Human Rights Activities of Ukrainian Diaspora Media and Publishing Houses in the 60-80's of the XX Century

There is still insufficient research on the activities of the Ukrainian community abroad in the 1960s and 1980s in order to provide a comprehensive picture of the scope and coverage of the emigration human rights movement. It is important to expand and deepen information about organizations of Ukrainians related to printing publishing products.

In order to analyze different areas of human rights activity of Ukrainian media and publishing houses in the diaspora, the functioning of leading diaspora magazines, newspapers and publishing houses was analyzed. The article presents the facts from their history,which testify to their active informational, book publishing, defense and "support" activities. In addition to the historical method, the system method and comparison were also used.

The activities of the publishing houses "Suchasnist" (“Modernity”) (Munich), "Smoloskyp" (“Torch”) (Baltimore), "First Ukrainian Printing House" (Paris), newspaper "Shliakh Peremohy" (“The way of victory”) (Munich), magazine "Vyzvolnyj Shliakh" (London) were taken into consideration. The role of the communicators through which the centers of Ukrainians abroad received self-published materials from mainland Ukraine is revealed. The information activity of American radio stations "Svoboda" and "Holos Ameryky", which actively cooperated with Ukrainian Diaspora media, is considered.

The research focuses on defense work, in which printed materials about arrests and repressions in Ukraine were published in defense of Ukrainian political prisoners, and branches of the European and North American Amnesty International were joined. The essence of "ancillary" activity of Ukrainian emigration centers in the form of financial and moral support from abroad of political prisoners of the USSR is outlined.

As a result, emphasis is placed on the fact that the human rights activities of the Ukrainian media and publishing houses in emigration were determined by complex information, publishing, defense and "support" directions, which proved to be sufficiently effective in restoring human rights and freedoms in mainland Ukraine.