Ukrainskii vestnik (Kharkiv)

Ukrainskii vestnik (Kharkiv) (Ukrainian Herald). One of the first journals in Ukraine, published in Kharkiv from 1816 to 1819 (a total of 16 large issues) under the editorship of Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Rozumnyk Honorsky, and Evgraf Filomafitsky. Although published primarily in Russian and initiated by Ivan Sreznevsky, Ukrainskii vestnik was dedicated to publishing works on Ukrainian topics. It contained works on Ukrainian history, particularly the history of the Hetman state and Slobidska Ukraine, by Mykhailo Markov, J. Vernet, M. Hrybovsky, and Illia Kvitka; literary criticism by R. Honorsky and E. Filomafitsky; articles on Ukrainian ethnography by Aleksei Levshin; commentaries by Vasyl Karazyn, H. Kvitka-Osnovianenko, I. Voronov, and others; regular reports on cultural and intellectual life in Kharkiv; articles on prominent figures from Slobidska Ukraine, especially Hryhorii Skovoroda; original prose and poetry, in Ukrainian by Petro Hulak-Artemovsky and H. Kvitka-Osnovianenko and in Russian by Orest Somov; and translations of writings by Voltaire, J. Rousseau, and J. Milton. The tsarist Ministry of Education objected to the ‘liberal’ tendencies of the journal and eventually prevailed upon the local authorities to close it down.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]