Oles Honchar and Regional Media

Regional media is an important segment of the socio-communicative model of the information space of Ukraine, which clearly identifies the vectors of ethnically and culturally identified journalism, works hard to preserve historical memory, national consciousness and civic activity of society. Their study is especially relevant in the period of modern socio-political changes associated with the development of democratization, decentralization and local self-government, which will make new adjustments to the typology, content and functions of local media.

Currently, there is a growing scholars interest to the problems of regional journalism, but the culturological and axiological aspects of their study are still insufficiently investigated. This explains the choice of the research object, which were the regional media reviews, reflected in the memoirs and publicistics of the famous Ukrainian writer and public figure Oles Honchar. Recourse to such methods as content analysis, historical, systemic, biographical, axiological, statistical, made it possible to carry out a multifaceted interpretation of journalistic assessments by the writer of the spiritual potential of regional and district newspapers, through which to cover certain periods of Ukrainian journalism development of the twentieth century and reveal the writer's personal involvement in its history.

Oles Honchar cooperation with the mass media lasted for more than sixty years. It was widely disclosed in his diary entries, epistolary and journalistic works of various genres. The writer’s connections with the regional press are reproduced in chronological order, starting from the 1930s, the journalistic activity of young Oles Honchar in district and regional newspapers in Poltava and Kharkiv regions and ending with observations of an already experienced publicist and master of the word on the activities of local media during the years of independent Ukraine.

An analysis of the congratulation-letters texts addressed to local newspapers and magazines offices indicates the broad geography of the writer’s connections with the print media, reveals his vision of this type of publications concept, based on democratic and humanistic principles. Welcoming the appearance of new literary and artistic publications in the East and West of Ukraine and in the Crimea at the beginning of 90’s, Oles Honchar focused his attention on their role in uniting the community around the pressing problems: preservation of historical memory and ethnic culture, functioning of Ukrainian language and respect for literary classics.