“Ukrainian Universal Encyclopedia” 1930-s: Foundations of Creation and its Artists

Abstract

The prerequisites of “Ukrainian Universal Encyclopedia”are examined in the article. The first attempts of its publication after World War failed mainly for financial reasons.

The second time the idea of ​​its own publication of Ukrainian Encyclopedia Galician scientists returned after the resumption of the Scientific Shevchenko Society in the early 1920-s. The role of national cultural institutions is characterized in organizing publication. In the Ukrainian newspaper periodical publication reported about preparation of edition of encyclopedia. It was reported that “UUE”will have about two thousand pages, seventy tables, twenty maps and over five thousand illustrations. The discussion dealt with Ukrainian scientists I. Rakovskiy, M. Rudnytskiy, S. Siropolko, I. Kripyakevych regarding concepts, semantic content and directions of encyclopedia edition. It was pointed out that preparation for writing mottoes of encyclopedia must have apolitical, non-party nature.

First copybook of “Ukrainian Universal Encyclopedia”appeared in 1930. In “Opening remarks”pointed on the great difficulties which the initiators of the project were solving. First it was about the lack of full encyclopedia dictionary of Ukrainian language, specialized encyclopedias of individual scientific disciplines instability of conventional terms. A small volume of encyclopedia is not allowed to hold “as many titles and reviews like this maybe wanted the connoisseurs of isolated areas of knowledge»; it was not easy to follow the proportions of “isolated areas, and even mottoes”. “UUE”had to combine two different tasks – popularity and scientism.

The duties of editor-in-chief’s project took over Ivan Rakovskiy (1874–1949) – an anthropologist and zoologist, teacher, real member of Scientific Shevchenko Society, 1921–1925 – one of the organizers of Lviv secret University and professor of zoology and anthropology in it. Personal and scientific qualities could help him as soon as possible not only to establish the workflow, and even personally monitor the quality of the material and its compliance with the spirit of a new encyclopedia. He not only managed to solve a large part of the organizational issues, perform his duties as editor of the project, but he also was the author of several articles and mottoes, with different scientific fields.

In preparing of the first volume of “Ukrainian Universal Encyclopedia”was attended by 76 authors. Unfortunately, under the authorship dictionary mottoes were not mentioned, because with few exceptions, we can only speculate, given the specialization of scientific authors.

Work on the publication of the encyclopedia, which had three volumes, lasted five years. During this time, was not only prepared material, but all subscribers received their copies of “UUE”.

Thus,“Ukrainian Universal Encyclopedia”became the first completed of Ukrainian encyclopedias of modern times and remained the only in this way for a long time. She became a real cultural achievement of Ukrainians that put them together with other highly developed nations of the world. “UUE”became the basis for other encyclopedias, which initially prepared Ukrainian diaspora, and after Ukraine gained independence – and for modern scientists who are working on new Ukrainian encyclopedias.

Keywords:“Ukrainian Universal Encyclopedia”, entsyklopedistka, Scientific Society of Taras Shevchenko, editor, editorial board, publishing, dictionary motto