Selo

Selo («Село»; Village). An illustrated weekly newspaper for peasants and workers, published in Kyiv from September 1909 to February 1911. It was one of the first Ukrainian-language newspapers in the Russian Empire. The official publishers were H. Yampolska and I. Malych, but the guiding force behind the newspaper was Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who wrote most of the editorials. The managing editor and literary critic was Yurii Tyshchenko. Popular features included chronicles of developments in the Russian Empire (by Maksym Hekhter) and Western Ukraine and Europe (by Mykola Zalizniak and Volodymyr Doroshenko), and political and cultural commentaries by Petro Stebnytsky (pseudonym: Smutok), Mykyta Shapoval, and others. The paper also contained articles on agriculture, hygiene, and rural economics by Arystarkh Ternychenko, Vasyl Koroliv-Stary, and Oleksander Mytsiuk; poetry by Oleksander Oles, Volodymyr Samiilenko, Hrytsko Chuprynka, and Yakiv Shchoholiv; and prose by Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Olha Kobylianska, Arkhyp Teslenko, Modest Levytsky, Les Martovych, V. Storozhenko, Vasyl Stefanyk, and Spyrydon Cherkasenko. At the height of its popularity, Selo had 4,500 to 5,000 subscribers. The publishers were constantly harassed and fined by the tsarist authorities, and the paper was finally forced to cease publication. It was succeeded by Zasiv.

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