Party newspapers of the Ukrainian borotbysty (1917–1920)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to define the operating conditions, content, structure dominants and editorial policy of the Ukrainian press of borotbysty (the left wing of Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party – USRP) in 1917–1920. Those newspapers that were organs of the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party (borotbysty) are the object of this article; they were published in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Katerynoslaw, Zhytomyr and other cities of Dnieper Ukraine during the period of national and liberation struggle.
Methods. Materials of newspaper funds of Vernadsky National library of Ukraine are used in the article. The methods of analysis, classification and generalization are used; the biographic method was important in the study of publicism inheritance of Ukrainian political figures.
Results and conclusions. The publications of USRP (borotbyst) organs (1917–1920) corresponded to the intention of party press of the time in their structure (columns «party life», «socialist movement», «labour life», etc.; genres – accounts, reports, chronicles, discussions) and content (party activity, action agenda, statutory documents, congress and conference provisions, discussion of political and economic strategies). In their subject matter and political directions (revolutionary focus, the ideal of a «worldwide socialist Soviet republic», support of the «red front», «labor and rural solidarity», etc.) the newspapers under the common name «Borotba/Borba» covered the ideas of UPLSR (borotbysty).