made significant progress in the process of studying the history of Ukrainian journalism in all its diversity, it becomes relevant to explore the first manifestations of Galician cooperation, to work in the editorial team and outside of it, to serve the hostile word, humor, constant information competitions and rivalry between the periodicals in the mid-nineteenth century. An important place among the periodicals of that time, occupies a lot of newspapers, but the peculiarities of curiosity and sharp controversy can be traced in the columns of such magazines: “Bulletin for the Ruthenians of the Austrian state”, “Word”, “Purpose”, “Scarecrow”, the application “Golden Diploma”.

Newspaper editorial offices of the mid-nineteenth century, which systematically covered the problems of education, culture, the formation of national consciousness, understanding of their own history, responded to publication of new Russian (Ukrainian) magazines. As evidenced by the facts, a number of periodic editions of this time, a separate editorial of “Visnyk” did not miss any of more or less important printed edition, reviews about their first numbers, accompanying comments with annotations content or reviewing of individual works and articles. Thus, in 1863 a new magazine “Strahopud” was published, the editorial board, which was headed by editor and publisher Yosyp Livchak, started to provide him with a humorous and satirical appearance. By the way, Joseph Livchak (1839-1914) – a publicist and an inventor originally from Peremyshl, got famous for his Muscovite views, was preparing for publication, a number of other publications, except “Scarecrow” namely: the supplement “Golden Diploma” (1863 – 1868), journals “Slavic Library” (1865-66) and “Dawn” (1867-68), in which he de­fen­ded pan-Slavic ideas. The appearance of new magazines was noticed by Vistnyk’s cor­respondents who reactedto to the response. In general, the editors of the generally accepted content of “Strahopud”, however, noted that “we are spotting too much satire and too little humor.”

That temporary contributors, regular newspaper authors, shared their views on whether what character values the editor of a comedy magazine should be endowed when his work is very difficult and very responsible. “Unfortunately, young editor of “Strahopud” lacked such qualities”, the correspondents claimed. The very title of the magazine is unsuccessful, because its task is “not to frighten one’s reading, but to entertain readers.” The illustrated appendix to “Strahopud” called the “Golden Diploma” turned out to be very unsuccessful, because it resembles the Polish appeal about the state of Russia, printed in gold letters and also called the “Golden Diploma” with revolutionary demagogues. In this position, the staff at “Strahopud” became “super-progressive-re­vo­lutionary”: terrorism and windiness with a controversial portion of cynicism (not worse to speak). The more pronounced the pro-Moscow commitment of the magazine got, the criticism of it got more sensitive. This is the evolution of public opinion we also observe about the “Slovo” magazine. Socio-political and literary newspaper, organ of Muscovites, the newspaper “Slovo” was published in Lviv during 1861-87. First it was published in a language close to the vernacular, and contained works by Ukrainian writers, but soon moved to Muscovite positions, became hostile to the Ukrainian mo­ve­ment, and leaned more towards Russia, and even more, works by Russian writers were published by it.

As for the pro-Moscow agency in Vienna, the correspondent was obviously not ru­mo­red aware. In the end, Muscoviteism also took root in the Bulletin’s editorial office. Therefore, the magazine’s editorial staff closely monitored the appearance of new periodicals, in particular, “Scarecrow”, “Word”, “Sunday”, “Purpose”, sometimes ar­guing about the materials placed in them. Informing about the first issues of periodicals contributed to the expansion of readership audience, involving sub-Austrian Ruthenians (Ukrainians) in understanding their own history, developing a national consciousness and developing a view of one’s future.

Keywords: editorial, author, newspaper, criticism, review, feedback, promotion, Mus­covite.

doi: 10.32403/0554-4866-2020-2-80-219-225