READING INTERESTS OF UKRAINIAN YOUTH IN HALYCHYNA IN THE LATE 19th – THE BEGINNING OF THE 20th CENTURY

Abstract

The study, based on memoirs, analyzes readers' interests, the role of reading, and the culture of reading of Ukrainian youth in the early 20th century. In the memoirs, there are not mentioned all the literature one read during one's studies, but mostly only some individual works. The most readable works and genres have been outlined, including works on Ukrainian literature and history, adventure novels, socialist literature, humorous magazines, and brochures on puberty. Emphasis is placed on the fact that «extracurricular» reading or informal reading had, first of all, a self-educational goal, in those areas that were of interest to young people or those that were not taught in schools, i.e. satisfied intellectual needs. Foreign literature was read mainly in Polish translations. An essential group of authors read by high school students were Polish classics A. Mickiewicz, J. Slovatsky, J. Kraszewski, and G. Mickiewicz, who were also included in the school curriculum. The most often mentioned in memoirs Ukrainian writers were T. Shevchenko, P. Kulish, M. Kostomarov, H. Kvitka-Osnovianko, I. Franko. Ukrainian youth received books from scientific, public, and private libraries, in pupils' and students' societies, borrowed, and bought very infrequently. The school tried to control students' extracurricular reading by using punishment. If you read a certain genre of literature (mostly radical socialist), you could be expelled from a real school, gymnasium, or university. «Undesirable» literature included satirical works, romance novels, detective stories, and forensics. Keywords readers' interests, literature, high school and university students, Halychyna.