Medical journals

Medical journals. The first medical journals in Ukraine were published in eastern Ukrainian territories under the Russian Empire in Russian: Sovremennaia meditsina (1860–81) and Vestnik oftalmologii (1884–1902) in Kyiv, Meditsinskii vestnik (1862–86) in Teodosiia, Arkhiv psikhiatrii, neirologii i sudebnoi psikhopatologii (1882–99) in Kharkiv, Zemskii vrach (1884–1902) in Chernihiv, and Akusherka (1890–1917) in Odesa. Nineteen medical journals were published in Russian-ruled Ukraine in 1890–9, 25 journals in 1900–9, and 50 journals in 1917. The first Ukrainian-language journal in there to treat medical issues was Zhyttia i znannia (Poltava 1913–14), edited by Hryhorii Kovalenko and geared toward a general public. In the period of the Ukrainian National Republic two medical journals came out in Kyiv, Ukraïns’ki medychni visty, edited by Yevmen Lukasevych, and Vistnyk Ministerstva narodn'oho zdorovlia i opikuvannia, edited by Yu. Melenevsky. In the Soviet period (1920–39), 69 medical journals were published, 22 of them in Ukrainian, including Kyïvs’kyi medychnyi zhurnal (1928–30), Ukraïns’ki medychni visti (1925–31, in Kyiv), Ukraïns’kyi medychnyi arkhiv (1927–32, in Kharkiv), Dnipropetrovs’kyi medychnyi zhurnal (1922–31, in Dnipropetrovsk), and Profilaktychna medytsyna (1929, in Kharkiv). After the Second World War the bimonthlies Pediatriia, akusherstvo i hinekolohiia, Farmatsevtychnyi zhurnal, Mikrobiolohichnyi zhurnal, and Fiziolohichnyi zhurnal, as well as four Russian-language journals, were published.

In Austrian-ruled Galicia scholarly medical journals and articles began to appear sporadically at the end of the 19th century. Among the research topics dealt with was the problem of Ukrainian medical terminology. In 1897 the Medical Commission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society began including medical articles in its Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka. Eight issues, edited by Yevhen Ozarkevych, had come out by 1901; they were later collected in two volumes. In 1902, articles began appearing in the annals of the Medical-Natural Sciences-Mathematical Section of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. On the initiative of Ozarkevych and Ivan Ya. Horbachevsky Zdorovlie was published in Lviv (20 issues, 1912–14). From 1920 to 1939 Likars’kyi vistnyk was published (62 issues). In 1928 Sofiia Parfanovych initiated the popular journal Vidrodzhennia in Lviv. Also published were Ukraïns’kyi medychnyi vistnyk in Prague (6 issues, 1922–5, ed Borys Matiushenko) and Narodne zdorovlia (1937–39).

In the United States of America the bilingual Ukrainian-English medical journal Likars’kyi visnyk began publication in 1954.

Paul Dzul

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]