Informational Substantiation of Western Ukrainian Lands Conquest by the Russian Empire in 1914

Abstract

The article deals with the peculiarities of ideological and propaganda substantiation of the process of Eastern Galicia, Northern Bukovina, Zakarpattia by the Russian Empire at the initial stage of the First World War on the basis of source materials of Ukrainian governorates of South-West Kray (Kyiv, Volyn and Podillia). The main thematic areas of press publications, the content and specificity of appeals and brochures’ informative filling are noted. It is examined that the imperial authorities began to actively ideological myths propaganda from the first days of the war about the process of the “collecting Rus’ lands” (“zbyrannia zemel ruskykh”*) and that the Galician population is a fraternal people who needs a long-awaited “liberation”. The mass media used various techniques and mechanisms of information influence on the formation of public consciousness in order to overpersuade the society in the truthfulness of the aforementioned assertions and for the formation of a positive attitude towards the occupation of Western Ukrainian lands. The Orthodox clergy and the church mass media, which supported the official policy of the government and widely propagated the idea of the liberation of Eastern Galicia, Northern Bukovina and Zakarpattia population from Roman, Catholic oppression, played an important role in theideological course of the imperial authorities.