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Copyright cross-roads in Europe: Empires, the Berne Convention, and literature
in Ukrainian in the late XIX - early XX century
Liliia Oprysk
1
Abstract
Geography plays a major role in Ukraine’s history. At the crossroads of Empires and cultures
for centuries, Ukraine’s territory’s borders kept being redrawn, which subjected the
population to a plethora of legal regimes, including copyright. Until Ukraine regained
independence in 1991, only parts of today’s territory, and only for brief periods of time,
belonged to the Berne Union. The non-accession to the Berne Union was not accidental and,
together with other policies in place, had an impact on the literature in the Ukrainian
language. This chapter explores copyright crossroads in Europe in the late XIX – early XX
century, which coincides with the rapid increase in literacy among the European population,
and the conditions they created for the development of Ukrainian literature. With geography
as a starting point of enquiry, the chapter investigates how copyright regulations of the time
intertwined with other policies along the inter- and intra-state borders. The chapter sheds
light on the significance of copyright policies for access to knowledge and education in multi-
national states.
Keywords: copyright, geography, Berne Union, empires, Ukraine
1. Geography in Ukraine’s history
Geography plays a major role in Ukraine’s history. Be it not for the rich soil, the so-called black
earth, the territory could have escaped the fate of bloodlands, becoming the theatre of the
Eastern front in the First and Second World Wars.
2
Be it not for the late XIX-early XX century
Austro-Hungarian Empire’s policies towards minorities (of which Ruthenian (Ukrainian)
3
was
one), Western Ukraine might not have become the refuge for Ukrainian scientists and
intellectuals escaping the oppressive rule of the Russian Empire on the rest of Ukrainian
territory.
4
And be it not for Austria-Hungary’s decision not to join the Berne Convention
5
1
Ph.D.; Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
2
Ukraine’s territory constitutes a substantial part of “bloodlands,” the term coined by historian
Tymothy Synder. Blood lands refer to the territory of modern Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, and Belarus, which were the site of atrocities committed by multiple parties, notably the
Nazi and Stalin regimes during the Second World War, inter alia, in a race for securing natural
resources. See Tymothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (Basic Books, 2010).
3
In the late XIX century, Ukrainians in Galicia and Bukowina called themselves rusyny (русини), were
called by Poles rusini and by German speakers Ruthenen. See John-Paul Khimka, Galician Villagers
and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century (Macmillan Press, 1988) xxvii. This
contribution will use Ukrainian and Ruthenian interchangeably to refer to the Ukrainian-speaking
population of Galicia and Bukowina.
4
On the oppression of language, see Johannes Remy, 'The Valuev Circular and Censorship of Ukrainian
Publications in the Russian Empire (1863-1876): Intention and Practice' (2007) 49(1/2) Canadian
Slavonic Papers 870.
5
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (as amended on September 28,
1979).
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during this time, access to translations of foreign works into Ukrainian might have been very
limited or simply absent.
Intellectual Property (IP) is intricately linked to geography since protection granted, including
under copyright, is territorial and defined by state borders, even though the subject matter is
intangible and knows no borders. Even though most states nowadays are parties to an
international convention guaranteeing the non-discrimination of foreign authors and a
minimum standard of copyright protection, differences remain. Historically, however, they
have been far more substantial, with access and scope of protection dependent on the
geographical area and, inter alia, language policies. Copyright and related policies have been
important for Ukrainian literature in the absence of a widely recognised Ukrainian state that
was able to safeguard the interests of Ukrainian speakers in the late XIX – early XX century.
Copyright protection on the Berne Union’s model has been closely linked to the development
of printed press and notions of individual autonomy and freedom of expression.
6
The
formative period of the international copyright system was the early years of the Berne
Convention. Whereas the European states were the driving force behind the protection of
foreign authors and the harmonisation of substantial rules of protection, such as the
abolishment of formalities under the Berne Convention of 1886, a major European state of
the time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, however, did not join the Convention, as well as the
Kingdom of the Netherlands. Only after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the
1930s did the individual states (e.g., Austria, Hungary, Poland, Romania) join the Berne
Union.
7
Out of the 181 countries of the Berne Union as of 2024,
8
108 joined the Union from 1987
onwards. This is only partially due to states which formerly had not wished to join the
Convention joined it, as is the case for the US joining in 1989. On the other hand, the
formation of new independent states and the globalisation of international trade have also
played a role. Some states became members as a result of independent political decisions of
states previously being a colony or being subject to a union formation, such as the case for
most countries that were former members of the Soviet Union. Whereas the Soviet Union
never joined the Berne Convention, the individual states formed in the aftermath of its
dissolution acceded to the Convention shortly after. In the 1990s, international copyright
harmonisation reached new levels globally due to the establishment of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), joining which meant acceding to the Agreement on Trade-Related
6
See Aoki linking the romantic author’s notion to property and sovereignty, emphasising the far-
reaching consequences of increased literacy and mass printing in vernacular (spoken) language. Keith
Aoki, '(Intellectual) Property and Sovereignty: Notes toward a Cultural Geography of Authorship'
(1996) 48 Stanford Law Review 1322.
7
On former Austro-Hungarian states joining the Berne Convention, Peter Munkácsi, 'The Austro-
Hungarian Monarchy and Its Imperial Approach to the Berne Convention' in Morris, P S (ed),
Intellectual Property and the Law of Nations, 1860-1920 (Brill Nijhoff 2022) 183. On translations of
foreign works as a factor in multi-ethnic empire, Sybille Gerhatl, '"Vogelfrei" - Die österreichische
Lösung der Urheberrechtsfrage in der 2. Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts oder Warum es Österreich
unterließ, seine Autoren zu schützen' (Diplomarbeit Wien) (1995).
8
Contracting parties are listed on the WIPO webpage
https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/treaties/ShowResults?search_what=C&treaty_id=15 (accessed 24
August 2024).
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 3
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), in turn, requiring compliance of its Member
States with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention (Paris Act 1971) under Article 9
TRIPS.
