ЮВІЛЕЙНА ФРАНКІАНА У ГАЛИЦЬКІЙ МІЖВОЄННІЙ ПРЕСІ

Abstract

The article examines the rise of the cult of Ivan Franko in Galicia in the context of interwar social and political realities. The analysis focuses on the interpretive models designed based on the anniversary pieces of different genres published to commemorate the tenth and twentieth anniversaries of Franko’s death in 1926 and 1936. The genre- and matter-specific features are exposed on the basis of editorials and opinion pieces, memoirs, informational materials, and special anniversary issues. The ethnocentric and sociocentric vectors of the cult of the poet and their correlation with the images of Moses and the Stonecutter (Kameniar) are outlined. Based on the materials, the key problems related to the essence of the cult, matters such as the publication of Franko’s works, the ways to spark the mass reader’s interest in them, the need for thorough biographical studies as well as academic research into his artistic, scholarly and journalistic legacy, social and political activity are highlighted. Numerous memories of the iconic figures of Ukrainian culture such as Volodymyr Birchak, Leon Vasylevskyi, Katria Hrynevycheva, Dmytro Doroshenko, Uliana Kravchenko, Vasyl Lukych, Serhii Shelukhyn, Marko Cheremshyna, and others served as the basis for conclusions made concerning Franko’s influence on his peers and students, his relations with the contemporary intellectual elite (both Ukrainian and Polish), the correlation between his ideological beliefs and purely personal relationships. Another important aspect is the coverage of the criticism of works written by authors operating within the framework of the Soviet ideological doctrine, who tried to ‘appropriate’ Franko’s legacy by interpreting his worldview exclusively as revolutionary and atheistic. This criticism assumed different forms of narrative – journalistic, academic and even fictional (such as an image of Franko being shot by the Bolsheviks, if he had been alive and left for the Ukrainian SSR). Evidence obtained by monitoring informational press materials in the periodicals Batkivshchyna, Dilo, Literaturno-Naukovyi Vistnyk, Novyi Chas, Svit, Ukrainski Visti, etc. testifies to the wide ideological and geographical range of the celebrations in honor of Franko on the territory of Galicia. Keywords: cult of Franko, interwar Galician periodicals, anniversary articles, memories.