Rukh publishing house

Rukh publishing house [Рух; Movement]. A co-operative publishing house established in Vovchansk, Kharkiv gubernia, in 1917 and transferred to Kharkiv in December 1921. It published several book series of Ukrainian prerevolutionary literary works for general distribution to peasants, workers, and children; a library of over 100 plays; art books; editions of the collected works of Ivan Franko (30 vols, 1924–31), Olha Kobylianska (9 vols, 1927–9), Borys Hrinchenko (10 vols, 1926–30), Mykola Cherniavsky (10 vols, 1927–31), and Hnat Khotkevych (8 vols, 1928–32); and several volumes of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s works. In 1933 Rukh and its extensive network of bookstores throughout Soviet Ukraine were closed down by the Soviet authorities. In the years 1923–6 it published 128 titles with a combined pressrun of 659,500 copies.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]