Culturological Aspects of the Music-Critical Press Publications of Nestor Nyzhankivskyi
Authors: Molchko U. 
Published: March 2023

The scientific topicality. The development of Ukrainian musical art was thoroughly reflected in the various thematic newspaper materials of the composer, social and educational activist, pianist, and critic Nestor Nyzhankivskyi. The cultural, thematic content of the Galician author’s journalism, which revealed the importance of musical influence on the formation of national artistic value orientations, has become especially relevant in our present.

The purpose of the article is to outline the development of musical culture in the 1930-s at the beginning of the XX century in Eastern Galicia through the prism of the press publications “Paths of the Ukrainian music development (In response to Mr. Anton Rudnytskyi)” and “Our musical pains” by Nestor Nyzhankivskyi, in which a social and educational figure defines a holistic worldview of cultural problems of the specified historical era.

The methodology. The following methodology was applied when analyzing the mentioned publications of N. Nyzhankivsky: method of analysis and synthesis — for the study of sources from the history of musical art of Eastern Galicia of first third of the XX century; descriptive method — for revealing the content of music-critical materials; classifications and typologies — to characterize the analyzed newspapers publications; the method of systematization was used to generalize the results of the study and make conclusions. The combination of these methods made it possible to investigate the trends in the development of Nyzhankivsky’s music journalism in close connection with the socio-aesthetic paradigms of the time.

The results. Among the voluminous journalistic heritage of N. Nyzhankivskyi, the press publications “Our musical pains” and “Paths of the Ukrainian music development (In response to Mr. Anton Rudnytskyi)” stand out, which were published in the pages of the magazine “Dilo” in the 1930-s. The content of these newspaper materials, which contain rich, informative material regarding the definition of the educational role of art and the understanding of the high professional level of composer’s work in the musical culture of Eastern Galicia at the beginning of the XX century, determines their cultural significance. It has been established that these socio-cultural press publications have axiological potential, which translates the system of values into the public space of the Ukrainian people.

The scientific novelty consists in the fact that, for the first time, the content of the journalistic materials of N. Nyzhankivskyi is considered through the prism of sociocultural factors that took place in the artistic life of Lviv in the 1930s of the early XX century.

Conclusions. Nestor Nyzhankivskyi’s press releases “Our musical pains” and “Paths of the Ukrainian music development (In response to Mr. Anton Rudnytskyi)”, which covered various aspects of musical life, played an essential role in shaping the national worldview in the multi-ethnic environment of Eastern Galicia at the beginning of the XX century. The cultural aspects of the analyzed journalistic works of Nestor Nyzhankivskyi have a significant value for modern science, as they confirm the value of Ukrainian music in the world space and emphasize the importance of human existence in culture.