New Kyiv-based research center studies history of Ukrainian press

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - Accompanying the group of Ukrainians in Canada for the Queen's University program on the role of public opinion was Oleksander Sydorenko, program director of the Renaissance Foundation in Kyiv.

Although he was in Canada because of the foundation's involvement in the Queen's program, Mr. Sydorenko brought some information about a recently established research center in Kyiv of which he is a co-founder, the History of the Ukrainian Press Research Center (HUPRC).

Officially registered in September 1995, HUPRC was conceived three years ago when lecturers and students at the department of journalism (now the Institute of Journalism) at Kyiv State University organized a group interested in studying the role of the press, particularly periodicals, in the Ukrainian renaissance. Thus, the idea of a center to study the history of the Ukrainian press was born.

Currently the HUPRC does not have any staff; all of the work is done on a volunteer basis. Mr. Sydorenko is on the board of directors of the HUPRC, while its members are mostly lecturers and students at the Institute of Journalism.

Financially supported by the Renaissance Foundation and the Eurasia Foundation, the HUPRC is now working on several projects: creation of a database on Ukrainian journalism from the 19th century to the present; a library of periodicals; publication of bibliographic lists and indexes of periodicals; and organization of seminars and conferences discussing the problems of journalism in a new country through the study of the history of the press.

An international conference, "The Ukrainian Press Outside Ukraine," is planned for April 25-26, 1996, in Kyiv. Editors, publishers, journalists and scholars involved with the Ukrainian press around the world are being invited to the conference, along with persons interested in the role of the press in the history of ideas - particularly the idea of Ukrainian statehood.

More information about the conference may be obtained from: History of the Ukrainian Press Research Center, Ukraine 252119, Kyiv- 119, vul. Melnykova 36/1, Institute of Journalism, Offices 204-205; telephone/fax, (380-44) 220-6063; e-mail, [email protected].

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 7, 1996, No. 1, Vol. LXIV

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