ZEMSTVO AND RURAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN FORMATION OF NATIONAL LIBRARY BUSINESS IN SECOND HALF OF 19TH — EARLY 20TH CENTURIES (BEFORE THE UKRAINIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917—1921)

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to characterize the role of zemstvo and rural self-government bodies in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the development of national librarianship and to assess their contribution in the context of the maturation of the prerequisites for the national and cultural revival of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917—1921. The research methodology is based on the principles of scientificity, historicism, socio-cultural and modernization approaches, as well as general scientific methods (induction, logic, analysis, synthesis) and special historical methods: narrative, historical and genetic, structural and functional analysis. Scientific novelty. For the first time in the historiography, the contribution of zemstvo and rural self-government bodies to the formation of national librarianship in the context of the maturation of the prerequisites of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917— 1921 is highlighted. Conclusions. The reforms of rural self-government of 1861—1871 and the Zemstvo reform of 1864 gave impetus to the cooperation of zemstvos and rural self-government institutions in national librarianship. Since the late 1870s, self-governing bodies of peasants under the direction of zemstvos have been providing a new type of free public libraries — village libraries, by allocating and maintaining premises, paying for technical staff, etc. In return, zemstvos provided books, professional staff, and conducted educational work in libraries. Peasants were reluctant to accept their share of the costs. Therefore, zemstvos depended on the decisions of peasant bodies. Positive changes occurred thanks to zemstvo officials who represented democratic intellectuals and were influenced by the propagandistic Narodniks, and from 1901—1905, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionaries. During the revolution of 1905—1907, zemstvo members helped peasant communities to demand an increase in the network of rural libraries. The emergence of peasant republics in 1905, in one of which, Sumy, peasants published a newspaper that declared the tsarist government abolished, along with certain achievements in the development of rural libraries by zemstvos and rural communities, in which the Enlightenment actively participated, showed that the formation of library business in the countryside intensified in the first decades of the 20th century. This paved the way for the national and cultural revival during the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917—1921.