Ukraine acceded to the Berne Convention in 1995 after regaining its independence from the
Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union, to which Ukraine’s territory belonged for roughly 50
years preceding independence, never joined the Berne Union, nor did its predecessors, the
Russian Empire in the East or the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the West. At first sight, it may
seem like the development of literature in Ukrainian de facto has not directly been influenced
by the international harmonisation of copyright. The impression is false, as will be
demonstrated in this chapter.
This chapter explores the Empires’ non-accession to the Berne Union beyond the absence of
protection of Ukrainian works abroad from the perspective of literature in Ukrainian during
the period of rapid increase in literacy among the European population. Besides the copyright
provisions, the chapter investigates public policies of relevance for the printed press, such as
censorship policies or regulation of the use of minority languages, and how those intertwine
with copyright to define the conditions for literature in Ukrainian alongside the inter- and
intra-state borders.
Part 2 gives a brief account of the legal geography of Ukraine in the late XIX – early XX century
and situates the copyright regimes during this period in terms of geography. Part 3 explores
the relationship of the Empires to the Berne Convention during the early stage of
international copyright harmonisation with a focus on the Austro-Hungarian and Russian
Empires. Part 4 focuses on the Austrian copyright law of the Austria-Hungary time in
conjunction with its policies towards minorities. Part 5 contrasts the policies of the Russian
Empire, in particular towards the Ukrainian language, with Austria-Hungary and how, despite
the likewise non-accession to the Berne Union, the effect on the literature in Ukrainian has
been rather different.
9
Part 6 concludes the impact of copyright crossroads in the late XIX –
early XX century on Ukrainian literature in light of access to knowledge and education and the
role of copyright policies in multi-national states.
2. Legal geography of Ukraine at the end of XIX - the beginning of the XX century
In the XIX-XX centuries, Ukraine’s territory was governed by various states. By the beginning
of the XIX century, the Russian Empire controlled a substantial part of the territory of modern-
day Ukraine following the dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the west and
the retreat of the Ottoman Empire in the south. Nevertheless, after the dissolution of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the territory of Western Ukraine remained under the
control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I. To this day, some
regional variations of the Ukrainian language are linked to whether the particular part was
9
In that sense, the chapter aims to reflect both on geography in law and the law in geography as
coined by Trimble, Marketa Trimble, 'Intellectual Property Law and Geography' in Calboli, I and
Montagnani, M L (eds), Handbook on Intellectual Property Research (Oxford University Press 2021).
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governed by the Austro-Hungarian or the Russian Empire in the second half of the XIX-
beginning of the XX century.
10
Neither Empire (the Austro-Hungarian or the Russian) joined the Berne Convention. Austria
acceded to the Convention only after the dissolution of the Empire after World War I, but
neither the Russian Empire nor, in the aftermath, the Soviet Union did. Some states under the
Soviet Union were previously members of the Berne Union. Namely, both Estonia and Latvia
acceded to the Berne Convention after World War I, following the collapse of the Russian
Empire and the declaration of independence of, respectively, Estonian and Latvian republics
and their accession to the League of Nations in 1921.
11
The Ukrainian National Republic (UNR),
formed, similarly to other republics in the aftermath of the First World War, on the other
hand, did not get as far as joining the Convention. The UNR was recognised by, among others,
Austro-Hungary in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 1918,
12
but following the Ukrainian-Soviet
War in 1917-1921, its government went into exile. This coincided with the unsuccessful UNR’s
application for admission to the League of Nations in 1920. Therefore, unlike Estonia or Latvia,
the history of Ukraine’s accession to international copyright treaties started in 1995.
Between the two World Wars, Ukraine’s territories were controlled by the Second Polish
Republic in the west, the Kingdom of Romania in the south-west, the First Czechoslovak
Republic and later the Kingdom of Hungary in the far south-west and the Soviet Union in the
rest of Ukrainian territory. With the start of World War II in 1939 and the occupation of
Poland, parts of Ukraine were occupied by Germany and Hungary, and from 1941, with the
outbreak of war between the former allies, Germany and the Soviet Union, the territories
were controlled by Germany and the Soviet Union dependent on how the frontline was
moving. After the end of World War II and the 1951 Polish-Soviet territorial exchange, the
territory of Ukraine became occupied solely by the Soviet Union until 1991.
Below, I attempt to summarise applicable copyright rules on Ukraine’s territory from the late
XIX century until Ukraine’s Independence in 1991. I do not include the UNR (or the West
Ukrainian People’s Republic) because they did not adopt copyright laws.
We can divide this time period into four main periods, defining the copyright regimes in place:
• end of the XIX century until roughly 1918, with copyright rules of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and the Russian Empire,
10
See, for instance, research tracing differences between Western and Eastern Ukrainian texts,
which directly correlate with control over territory by different empires, Zaidan M. Lahjouji-Seppälä,
Achim Rabus, Ruprecht von Waldenfels, ‘Ukrainian standard variants in the 20th century: stylometry
to the rescue’ (2022) 46 Russ Linguist, 217–232.
11
Estonia acceded to the Berlin Act of 1908 with effect from June 9, 1927, and Latvia to the Rome Act
of 1928 with effect from May 15, 1937. List of the contracting parties to the Berne Convention with
information on the latest Act acceded to on the WIPO webpage
https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/treaties/en/docs/pdf/berne.pdf (accessed 24 August
2024). Both countries lost independence in 1940 to the Soviet Union and regained it after its collapse,
with a period of German occupation in 1941-1945.
12
Treaty of Peace between the Ukrainian People’s Republic of the One Part and Germany, Austria-
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey of the other part, of February 9, 1918, at Brest-Litovsk, where the
Ukrainian People’s Republic was recognized by the said states and diplomatic and consular relations
were to be established. Available at https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-
content/uploads/books/13936/file.pdf (accessed 24 August 2024).
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 5
• interwar period (roughly 1918-1939), with copyright rules of the Second Polish
Republic, the Kingdom of Romania, the First Czechoslovak Republic, the Kingdom of
Hungary, and the Soviet Union,
• World War II, with copyright rules of the Second Polish Republic, Germany, and the
Soviet Union,
• after World War II until Independence (1945-1991), with copyright rules of the Soviet
Union.
