Aims and objectives
The project aims to digitise, preserve and make accessible five newspaper collections from eastern and southern Ukraine, held at the Odesa National Scientific Library. This textually and visually rich archive includes public and private newspapers published in Russian during the Russian Empire (from what is the present-day territory of eastern and southern Ukraine).
The Russian-Ukrainian war has made the need to digitise these newspapers all the more pressing, as these materials could easily be destroyed in the ongoing Russian shelling of the Odesa city centre. The newspapers are currently stored in regular boxes without any measures or precautions taken against humidity fluctuations. Most of the collection is over 100 to 150 years old and is largely in good condition; however, some of the earliest issues (around 170 to 180 years old) are in poor condition. Due to their large format and age, only a few had been issued to the library's readers, due to the potential risk of damage to the old pages. Currently, with the threat of shelling, the newspapers are not taken out of storage and are not available to readers.
These five collections are unique sources of information on the local history of south-eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainian, Greek, German, Jewish and Bulgarian communities. The newspapers contain local news, reports on the economic, industrial and agricultural development of the region, and often unique information on international maritime trade through the ports of the Black and Azov Seas. They are also valuable for the study of everyday life, as they contain articles about the traditions and customs of different ethnic groups, complaints and appeals about problems, and advertisements that add visual value to the publications. A few libraries in Ukraine have only scattered issues of these historical newspapers. Other collections located in the occupied region have already been destroyed due to the war.
