Radians’ka Ukraïna, daily

Radians’ka Ukraïna, daily («Радянська Україна»; Soviet Ukraine). A daily (six days a week) organ of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, and the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR. It first appeared in Kharkiv in 1919 as Kommunist, the Russian-language organ of the CC CP(B)U and the Kharkiv gubernia (later Kharkiv okruha) Party committee. From June 1926 the paper was published in Ukrainian as Komunist. It reached the height of its popularity during the Ukrainization period of the latter half of the 1920s, when it and Visti VUTsVK were the leading political newspapers in the Ukrainian SSR. Edited by the former Borotbists Mykola Liubchenko and Teodosii Taran, it published articles by Soviet Ukrainian journalists and writers (eg, Petro Panch, Myroslav Irchan, Ivan Mykytenko), leading Party and government officials in Ukraine, and communist leaders in other republics and abroad. Under Stalinist rule, however, the paper was little more than a propaganda tool of the state. In 1930–2 it appeared seven days a week (359 or 360 issues a year), and it reached a circulation of 450,000 in 1932. It was used to push the collectivization drive and the First Five-Year Plan. In 1934 it was transferred to Kyiv when that city was made the republic’s capital. Later its editorial staff and correspondents were severely repressed; many, including Liubchenko and Taran, were imprisoned or executed. In 1938 Andrii Chekaniuk became editor, and he served in that capacity until 1943. In 1938 a parallel Russian-language version of the paper, Sovetskaia Ukraina (later Pravda Ukrainy), was established.

After Visti VUTsVK ceased publication in 1941, Komunist assumed its function as the organ of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. During the Second World War the paper was published in Voroshylovhrad, Saratov, Moscow, and Kharkiv. It acquired its Radians’ka Ukraïna name in February 1943 and returned to Kyiv in 1944. The paper’s pressrun rose from 400,000 in 1950 to 560,000 in 1977; from then it remained at approximately 555,000. By contrast the pressruns of the Moscow papers Pravda (Moscow) and Izvestiia increased dramatically, in practice displacing republican organs such as Radians’ka Ukraïna as the main source of information for Ukrainian readers. The central papers were larger (six pages versus four for the Ukrainian papers), distributed more effectively in Soviet Ukraine, and of a higher professional and intellectual quality. Unlike them, Radians’ka Ukraïna did not have foreign correspondents, and devoted little attention to international affairs. In general the paper was politically conservative, even by Soviet standards. Despite the changes brought about by Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost policy, Radians’ka Ukraïna changed little. It continued to publish scurrilous attacks on Ukrainian ‘bourgeois nationalists’ abroad and in Ukraine and did little to further reform or liberalization. While the Russian-language Pravda Ukrainy devoted some attention to the economy, science, and technology, Radians’ka Ukraïna published considerably more propagandistic and ideological articles.

In 1970 the paper employed some 95 journalists, including 60 so-called creative contributors. Thirty-five of these contributors worked in the editorial office; the rest were employed as correspondents. The editors were part of the nomenklatura of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and not of the Communist Party of Ukraine; central control over the paper was thus ensured. After the 1991 Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence and the demise of the USSR, Radians’ka Ukraïna was renamed Demokratychna Ukraïna.

Roman Szporluk

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