Mykola Tymoshyk, doctor of philological sciences, professor in Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts
Robsilkor movement as a phenomenon of totalitarian journalism: on archival documents and press materials of Bukovyna
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37222/2524-0315-2024-16(32)-6
The article is written on the basis of archival documents of the Chernivtsi region that have not yet been included in scientific circulation, materials from the collections of local newspapers published in Chernivtsi in the 40s – 70s of the 20th century. They make it possible to clarify the aim, goal, task of the ruling Bolshevik Party regarding the organization and mass deployment of the movement of activists of the local press, which received the name of Robsilkor.
Before this category of contributors to local newspapers of the totalitarian era, three main task were set: supplying newspapers with information from places; intensification of reading of the Soviet press; encouraging the widest possible range of workers and peasants to subscribe to district, regional and central Bolshevik newspapers.
The editors of regional party newspapers of the region became the coordinators of the movement. Leading journalists from time to time prepared reviews of the Robsilkor movement in each district for publication, prepared publications for the encouragement of novice contributors, and actually acted as their mentors.
A rare and valuable document of the totalitarian era – the transcript of the first regional meeting of silkors in Chernivtsi, found by the author in the archive there – was analyzed in detail.
Attention is focused on the organizational function of regional newspaper editorial offices in this matter. It came down to fulfilling the following tasks of the ruling party: gathering active contributors from the villages to district meetings of robsilkors: distribution of questionnaires; handing out specific tasks to activists; editorial preparation for printing their posts; publication on the pages of the newspaper of advice to workers. It is about the correction of tasks of robsilkors in connection with the change in the social and political atmosphere in the country during the periods of Stalin, Khrushchov, and Brezhnev.
It is convincingly shown where the creative efforts of press activists were directed. Mainly – for the stably ineffective “struggle” for the “unconditional implementation and over-implementation of communist construction plans”, for the further “steep rise of all branches of socialist agriculture”, for the movement “forward to a bright communist tomorrow”. In the press of that period, such propaganda actions were usually called fronts. And there were mostly two of them stably: ideological and labor.
A projection of this phenomenon was made for the present: due to the process of training specialists in higher education which is not controlled by the state, three negative trends are observed at the current stage: their overproduction, a lack of qualitatively trained mass media workers, and a difference of opinion regarding ways to eliminate shortcomings in this matter.
Keywords: silkor, robkor, robsilkor, local press, subscription, party leadership of the press, totalitarian journalism, press reviews.
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References
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