Українознавство (Jul 2020)
On the Publication of Ukrainian Newspapers in Crimea during the Period of Wars and Revolutions (1917—1920)
Abstract
The article examines the problem of Ukrainian newspapers existing among the ethnic Crimean press during the wars and revolutions of 1917–1920. They include publications regardless of their language if published by Ukrainian sociopolitical forces and figures and reflecting their position. In Ukrainian historiography, this topic has been studied scantily and fragmentarily, while some representatives of Russian historiography claim the absence of the Crimean Ukrainian press at that time. However, such a conclusion contradicts the development of the mass Ukrainian national movement in Crimea in 1917 and its need for mass media, as well as the process of the second rise of the press of various Crimean ethnic communities in 1917–1920, well reflected in historiography. Different Ukrainian public and political organizations sought to create periodicals during the period of wars and revolutions, but due to internal problems and opposition from the pro-Russian forces, few of those associations succeeded. The article shows that in 1917–1918 the Ukrainian Council of Military and Workers’ Delegates of Sevastopol published its newspaper in Russian, and in May 1918 the Ukrainian-language newspaper Nash Step was launched in Simferopol. Shortly, due to the opposition of the German army, which then occupied Crimea, its editorial office had to move to Melitopol in the northern part of Taurida province, but the newspaper continued to maintain ties with Crimean Ukrainian organizations and cover Crimean socioeconomic and social processes. The author believes that in 1919–1920 in Crimea Ukrainian newspapers could not be published primarily due to frequent changes of the local governments, which mostly did not support the Ukrainian national movement. He also suggests, based on some memoirs and other materials, that in 1917–1918 other Ukrainian newspapers, which have not been found by now, could have existed in Crimea for a short time. He also views such publications as a valuable source on the history of the Ukrainian community in Crimea.
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