Features of Evolution of Leading Public Libraries in Provincial Cities in Ukraine in the 19 – Early 20 Century

In the article were explored the development of the leading public libraries of provincial cities on the territory of Ukraine in the 19 - early 20th centuries, factors, conditions and main stages of their evolution. The purpose of the proposed article is to determine the socio-cultural factors of formation and features of the development of the leading city public libraries of provincial cities in the territory of Ukraine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in particular provincial libraries, as well as the identification of the main stages of their formation, the study of the specifics of functioning, the dynamics of the main indicators library work and the significance of their work in developing a network of urban public libraries. In his work, the author widely used as general scientific methods of research (description, comparison, analogy, deduction, induction, analysis, etc.), as well as historical (historical-comparative, historical-typological, historical-diachronic, chronological) methods. It was found that the formation and development of the leading public libraries of provincial cities in Ukraine depended mainly on financial support and understanding of local administration, philanthropists, representatives of the ruling classes of society and cultural and educational figures on the need for the dissemination of education and culture, as well as the peculiarities of regional development, public activity city life and democratic movement. Analysis of the experience of the functioning of the leading public libraries of provincial cities proves that the lack of economic basis and the low percentage of the written population in provincial towns were objective factors of the unsuccessful attempt to establish public libraries in the 1830's. Limited public and local financing of public libraries, their essential public support (mostly, donations from patrons, societies) were established only at the turn of the 19-20 centuries. The article shows that the work of most public libraries of the city, created in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, can be considered as the continuation of the network of leading libraries of provincial cities, in particular provincial libraries, as they formed their book collections, mainly from the remnants of the last and fulfilled the same tasks and functions as their predecessors (information, cultural and educational, educational, communicative, ethnographic and other functions). With the establishment of Soviet power, after the nationalization and centralization of library funds, a network of central regional libraries was created, which in the 1920s became the methodological center for all the library schools of the province (hereinafter - districts, regions). The analysis of the evolution of the leading public libraries of provincial cities gave rise to the development of a periodization of their development, identified varieties of these bookshops. Thus, during its long evolution, the leading libraries of provincial cities, in particular - provincial libraries, although developed not quite dynamically, with great breaks, re-profiling their activities, with frequent changes in names, were formed as centers for scattering the library business of a certain region, as cultural centers of education life, book and spiritual culture.