Below, I attempt to list the Berne Convention accession status of the respective states during
the period in which Ukrainian territories were ruled by them:
• the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (until roughly 1918) did not join the Berne Union,
• the Russian Empire (until roughly 1923) did not join the Berne Union,
• the Soviet Union (Interwar period and until Ukraine’s independence) did not join the
Berne Union,
• the Second Polish Republic (Interwar Period) joined the Berne Union in 1920,
• the Kingdom of Romania (Interwar Period) joined the Berne Union in 1926,
• the Kingdom of Hungary (Interwar Period) joined the Berne Union in 1922,
• the First Czechoslovak Republic (Interwar period) joined the Berne Union in 1921,
• Germany (World War Two) joined the Berne Union in 1887.
It is noteworthy that, for the most part of Ukrainian history, before regaining independence
in 1991, despite copyright rules in place, the respective states were not parts of the Berne
Union. This meant that, on the one hand, protection of works abroad only took place on the
basis of reciprocity under bilateral agreements, and, on the other hand, unless regulated by
bilateral agreements, access to foreign literature was unencumbered by copyright. It would
go beyond the scope of a chapter to analyse all the applicable copyright rules during particular
periods as outlined above. In the following, therefore, this contribution analyses the copyright
regimes in the two Empires, the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian, with a view of conditions
they created for the literature in Ukrainian in the late XIX - early XX centuries.
3. Empires and the Berne Union
Austria and Hungary did not join the Berne Union while still being a dual monarchy. From
1867, when the Habsburg Monarchy transformed into a dual union of two sovereign states,
both halves of the Empire had their own constitution, government and parliament. The
Austrian part of the Empire was often called Cisleithania.
13
This term will be occasionally used
in this chapter to analyse the law applicable in the Austrian part of the Empire. Austria will be
used to signify the Austrian half of the dual monarchy in relation to other states, including
Hungary.
The Austrian-Hungarian Empire’s non-accession to the Berne Convention was not unique; it
was also the case for the Russian Empire and, at the very beginning, the Dutch Empire.
14
There
were different reasons for that, but the chief one appears to be the recognition of exclusive
translation rights. For instance, translations were an important issue for the British Empire
due to its colonies and the aim to avoid copyright commitments that might complicate its
13
Referring to the river Leithe, serving as a border between Austria and Hungary. The Hungarian part
was often referred to as Transleithania.
14
The Netherlands joined the Berne Union in 1912.
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relations with its colonies and dominions.
15
The difference in literacy levels was a related issue
as the literacy rates were not particularly high and started to rise only towards the end of the
XIX century as a result of policies put in place.
16
Austrian and Hungarian delegations participated in the first Berne Conference in 1884,
whereas the Russian Empire did not.
17
The question of translation rights’ duration was one of
the central ones in debates from the very beginning. At this stage, it was not the exclusive
right of the author to authorise translation that was debated but the potential protection of
translations as independent works. France, Switzerland, and Haiti preferred to introduce
protection of translations that would last as long as copyright in general. Austria and Hungary
were among the ones against such a provision, they were also against the final draft
introducing protection of translations for the duration of ten years provided that translation
takes place within three years from the publication of the original work.
18
Austrian and Hungarian delegations did not participate in further negotiations, namely in the
next conference of 1885, in which the text of the soon-to-be-adopted Berne Convention was
finalised.
19
Article 6 of the Berne Convention of 1886 provided that lawful translations of
works were to be protected as original works, removing the previously discussed duration of
protection limits and the three-year requirement of publication.
20
In addition, Article 5 of the
Berne Convention of 1886 included the author’s exclusive right of making or authorising
translations for a period of 10 years from the date of the publication of the original work.
Following the adoption of the Act, new conferences followed. Despite the efforts of the
organising committee, Austrian, Hungarian, and Dutch delegations, all of whom were present
at the first conference in 1884, did not participate.
21
In 1896, the Paris Additional Act was
adopted, Article 5 was amended: authors retained the right of translation for the duration of
copyright, but it ceased to exist if the author had not made use of it in a concrete language
within the period of 10 years from the date of the publication of the original within the Union.
The Russian Empire sent a delegation to the next conference in Berlin in 1908 with the interest
15
Sara Bannerman, International Copyright and Access to Knowledge (Cambridge University Press
2016) 131, 134.
16
Canadian Prime Minister made, for instance, a remark in 1892 that the Berne Union is ill-suited for
Canada since the reading class there comprises nearly the whole population, unlike the European
countries, where it comprises a fraction of it. Sara Bannerman, International Copyright and Access to
Knowledge (Cambridge University Press 2016) 130.
17
Carl Junker, Die Berne Convention zum Schutze der Werke der Litteratur und Kunst und Österreich-
Ungarn (Alfred Holder 1900) 5. Other delegations came from Germany, Belgium, France,
Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Haiti, and Costa Rica. It is very telling that
commentators speak of civilized states as being represented, see ibid, 7 and Willem F. Grosheide,
‘The making of Auterswet 1912’ in Bernt P. Hugenholtz, Anton A. Quaedvlieg and Dirk J.G. Visser
(eds), A Century of Dutch Copyright Law: Auteurswet 1912-2012 (Delex 2012) 18.
18
Carl Junker, Die Berne Convention zum Schutze der Werke der Litteratur und Kunst und Österreich-
Ungarn (Alfred Holder 1900) 5-7.
19
The Berne Union was established in September 1886 by 8 states: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia and the United Kingdom.
20
Berne Convention, Berne (1886) in Lionel Bently and Martin Kretschmer (eds) Primary Sources on
Copyright (1450-1900), www.copyrighthistory.org.
21
Carl Junker, Die Berne Convention zum Schutze der Werke der Litteratur und Kunst und Österreich-
Ungarn (Alfred Holder 1900) 13. See also on the debate in the Netherlands in 1898, ibid, 40-41.
