«Ukrainische Korrespondenz» (Vienna, 1917—1918) about the Ukrainian revolution: sources of information and specifics of content
Authors: Kulesha Nadiia 
Published: August 2020

The article studies the problems of covering the revolutionary developments of 1917―1918s in Ukraine in the Ukrainian influential German-language magazine «Ukrainische Korrespondenz». Established and issued by the Main Ukrainian Rada, it actively reacted to the revolutionary transformations in the Russian Empire in 1917. It primarily covered processes of state changes in the Great (Russian-controlled) Ukraine, specifically the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917―1921s. «Ukrainische Korrespondenz» aimed to familiarize readers with these developments. Its editors used as sources information of the Ukrainian, Russian, the digest of the West European press, as well as own analytical materials. At first, it had to use borrowed informations, because the Ukrainian Press Bureau was established in Vienna only in August 1917. At that time the editors of the magazine were able to use materials of its own correspondents. In reporting the Ukrainian Revolution the editorial office preferred materials received from the Russian officials and the party press, which it considered objective. On the contrary, the materials from the Polish press were considered as unreliable, biased, and even fabricated. Most analytical materials regarding the solution of the Ukrainian cause, the editors drew from the German press. The latter was most interested in a positive outcome of the Ukrainian nationstate aspirations. A minor segment among the foreign press publications as a source in coverage of the issue of the Ukrainian Revolution was the French press. This could be explained by that the concept of «Ukraine» was a taboo in France at that time. The growing interest to the Ukrainian question in France happened only with the beginning of the revolutionary events in Russia. News has been received with a considerable delay, its own analytical materials on this topic mainly belonged to V. Kalynovych. The information about the course of developments in Ukraine, changes in social and political life of the country coexisted with a justification of historical background necessary for these changes. Publications on the Ukrainian question relating to the revolutionary events in the Russian Empire and in the Russian Ukraine were gleaned by the German press authorship. The Austrian and German statesmen, political figures, as well as scholars focused on historical aspects of the Ukrainian history and predicted decisions for the development of the Ukrainian state. Materials of the Russian press, reprinted on the pages of the magazine, focused exclusively on clarifying a flow of developments. The bulk of publications of «Die Ukraine» covered issues of the Ukrainian question on the territory of the Eastern Galicia. They illuminated the revolutionary changes in the Great Ukraine, and considered it as a catalyst for positive nation-state decisions in the Western Ukraine.

Keywords: Ukrainian, «Ukrainische Korrespondenz», Germanspeaking, Russian, Polish, French press, information, revolutionary events, Ukrainian statehood, Ukrainian question.