Cultural history: the press and the language question

There is no general history of the Ukrainian press during the last era of Austrian rule. There are several solid studies, however, on individual periods or publica­tions. Ivan Krevets’kyi treats the Ukrainian press during the revolutionary years,¹⁰⁰ while the most important publication to arise from that period, Zoria Halytska (L’viv 1848-57), is treated in detail by Ivan Bryk.¹⁰¹ Other studies focus on stillborn publications, censorship,¹⁰² or in Soviet Marxist terms, on “progressive” L’viv newspapers like Druh (1874-77), Hromads’kyi druh (1878), Dzvin (1878), Molot (1879), S'vit (1881-82) and Tovarysh (1888), whose history is traced in a long monograph by Oleksa Dei.¹⁰³

98 Oleksander Barvin’skii, Litopys’ suspol’noy roboty y syly rusynov avstriiskykh (L’viv: TP 1885).

99 See chapter 2, notes 67-74. On the libraries of these institutions, see chapter 1, notes 90-91..

On the Rus’ka Besida, see la. Dmytriv, tstoriia prosvitnoho tovarystva Rus’ka Besida

(Chernivtsi 1909). On the activity of the Prosvita Society, especially at the turn of the century,, see Ivan Bryk and Mykhailo Kotsiuba, Pershyi ukratns’kyi pros'vitno-ekonomichnyi kongres uladzhenyi Tovarystvom 'Pros’vita’... u L’vovi... 1909 roku: protokoly i referaty (L’viv: Pros’vita 1910). On the Stauropegial Institute printshop, see Ivan Krypiakevych, “Stavropyhiis’ka litografiia v rr. 1847-1854,” in Zbirnyk L’vivs’koi’ Stavropyhii: mynule i suchasne, vol. I (L’viv 1921), pp. 143-159.

100 See chapter 5, n. 44.

101 Ivan Bryk, “Pochatky ukrains’koi presy v Halychyni i L’vivs’ka Stavropyhiia,” in Zbirnyk L’vivs’koiStavrophii: mynule i suchasne, vol. I, ed. K. Studyns’kyi (L’viv 1921), pp. 99­142.

See also twelve documents concerning Zoria Halytska as well as another important newspaper from the period, Vistnyk, chasopys’...

102 Volodymyr Hnatiuk, “Rukopysni humorystychni chasopysy,” Zapysky NTSh, CXXX (L’viv 1930), pp. 133-167; M. Vozniak, “Z zarannia ukrains’koi presy v Halychyni,” Zapysky NTSh, CXI (L’viv 1911), pp. 140-159; F. Svistun, “Kril. o. Nikita Izhak iako tsenzor galitsko-russkikh izdanii v 1852-1857 gg.,” Viestnik ‘Narodnago Dorna’, XXV (III), 5-6 (L’viv 1907), pp. 70-76, 90-94. On censorship during the 1850s, see also the works of Studyns’kyi, n. 105 below.

103 Oleksa I. Dei, Ukrains’ka revoliutsiino-demokratychna zhurnalistyka (Kiev: AN URSR 1959).

Closely related to the growth of the Ukrainian press in Galicia was the language question. The need for publications, prompted by the increase in the size of the secular intelligentsia and educated general public, forced editors to face a practi­cal question, albeit with large cultural and national implications: what literary language should be used? By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Galician recension of Church Slavonic (described as the iazychie by its detractors), which was used by the Old Ruthenians, and literary Russian, used by the Russophiles, were both rejected by the majority of the populace (and by the Austrian govern­ment) in favor of the Ukrainophile solution of a vernacular-based language. After protracted debate with Ukrainians in the Russian Empire, this eventually became standard Ukrainian based on the Poltava dialects in the Dnieper Ukraine. The history and resolution of the language question during this period is traced in works by Vasyl’ Lev and Paul R. Magocsi.^{[428] [429] The most seriously researched period is the 1850s, as in the excellent monograph by Kyrylo Studyns’kyi on the whole decade[430] and in several works on the government-inspired “alphabet war” of 1859.[431]}