Official Press of Soviet Forced Labor Institutions (1920 – early 1940s)

Examining the Soviet press, especially that of the 1920s and 1940s, it is impossible to ignore the huge array of newspapers of correctional institutions, which are evidence of the most tragic period in the history of the USSR. The issue of the lack of freedom was most widely reflected in the camp press, which was allegedly intended for the reeducation of prisoners. The purpose of the study is to spread awareness about a specific type of Soviet mass-circulation press: newspapers of forced labor institutions, published in the period 1920 – early 1940s in the Ukrainian Soviet Social Republic (USSR-USSR); present them as one of the segments of the mass-circulation press; to prove the necessity for bibliographic research of this layer of periodicals. The methodology is based on the principle of historicism and on a set of methods: historical and chronological, analysis of historical sources and synthesis of information. As a bibliographic object, the mass-circulation press of Soviet forced labor institutions is a source of compiling the repertoire of periodicals as a segment of the retrospective national bibliography of Ukraine, so the article offers the chief approaches, principles and methods on which the mass-circulation press is based. The novelty lies in the presentation of mass-circulation newspapers, in particular, publications of correctional institutions, as an independent object of bibliographic research. Conclusions. Newspapers of Soviet forced labor institutions are a kind of mass-circulation newspapers, a specific type of press that reflects general features inherent in the Soviet periodicals of this period. As an object of press and bibliographic research, these periodicals need to be studied, processed, digitized, and introduced into the information space.