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of restricting the limited translation rights already enshrined in the Convention along with
Japanese and Dutch delegations without much success.
22
Austria-Hungary’s absence of engagement with the Berne Union has been explained by the
political situation within the Empire. The treatment of translation rights under the
Convention, which in Austria-Hungary received only limited protection, went against the
interests of different nationalities within the Empire in access to literature from other
languages.
23
The translation right was also an issue for the Dutch, where the national law
recognised the translation right, but it was not in the interest of Dutch book publishers to give
equal protection to foreign authors for economic reasons.
24
However, access to translating
foreign works does not depend solely on adherence to the Berne Convention, as will be
explored in the next part.
4. Austrian-Hungarian Empire: access to translations and national minorities
Austro-Hungarian time of Western Ukraine history has been formative in the late XIX – early
XX century for a variety of reasons. While a larger part of Ukraine’s territory during this time
was governed by the Russian Empire, the laws of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during this
period created favourable conditions for the development of Ukrainian science and literature,
which also prompted prominent Ukrainian scholars to relocate to Western Ukraine during this
period.
25
For this chapter, the Cisleithanian (that of the Austrian part of the Empire) copyright
is of interest.
26
The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, as well as the Duchy of Bukowina,
which governed most of the territories of Austria-Hungary which are nowadays Ukraine,
belonged to the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and only a small part in the
far south-west was under the Hungarian (Transleithanian) rule. This chapter further sheds
light on how the Cisleithanian copyright, in combination with the Austria-Hungary minorities
policy, influenced the conditions for literature in Ukrainian.
4.1. Cisleithanian (Austrian) copyright in the second half of XIX - early XX century
The history of codified Austrian copyright law starts with the 1846 Act, just a few years after
one of the very first bilateral copyright agreements was concluded between Austria and the
Kingdom of Sardinia in 1840. The agreement is said to be the first international treaty
involving a German-speaking country, and it appears to have provided a basis for the
22
Sara Bannerman, International Copyright and Access to Knowledge (Cambridge University Press
2016) 135-136.
23
Josef Schmidl, Das österreichische Urheberrecht an Werken der Literatur, Kunst und Photographie
(Duncker & Humblot 1906) 15.
24
Willem F. Grosheide, ‘The making of Auterswet 1912’ in Bernt P. Hugenholtz, Anton A. Quaedvlieg
and Dirk J.G. Visser (eds), A Century of Dutch Copyright Law: Auteurswet 1912-2012 (Delex 2012) 8,
also 11 on the argument on the damages caused by foreign works not being available at an
affordable price.
25
Among others, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, who was a historian, a member of the Shevchenko Scientific
Society, a professor at Lviv University, and the president of the Ukrainian National Republic.
26
For parts of the historical period, the Austrian Copyright Act was also applicable in Hungary (1853-
1861) but was followed up by the Hungarian Act after 1867 Ausglecih. On the history of Hungarian
copyright law, Peter Mezei and Tünde Szűcs, `Die historische Entwicklung des ungarischen
Urheberrechts bis zum ersten Gesetzentwurf.` Internationale Konferenz zum zehnjährigen Bestehen
des Instituts für Rechtsvergleichung der Universität Szeged, (Universität Potsdam 2014) 256-267.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 8
copyright provisions in the Act of 1846.
27
Article 1 stipulated that works or products of the
human spirit published in both states would enjoy property protection for the lifetime of their
authors and the right to make them public. Article 2 provided that the translation of works
from languages of the other state will be protected as original works and be subject to Article
1. In order to receive protection, an author would have to communicate a wish to translate
his or her works and indeed publish a translation within six months of the original publication.
On 19 October 1846, the Law for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Property against
unauthorised publication, reprint and reproduction was adopted in Austria.
28
While Article 5
defined what was not to be regarded as a reprint, paragraph 6 laid down that translation into
any language was not to be regarded as a reprint, except when an author explicitly reserved
making translation in all or particular language(s) on the cover page and published translation
within a year of the publication of the original. Hence, an author enjoyed an exclusive
translation right for at least one year. Protection under the Act, in accordance with Article 39,
extended to works published outside German territories, in so far as there was reciprocity,
i.e., works published in Austrian territories would be protected on the same conditions as
works published in that country.
The Act of 1846 was in place for almost 50 years until the new Law on Copyright for Works of
Literature, Art, and Photography was adopted on 26 December 1895.
29
Translation rights
were treated more explicitly this time. Article 23 listed translation, in addition to publication,
reproduction and distribution, as one of the author’s exclusive rights. Article 28 further
specified that the author’s exclusive right to translation is only valid when it is reserved by the
author for all or particular languages. For this, the author must put a statement on translation
on the title page, preface or the side of all the copies. Reservations would become void after
three years for the reserved languages for which no translation has been made. Article 47 laid
down the term of protection for the exclusive right to translate a work, which ended five years
after the authorised publication of the translation reserved under the exclusive right.
Hence, instead of holding that translation did not constitute a right but acknowledging a
temporary monopoly for, at the very least, one year, the 1895 Law recognised translation as
an exclusive right, subject to the requirement of explicit reservation, valid for three years if
no translation has been published or for five years if a translation has been published. There
was, however, an additional provision, Article 29, which secured authors the exclusive
translation right without the need to place a reservation in 3 concrete cases. The first case
was before a work was lawfully published; the second was when a work was written in a dead
language for translations into living languages; and the third was when a work was
simultaneously published in different languages for translations into these languages.
Interestingly, the Dutch Copyright Act of 1881 was very similar with respect to translation
rights: an author was granted an exclusive right of translation (which had to be reserved for
one or more languages) as long as the translation was published within three years of the
27
Friedemann Kawohl, ‘Commentary on the Bilateral Treaty between Austria and Sardinia (1840)', in
Lionel Bently and Martin Kretschmer (eds) Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900)
www.copyrighthistory.org (2008).
28
Allerhöchstes Patent vom 19. Oktober 1846 zum Schutze des literarischen und artistischen
Eigenthums gegen unbefugte Veröffentlichung, Nachdruck und Nachbildung.
