P. Stebnitskiy’s Shevchenkiana: complete ‘Kobzar’ edition

Abstract

The article continues the cycle of author publications about Petro Stebnitskiy (1862-1923) and his role in the formation of the so-called ‘Ukrainian National Creation Project’ at the end of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Purpose of the article was P. Stebnitskiy’s publishing Shevchenkiana analysis, which involved preparing and printing of the first in the Russian Empire complete Taras Shevchenko’s ‘Kobzar’.
As a representative of «Charitable Society for the publication of socially useful and cheap books» a public figure was the member of the publisher's commission that dealt with the above-noted problem. P. Stebnitskiy was a coeditor of the first (1906) and second (1907) editions under V. Domanitskiy’s editorship, dealt with ‘Kobzar’s’ publishing, selling, its distribution, valuation and approval for book selling in bookshops. He negotiated with the owners of T. Shevchenko’s autographs, corresponded with V. Domanitskiy, following all his instructions about a layout. The article describes the process of preparing for the third ‘Kobzar’ edition publishing, as well as censorship and judicial bodies’ activities for the arrest and confiscation of a book and publishers’ prosecution. We consider the draft of the first in the Russian Empire T. Shevchenko’s complete ‘Kobzar’ edition during 1906-1911 as a grandiose creative concept of the nationally-minded Ukrainian intellectuals, associated primarily with the problem of cultural identity of one’s own nation, national affiliation, its ethnic self-preservation pledge.
Besides we have found an additional documentary support testament to the fact that the first complete ‘Kobzar’ edition under V. Domanitskiy’s editorship was published not in 1907, as it was noted on its title page, but in late 1906.