Narodnia volia

Narodnia volia («Народня воля»; People’s Will). A daily published by the Ukrainian Central Co-operative Committee in Kyiv from May 1917 to February 1919. The chief editor was Mykola M. Kovalevsky and the secretary was Pavlo Khrystiuk. It was the most widely read Ukrainian newspaper of the time (with a circulation of up to 200,000) and an important supporter of the Central Rada. A large group of correspondents submitted reports on developments throughout Ukraine, and contributors such as Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Khrystofor Baranovsky, Mykhailo Tuhan-Baranovsky, Arkadii Stepanenko, and Oleksander Shumsky provided political commentaries and analyses. Prose, poetry, and literary criticism by Mykola Zerov, Hrytsko Chuprynka, Volodymyr Samiilenko, Mykola Vorony, Oleksander Oles, Halyna Zhurba, and others were also published in Narodnia volia. The paper served as the national organ of the Peasant Association and the mouthpiece of the majority in the Central Rada.

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