"Dnewnyk Ruskij" and "Zorya Halytska" – Two Different Alphabets and Two Different Conceptions of the Ukrainian National Movement in Austrian Galicia

Praca naukowa finansowana ze środków budżetowych Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na naukę w latach 2012-2015 jako projekt badawczy nr DI2011 006541 w ramach programu dla młodych naukowców „Diamentowy Grant”.

Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego RP

The aim of this paper is to present the origins of the first two weekly newspapers in Galicia that were published in Ukrainian language. The “Zorya Halytska” (“GalicianStar”) and “DnewnykRuskij” (“Ruthenian Daily”) were both established in the revolutionary year of 1848 (Spring of Nations) and both of them were the press organs of the first competing Ukrainian political organisations: the Supreme Ruthenian Council and the Ruthenian Sobor. The Ukrainians in Austrian Galicia were one of the last Slavonic nations to start publishing their own press in the vernacular. In those times newspapers were the first modern mass media that allowed to encourage the national idea. The distinctive feature of those newspapers was that the former was printed only in the Cyrillic and the latter in both the Latin and the Cyrillic script. This fact has become a part of the Ukrainian “alphabet wars” phenomenon.