Mapping the Ukrainian Foreign-language Press in Europe during the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921) in Western and Ukrainian Archives and Libraries

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to develop new avenues of research for the study of the Ukrainian press in Europe in a retrospective of the 20th century. Specifically, it aims to present here a comprehensive overview of the Ukrainian periodicals issued in the West European languages during the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921). In the process of the search work conducted during 2012–2019, the corpus of the Ukrainian foreign-language press in Europe spanning the Ukrainian national liberation movement/Ukrainian Revolution has been identified. This has been accomplished through a comprehensive study of the foreign-language bibliography (by means of the bibliographic heuristics’ method) and scholarly reference sources, as well as systematic fieldwork in the holdings of both Western and Ukrainian archives and libraries. The Ukrainian press in the West European languages of Europe of that period serves as a barometer of receptions by different West European media outlets of the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921). Its structure, editorial policies, and content serve both as a record, as well as a digest of the foreign (i.e., West European) press receptions about the Ukrainian national revolution. The complex nature of this cluster of the Ukrainian press thus enables researchers (both Ukrainian, and foreign scholars) to use it as an important (and sometimes indispensable) source of information about the development and transformations of the Ukrainian Revolution. This study argues that this corpus of publications is a unique phenomenon in the history of Ukrainian journalism in terms of its transformation, diversification, internationalization and subsequent integration into the European public sphere. This study also shows that there are yet many gaps in the fields of media history, Slavic and East European Studies, and Ukrainian Studies of the interwar period awaiting attention of future bibliographers and scholars.