29
Gesetz vom 26. Dezember 1895 betreffend das Urheberrecht an Werken der Literatur, Kunst und
Photographie.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 9
original publication.
30
The right was granted for five years for printed works and for as long as
the copyright subsisted for unpublished works, including oral presentations.
31
The
Netherlands also did not join the Berne Convention during this time period. The Dutch
Copyright Act was binding to the Dutch East Indies and applied to works published in print in
the Netherlands or Dutch East Indies, thus likely impacting the availability of translations in
languages other than Dutch on these territories.
The Austrian Act of 1895 provided for the registration of works, presumably for statistical
purposes.
32
Important to note is to what works the 1895 Act applied. Under Article 1,
protection was granted to works published in Austria and works of Austrian citizens
irrespective of whether and where they were published. Under Article 2, works published in
the German Reich and works of German Reich’s citizens, irrespective of whether published,
for as long those works would be protected there, were also granted protection. For all the
other works, protection would depend on the content of the concluded agreements.
What exactly was meant by the German Reich and how this played out in the Austrian-
Hungarian Empire is not quite straightforward. German Reich usually refers to Germany as a
state resulting from unification taking place in the years 1871 to 1918. The reason for this
special treatment in the Austrian copyright law of that time comes, however, from the earlier
times. The Austrian Copyright Act of 1846 mentions the German Confederation (Deutscher
Bund) in a similar, although not identical, provision. The latter was an association of
predominantly German-speaking states in the first half of the XIX century.
33
In 1837, an
agreement between the state parties to the German Confederation (including, among others,
Prussia, Bavaria and the Austrian Empire) provided reciprocal copyright protection within the
Confederation, guaranteeing protection against reprinting, originally lasting for ten years.
34
The reciprocity provision for works published in the German Reich directly impacted the
possibility of translating books in German from outside Austria in parts of Austria with the
Ukrainian population. Although the earlier German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) included
Austria, it did so not entirely, as only predominately German-speaking parts became part of
the Confederation. The Duchy of Bukowina did not belong to the Confederation, and only a
very small part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria for some period did belong to the
Confederation.
35
Hence, the reciprocity provision between Austria and the German Reich did
30
Article 5 Copyright Act, Wildungen (1881), in Lionel Bently and Martin Kretschmer (eds) Primary
Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), www.copyrighthistory.org
31
Ibid, 16.
32
Article 44 Austrian Copyright Act 1895. The details submitted were not checked, and the
information was made public. The registration forms were also translated into other languages of
the Empire.
33
https://www.britannica.com/topic/German-Confederation (accessed 24 August 2024).
34
Directive for reciprocal copyright protection within the German Confederation, Berlin (1837), in
Lionel Bently and Martin Kretschmer (eds) Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900),
www.copyrighthistory.org.
At the time of this agreement, no copyright law was codified in Austria, but the Prussian Copyright
Act had been in place since 1837. The Prussian Act evidently inspired the Austrian one in 1846, as
the latter almost verbatim reproduced the relevant provisions on translations. The Austrian
Copyright Act of 1846, however, only placed a one-year author’s “embargo” period on translations in
selected languages, whereas the Prussian had three years.
35
Namely, the Duchy of Auschwitz and Zator.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 10
not apply in Bukowina and most of Galicia.
36
This meant that works published in the German
Reich did not, in fact, enjoy the protection they would otherwise have in Austria (including
translation) in the territories of nowadays Ukraine.
4.2. National minorities policy, literacy and publications in Galicia and Bukowina
Following the 1848 Revolution, Article 19 of the Austrian Constitution of 1867 proclaimed all
ethnic groups equal and granted them an inviolable right to preserve and cultivate their
nationality and language.
37
Article 19 also established the equality of all languages common
in a particular region in schools, administration, and public spaces. In lands with various ethnic
groups present, the public education system was to be organised so that each group had the
means to be educated in its own language without being forced to learn a second regional
language.
38
Although this remained a hardly achievable objective, literacy in the mother
tongue increased substantially.
A language survey was first carried out in 1880 and later in 1910 with the aim of mapping out
the groups and the languages.
39
Rather tellingly, only one option could be chosen for the
language of common communication, i.e. the daily vernacular (Umgangssprache).
40
According
to the results of the 1910 census, the Ruthenian-speaking population (Ukrainian) was the fifth
largest group among 51,35 million inhabitants of Austria-Hungary, after German, Magyar,
Czech/Slovak and Polish speakers. In Galicia, 1,13% of the population was German-speaking,
58.55% was Polish-speaking, and 40.2% was Ruthenian-speaking.
41
Different language groups
were furthermore spread unevenly. Western Galicia, with Krakow and its surroundings,
nowadays Poland, had a predominantly Polish-speaking population, while Eastern Galicia,
nowadays Ukraine, was home to a predominantly Ruthenian-speaking population.
The 1910 map of languages and nationalities shows that in most parts of Eastern Galicia,
Ruthenians (Ukrainians) comprised between 50% and over 80% of the population, with only
some regions falling into the range of 25% to 50%. The same goes for most parts of Bukowina.
Also, some parts of northeast Hungary bordering Galicia had a substantial Ruthenian-speaking
36
Carl Junker, Die Berne Convention zum Schutze der Werke der Litteratur und Kunst und Österreich-
Ungarn (Alfred Holder 1900) 51-53.
37
Staatsgrundgesetz vom 21. December 1867, über die allgemeinen Rechte der Staatsbürger für die
im Reichsrathe vertretenen Königreiche und Länder.
38
In practice, there were instances where letters were not opened or answered because they were
in a language other than typically German, and there were disputes as to what language should have
been used along with other ones in a particular municipality. Michaela Wolf, The Habsburg
Monarchy’s Many-Languaged Soul (John Benjamins Publishing Company 2015) 67-72.
39
So-called “Umgangssprachen”, which have contributed significantly to the process of cementing
identities and promoting national ascriptions., Michaela Wolf, The Habsburg Monarchy’s Many-
Languaged Soul (John Benjamins Publishing Company 2015) 38.
