Those who say that “Kharkiv was never Ukrainian” simply don’t know how much of our city was Ukrainian at the beginning of the 20th century.
For example, at Rybna Street, 25, there was a store called “Ukrainska Knyharnya.” Anyone who wanted to could buy books in Ukrainian there, though the store closed during World War I.
You might think that the image below is related to some restaurant in Lviv. However, that’s not the case. It’s a beautifully preserved menu from the “National” restaurant in Kharkiv, dated October 21, 1913, that I found deep in the archives. Thus, a hundred years ago, menus in Ukrainian were by no means a rarity in our hometown. By the way, the address listed there is the same as that of the store.
In addition to Ukrainian stores and restaurants, there were also Ukrainian-language newspapers in our hometown of Kharkiv—which, by the way, are also an integral part of the past of our beloved city.
Today, I’d like to tell you a little about one of these publications—the weekly newspaper *Snip*.
It is believed that, of all the Ukrainian publications in Kharkiv that appeared during the pre-Soviet period, this was the only one that managed to survive for an entire year. The full title of the periodical, which was published exclusively in Ukrainian in 1912 on the initiative of Mykhailo Ivanovych Mikhnovsky, was “Snip, a Ukrainian Journal for the Intelligentsia.” According to Mikhnovsky himself, it was Kharkiv, as the center of Sloboda Ukraine, that was destined to become the cradle of the Ukrainian printed word. A publishing license was issued on December 8, 1911. Mikhail Antonovich Bilenky, a colleague of Mikhnovsky, became the newspaper’s editor-in-chief.
Prominent figures such as Ivan Franko, Leonid Pakharevsky, Kristina Alchevskaya, Nikolai Sumtsov, Konstantin Bich-Lubensky, and others collaborated with the publishing house. The editorial office itself was located at Kontorska Street, 21, a street so beloved by the residents of our city. As early as January 1, 1912, the first issue of the newspaper delighted its readers. The circulation of each issue was about 1,500 copies. Starting in February, anyone interested could purchase *Snip* not only in Kharkiv, but also in Kyiv, Odesa, Yekaterinoslav, Poltava, and Kherson. In March, the newspaper introduced a new column titled “From the Life of Sloboda Ukraine.”
However, because the newspaper’s content was highly reactionary, the publication was kept under close surveillance by the authorities. Censorship and fines plagued the weekly from the very moment of its founding, and they did not diminish over time. On May 27, the newspaper published an article titled “The Ukrainian Platform,” which stated, in part, the following:
It seems clear to everyone by now that neither the Poles nor the Russians can defend the interests of the Ukrainian people. Only the Ukrainians themselves can do so. For this reason, Ukraine must have its own representatives in the State Duma.
The authorities’ response to the article, which “incited hostility toward the government,” was quite harsh. The publication was forced to pay a fine of 500 rubles. For example, on October 16, 1912, the Kharkiv press inspector asked the police chief to issue an order to confiscate issue No. 41, which had been seized.
The reason was extremely simple: in this issue, the articles “Kharkiv, October 14/October 27, 1912” and “Yevhen Bachynsky. From the Life of Ukrainians in Paris,” the authorities saw a violation of the first paragraph of Article 129 of the Criminal Code.
They saw calls for treason and rebellion in the following. In the first article, the author, discussing the struggle of the Slavic peoples on the Balkan Peninsula for their freedom, smoothly transitioned to reflections on the situation in the states of both the ruling and the subjugated nations. In doing so, he pointed out that the struggle of nations is one form of the struggle for existence, and that the oppressed peoples in England, Austria, Hungary, and Russia—deprived of development—are resisting slavery and demonstrating a powerful instinct for national life. And where they lack the opportunity to fight actively, they do so passively. The dominant peoples throughout Europe, meanwhile, seek to destroy small nations and morally annihilate them. And so on in the same vein.
In the article “From the Lives of Ukrainians in Paris,” the authorities took issue with the author’s lament that Ukrainian émigrés in Paris lived in isolation, lacked any sense of solidarity among themselves, and did not pursue common interests or goals. The author cited a very interesting example: when the artist Alchevsky intended to establish a Ukrainian association in Paris, he was unsuccessful. He went on to propose the idea of establishing a strong Ukrainian circle in the French capital, where people with shared views would be brought together—not merely for conversation, but for action—and would also collaborate with other “subjugated nations.”
At an administrative hearing of the Criminal Division on October 24, 1912, the Kharkiv Judicial Chamber heard the prosecutor’s motion to seize issue No. 41 of the newspaper *Snip*. After discussing the content of the articles in question, the judges found no grounds to seize that issue of the newspaper and ordered that the previously imposed seizure be lifted.
Then, due to a number of non-political reasons—caused, in particular, by strikes at the printing house—several issues were not published on time. The Kharkiv press inspector, however, was not idle. Luck smiled on him in early December. In his report to the governor, he pointed out that issues Nos. 47–49 of the weekly contained a series of articles calling on the Ukrainian people to unite and pursue separatism. The author of the lead article, discussing the factors hindering the growth of Ukrainian national development, dared to identify Great Russian society as such—and its student youth—as the primary cause, specifically noting that the Russian school system was alien to Ukrainians. To kickstart a national revival among Ukrainians, the article called for instilling in the youth the ideas of healthy national egoism.
The article titled “National-Cultural Development and Our Attitude Toward Liberal Muscovites” began with accusations against influential, educated Ukrainians that they were failing to provide aid and support to their poor compatriots, thereby hindering national unity. At the end, the author called on every Ukrainian, in the name of national liberation, to reorganize their entire lives in the Ukrainian spirit, down to the smallest detail.
On December 12, the governor of Kharkiv once again imposed a fine of 500 rubles on the publication’s editor, Mikhail Antonovich-Belenky, with the penalty to be commuted to 60 days’ imprisonment in the event of nonpayment. In his report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs on this matter, our city’s mayor further clarified:
Disciplinary Action Against the Editor of the Magazine ‘Snip’ Belenky was imposed by me to the highest degree because the magazine “Snip” is generally run along anti-government lines and according to the so-called “Mazepa” program, with the aim of promoting ideas about Ukrainian autonomy.
Belenky never paid the fine, since—despite the police search—he could not be found either in the city or in the province. It goes without saying that all of this undermined the weekly’s position.
In the final issue, published on December 30, 1912, Nikolai Mikhnovsky, bidding farewell to his readers, pointed out that *Snip* had been shut down not because of persecution by its enemies, but because of society’s fatal indifference.
This weekly newspaper played a very significant role in the history of Ukraine and our city. After all, it brought together opposition elements and highlighted the process of politicization and radicalization of the Ukrainian national movement in Kharkiv in the run-up to World War I.
