A comprehensive research concerning the methods and means of implementing the information policy of the Russian Empire on the territory of Ukrainian governorates (Kyiv, Podillia and Volyn) of South-West Kray during the First World War was carried out for the first time in Ukrainian historiography in the Ph.D. thesis. Ukrainian and foreign historiography were analysed, the source base was studied and theoretical and methodological principles of the research were outlined. The normative and legal support of information policy is emphasized. It was found out that there was no special body responsible for information policy in the Russian Empire during the war. This function was shared between the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and military structures. The Ph.D. thesis reveals peculiarities of the development of the Institute of military censorship, its normative legal basis, main functions and tasks. Its main purpose was not to allow dissemination of information that could harm the military interests of the state. There was an active strengthening of censorship legislation during the period of 1914–1917, which provided military censorship with broad control not only in the publishing sphere but also in the whole socio-political situation in the region.
Implementation of information policy involved the use of a wide range of methods of information and psychological impact on the formation of social consciousness. In this context, the key role was assigned to special propaganda techniques. Their main task was to create a positive-patriotic atmosphere in the country, to transfer the blame for the beginning of the conflict to Germany and their allies, to motivate the population to actively fight with enemy, to conceal reliable information and to present it in a distorted form, to form a negative and inhuman image of the enemy. The use of various mechanisms for the promotion of propaganda was important in information policy, namely: dissemination of information through the press, production of non-periodic functional and small in terms propaganda literature, conducting explanatory works among population in towns and villages, organizing thematic nights, and giving public speeches by prominent scholars, political and religious figures.
The research established that during the war the Russian Orthodox Church, which supported the official course of the tsarist government for participation in the war and actively promoted the myth formation about the liberation of the Slav peoples from the oppression of foreign powers, continued to play a special role in shaping the public consciousness of the population. The idea of religious affinity and unity of the population of Eastern Galicia and Dnieper Ukraine was cultivated by Clergy, and the Brest Union in 1596 was interpreted as false, unfair and artificially inspired.
An important role in the information component was the counteraction to the agitation of revolutionary and national character. In this context, one of the main tasks was the struggle against the Ukrainian national movement, whose ideas were interpreted by the authorities as «Mazepa-separatist movements» and threatened to the territorial integrity of the empire. In fact, it was a policy of informational chauvinism, which resulted in a ban of all Ukrainian periodicals in the region and persecution of representatives of the local national elite. No less important was the counteraction to the socialistic agitation. Also, societies and organizations that had legal status fell under close control.
A significant role in the implementation of propaganda had the mass media. It was found that the press was suffered a certain reorganization, which, at the beginning of the war, had a pro-government position, lost its analytical character, and its materials were mainly patriotic, pro-military and pro-imperial. The leading issue in the newspapers was the idea of a liberating and fair nature of the war that the struggle was for the liberation of fraternal people from the oppression of foreign powers. The key task of the press was to form a negative and inhuman image of the enemy. Along with the newspapers, important means of disseminating information were brochures and appeals that had a small number of pages and did not require much effort and financial costs to make.
Key words: information policy, Russian Empire, South-West Kray, The First World War, methods of information impact, propaganda, military censorship, printed media, Russian Orthodox Church.