40
For critique, see Pieter H. van der Planck, ‘Effects of Habsburg educational policies measured by
census statistics’ [2012] Jezikoslovlje, 13(2), 384-385, especially on migration between the lands and
the need to conform to the social settings, as well as the vulnerability of socially dependent or
illiterate on help from authorities for filling the forms.
41
Yiddish was counted as German-speaking, Michaela Wolf, The Habsburg Monarchy’s Many-
Languaged Soul (John Benjamins Publishing Company 2015) 39.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 11
population of over 80%.
42
German-speaking population in these regions was concentrated
around larger cities in Galicia (in Lviv (Lemberg), 2-5%) and Eastern Bukowina (20-50%).
43
However, it is also important to keep in mind that Yiddish was not classified separately and
was counted under the German language.
44
Ruthenians were among the least literate groups in Austria-Hungary, which also led to them
being underrepresented in state and local governments.
45
A considerable increase in
Ruthenians’ literacy during the second half of the XIX century was due to the increased
availability of schools in the vernacular language.
46
The 1848 Revolution resulted in the
abolishment of serfdom, the Constitution of 1867 proclaiming all ethnic groups equal, and the
introduction of compulsory elementary education lasting eight years (in Galicia from 1873).
Indeed, between 1851 and 1910 in Galicia, schools with German as the language of instruction
diminished from 9 to 1 (German speakers in Galicia only made up an insignificant minority of
300,000 persons) schools, and the number of Polish and Ruthenian ones increased from 6 to
87. Important to note is that schools with a language of instruction other than German had a
mission to educate bilingual graduates, so German was an important part of the curriculum,
but not vice versa.
47
School education, including in foreign languages, was important for
Ukrainians’ participation in political life, even if fewer pupils attended them than schools in
other languages.
48
Furthermore, reading clubs, emerging all across the Galician countryside
with a predominantly Ruthenian population, contributed to increasing literacy and spreading
ideas.
49
In the mid-1880s, there were about 800 Ukrainian reading clubs, and by 1914 – over
3000.
50
42
Helmut Rumpler, Martin Seger, Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918. Band 9: Soziale Strukturen
(Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2010) 64-65. The languages spoken also
correlated with religion; three million Ruthenians in Galicia, mostly farmers, belonged mostly to the
Greek-Catholic church, whereas in Bukowina, Ruthenians belonged mostly to the Greek Orthodox
church. Ibid, 78, 80-81.
43
Ibid, 61-62.
44
95% of Jews reported German as their language of use. So, when Bukowina had 22% German-
speaking and 41% Ukrainian-speaking population, 58% of the German-speaking population were
Jewish. Helmut Rumpler, Martin Seger, Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918. Band 9: Soziale
Strukturen (Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2010) 1409.
45
John-Paul Khimka, Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth
Century (Macmillan Press, 1988) 15, 60. In 1842, only 15% of school-aged children attended schools,
compared to 94% in Bohemia and 75% in Austria, excluding Galicia. Galicia’s illiteracy was only
exceeded by Bukowina and Dalmatia.
46
Pieter H. van der Planck, ‘Effects of Habsburg educational policies measured by census statistics’
[2012] Jezikoslovlje, 13(2), 377.
47
Ibid, 378.
48
John-Paul Khimka, Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth
Century (Macmillan Press, 1988) 62.
49
Priests and teachers would read aloud to the audience, so even those who could not read could
participate. John-Paul Khimka, Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the
Nineteenth Century (Macmillan Press, 1988) 86-87. Membership fees were used to purchase books
and subscriptions for periodicals.
50
Ibid, 90.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 12
In 1910, 58% of the population in Galicia and Bukowina could read; the average in the Austrian
part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was considerably higher, 83,5%.
51
Some who could read
could not write. The availability of literature in Ukrainian has obviously been important for
the increase in literacy among the largely peasant Ruthenian population. This also goes for
the availability of foreign literature, which could have been translated by Ukrainians skilled in
foreign languages for the benefit of Ukrainian readers or read by those able to read the
foreign language and enrich the public or private discourse. In 1889, in Galicia and Bukowina,
263 publications in Ruthenian were reported to the authorities, and in later years, it increased
to around 450 publications in 1900, with 5% of them being translations.
52
Whereas German-
language press in Austria-Hungary was in an inferior position to the one in Germany, press in
other languages of the Empire was leading, as was the case for Polish and Ruthenian press
with Krakow and Lviv as cultural centres, competing with Warsaw and Kyiv, which were at the
time both under the Russian Empire’s rule.
53
The reliability of the official statistics for Ukrainian publications raises questions, as, for
instance, schoolbooks and journals were not monitored. The doubt also applies to the
proportion of translations published, as those were also published in periodicals, such as in
the Notes of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv.
54
Researchers studying publications did
not find Ruthenian among private advertisements or bureau advertisements in the press
during these times.
55
This could be partially due to bilingual education and literacy in Polish
alongside Ruthenian. At the same time, a lot of translations were happening in the public
sphere, as all the laws were to be translated into minority languages, for which the Editorial
Office of the Austrian Law Gazette was responsible.
56
All the Cisleithanian (Austrian) laws
were being translated into Ruthenian (Ukrainian) from 1849 until 1918, except between 1853
and 1870.
57
51
Helmut Rumpler, Martin Seger, Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918. Band 9: Soziale Strukturen
(Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2010) 77. Although the percentage is by
no means exceptionally high, this has to be seen towards the percentage of the literate population in
Europe generally. With the expansion of enrollment at schools, the second half of the XIX century
saw a dramatic increase in literacy rates. Joerg Baten, Schooling, literacy and numeracy in 19th
century Europe: long-term development and hurdles to efficient schooling (UNESCO Global Education
Monitoring Report 2022).
52
Carl Junker, Die Berne Convention zum Schutze der Werke der Litteratur und Kunst und Österreich-
Ungarn (Alfred Holder 1900) 88.
53
Murray G. Hall, ‘Carl Junker. Zum Buchweisen in Österreich. Gesammelte Schriften (1896-1927)
(Edition Praesens 2001) 160.
54
The notes included scientific publications, reviews of publications, and translations. Oleh
Kupchynskyi, Vasyl Maiher, Bibliografia Zapysok Naukovogo tovarystva imeni Tarasa Shevchenka
1892-2000 (Naukove Tovarystvo imeni Taras Shevchenka 2003).
55
Michaela Wolf, The Habsburg Monarchy’s Many-Languaged Soul (John Benjamins Publishing
Company 2015) 123.
56
Ibid, 71-72.
57
The issues can be found in the Austrian National Library Archive
https://alex.onb.ac.at/static_tables/rbg_nichtdeutsch.htm (accessed 24 August 2024). From the
1896 issue, the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) translation corresponds to modern Ukrainian. The translations
could be subject to further research on the development of Ukrainian language.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 13
5. Russian Empire: a whole different story
The Russian Empire did not join the Berne Union, also not after the 1917 Revolution. Of
course, the Russian Empire never dissolved but instead transformed into another type of
Empire, namely the Soviet Union. This part briefly deals with copyright in the Russian Empire
until the 1917 February Revolution. As was mentioned earlier, the Russian Empire did not
participate in the initial Berne Conference in 1884 but in the Berlin Conference in 1908, where
it advocated for restricting the limited translation rights already enshrined in the
Convention.
58
At the time of the Berne Convention negotiations, some copyright protection was recognised
in the Russian Empire. However, it was strongly influenced by censorship, which, unlike in
Austria-Hungary, had not been abolished in the mid-XIX century. The first copyright provisions
were introduced into the Law on Censorship of 22 April 1828, giving authors and translators
exclusive rights to use their publications during their lifetime plus 25 years, as long as
publications passed censorship.
59
Only in 1911 was a separate Copyright Act adopted. The Act
applied to citizens of the Empire or works published within the Empire and allowed translation
of works published abroad without authorisation unless otherwise agreed in bilateral treaties.
The latter comprised a few short-lived agreements.
60
At the time of the Berne Convention’s inception in 1886, there had been a considerable
increase in literacy throughout Europe following the 1864 Revolution and the improvement
of access to school education.
61
In the Russian Empire, however, the level of literacy remained
very low; in 1897, only 24% of the population over nine years was literate, and the literal
population concentrated in the westmost parts, what is now the territory of Finland, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania and Eastern Poland, plus Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
62
Parts of today’s
Ukraine, which the Russian Empire ruled at the time, reported literacy rates in the range of
10-30%, which is considerably lower than that in Western Ukraine under Austrian-Hungarian
rule (around 58% in 1910).
The chains around intellectual production in the Russian Empire prevented the blooming of
literature and art.
63
Despite absent or very scarce obligations to protect foreign works, the
amount of literature imported from, for instance, Austria remained very low due to
censorship.
64
Censorship targeted not only literal production but also politically unacceptable
images, which glorified national movements by portraying historical figures or
contemporaries important to national movements, such as Mykhailo Drahomanov for
58 Sara Bannerman, International Copyright and Access to Knowledge (Cambridge University Press
2016) 135-136.
59
Law on Censorship of 22 April 1828, §§133-139.
60
Allan P. Cramer, ‘International Copyright and the Soviet Union’ [1965] Duke Law Journal 3, 533-
534.
61
Joerg Baten, Schooling, literacy and numeracy in 19th century Europe: long-term development and
hurdles to efficient schooling (UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report 2022).
62
https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/Revolutionary-patterns-of-education For the map,
see
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Russa_literacy_1897.jpg (accessed 24
August 2024).
63
Carl Junker, Die Berne Convention zum Schutze der Werke der Litteratur und Kunst und Österreich-
Ungarn (Alfred Holder 1900) 41.
64
Ibid, 88.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 14
Ukraine.
65
Considering the low literacy rates among the Ukrainian population, censorship of
images had a great impact.
66
Still, the scale and effectiveness of the art censorship in Imperial
Russia were not even close to the one that existed in the Soviet Union later.
67
The situation for Ukrainians in the Russian Empire was very different from that in Austria-
Hungary. In the Austrian part, from 1864, the use of different languages of ethnic minorities
was protected by the Constitution, but in the Russian Empire, the use of Ukrainian was
explicitly forbidden. In 1863, the Minister of Interior, Valuev, sent out the so-called Valuev
Circular, limiting the scope of publications in Ukrainian primarily to belles-lettres and banning
all literature directed at common people.
68
Most of the population in western Gubernias
(Bessarabia, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv, Polissja, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Kherson) was Ukrainian-
speaking, comprising between 70 and 93% of the population in those regions.
69
The anticipated increase in peasant literacy was mentioned as a relevant circumstance for
introducing the ban, alongside the demand for loyalty to the Russian nation (where Ukrainian
cultural activities were considered subversive) and long-term fears of the Ukrainian
movement.
70
The significance of the ban on Ukrainian-language education is highlighted by
the comments from the Minister of Education, which pointed out that the dissemination of
books and ideas, as well as developing each language or dialect grammatically, was useful for
public enlightenment, for which the Ministry was responsible.
71
At the same time, contra
intuitively, Minister Valuev, who introduced the circular, denied the existence of the
Ukrainian language altogether.
72
The circular had a devasting impact on the Ukrainian editions published.
73
The number of
editions was reduced from 33 in 1862 to 9 at best, mostly ranging from 2 to 4 in 1865-1873,
including editions in both Ukrainian and Russian.
74
Valuev Circular was later followed up by a
secret Decree from the Tsar, known as the Ems Decree of 1876, which aimed to stop the
65
Gennadii Kazakevych, Olga Kazakevych, ‘Limiting the View. Censorship of Fine Arts in the Russian
Empire, 1865-1905’ [2019] Codrul Cosminului XXV (2), 259-261.
66
Ibid, 251-254.
67
Ibid 263.
68
Johannes Remy, Brothers or Enemies: The Ukrainian National Movement and Russia from the
1840s to the 1870s (University of Toronto Press 2016) 87.
69
Pervaya vseobschaya perepis’ naseleniya Rossiyskoy imperii 1897 goda [1897 – 1905] 1-6.
http://elib.shpl.ru/ru/nodes/12632-pervaya-vseobschaya-perepis-naseleniya-rossiyskoy-imperii-
1897-goda-spb-1897-1905?view=list (accessed 24 August 2024). In the census Ukrainian is referred
to as little Russian. The highest % of the Ukrainian-speaking population resided in the Poltava region
-93%, followed by Kyiv, Kharkiv and Podillia region – 80%, slightly less Ekaterinburg 68 % and
Kherson 53%. In this region, the highest % of Russian speaking was in Khrakiv region – 18%, followed
by Kherson at 14%, otherwise only between 2 and 6 %.
70
Johannes Remy, Brothers or Enemies: The Ukrainian National Movement and Russia from the
1840s to the 1870s (University of Toronto Press 2016) 90.
71
Ibid, 94.
72
Ibid, 92.
73
The number of Ukrainian-language books has been increasing in the late 1850s and early 1860s,
especially books directed to common people; Johannes Remy, Brothers or Enemies: The Ukrainian
National Movement and Russia from the 1840s to the 1870s (University of Toronto Press 2016) 61-
91, 92, 108.
74
Ibid, 97.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 15
printing and distribution of publications in the Ukrainian language within the Russian Empire.
Literature in Ukrainian, as well as public readings and staging of plays, musical text and
orthography published in 1857, was prohibited, and all the literature in Ukrainian had to be
removed from school libraries. Schoolteachers with Ukraine sympathies were to be
transferred to other provinces of the Empire.
75
6. Copyright cross-roads in Europe in the late XIX – early XX century and literature in
Ukrainian
The Berne Convention is among the international agreements with the widest participation,
comprising 181 Contracting Parties as of 2024. This has not always been the case. Since the
adoption of the Convention in 1886, the Berne Union comprised only 12 states at the turn of
the century, with another five Contracting Parties joining by the 1920s. The negations of the
Convention took place just a few decades after the 1848 Revolutions and the removal or
loosening of state censorship and serfdom during a period of increasing literacy. The first
considerable wave of accessions occurred in the Interwar period, with 17 Contracting Parties
joining between 1920 and 1939. This time period coincided with many historical events,
starting with the collapse of empires (notably the Austrian-Hungarian Empire), the First World
War, to the emergence of new states in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-
1920.
Like some other modern European nations, Ukrainians did not succeed in obtaining
international recognition for a national state in this historical period. For most of the late
XIX—early XX century, Ukrainians resided on territory that geographically belonged almost
entirely to either the Austro-Hungarian or the Russian Empire. The spatial dimension of the
Ukrainian population settlement was, in many respects, decisive for the fate of literature in
Ukrainian both due to copyright and censorship regimes in place, as well as explicit
regulations of publications in Ukrainian such as was in place in the Russian Empire.
Whereas neither the Austro-Hungarian nor the Russian Empire joined the Berne Union, the
motivation behind the decision and its effects on literature in Ukrainian were different.
Austria-Hungary participated in the very first Berne Congress in 1884 and opposed
recognition of broad rights of translation for foreign works on the basis of them contradicting
its policies towards ethnic minorities, in particular, access to translations into minority
languages. The Russian Empire was present at a later Congress in Berlin in 1908 and similarly
opposed a broad right of translation due to its interests as an “importing” state while at the
same time banning publications in Ukrainian as a minority language.
The literacy rates in the mid-XIX century, both in Western Ukraine (Austria-Hungary) and in
Eastern Ukraine (Russian Empire), were lower than in many parts of Europe at that time. The
Ukrainian-speaking population was largely peasant. However, literacy rates in the Russian
Empire were much lower than in Austria-Hungary. The increase in literacy among the
population had been on the agenda of both Empires, but it had different outcomes for the
Ukrainian-speaking population, in particular, due to the differences in the treatment of the
Ukrainian language.
In Western Ukraine, following the introduction of protection of the inviolable right to
preserve and cultivate nationality and language for ethnic groups under the Austrian
75
Ibid, 216.
Draft - 14092024 - Liliia Oprysk 16
Constitution, Ukrainian has received the status of minority language in Galicia and Bukowina,
which led to its use in public life, de jure on equal footing with German and Polish. Due to the
accessibility of school education in the native language and the establishment of reading
clubs, the demand for access to literature in Ukrainian increased. Translations into Ukrainian
could be made without the authorisation and compensation of foreign authors, including
from Germany, as Austria-Hungary did not join the Berne Union. Despite the treaty in place
with German-speaking countries other than Austria, books from there could also freely be
translated because the treaty did not cover the non-predominantly German-speaking parts
of the Empire, such as the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.
The situation differed in Eastern Ukraine, which geographically belonged to the Russian
Empire. First of all, although translations of foreign works similarly did not require
authorisation of foreign authors due to non-accession to the Berne Convention, access to
works was restricted due to strong censorship. The literacy levels were much lower than in
Austro-Hungary, but the special regulations taken for the Ukrainian language substantially
limited the possibilities of obtaining a school education in Ukrainian and the possibility of
disseminating literature in Ukrainian. First, the Valuev Circular placed a ban on the literature
in Ukrainian for common people in 1863, then the Ems Decree in 1876 banned translations
into Ukrainian and the publication of children’s books. This has had a devastating impact on
the development of literacy in the native Ukrainian language and the availability of literature,
forcing the population to learn Russian instead.
Copyright in Europe is currently viewed through the prism of human rights, including
protection of property rights and freedom of speech. Copyright’s international harmonisation
came into being in the mid-XIX century when many censorship laws were repealed and
serfdom abolished in many parts of Europe. At the same time, the protection in place today
was also starting to take shape at the moment when literacy was rather low by today’s
standards. The perception of the Berne Convention as the great success of civilised nations
coming together to protect the results of intellectual labour could be more nuanced. For the
first decades of the Berne Convention’s existence, it did not attract a lot of parties, mainly
because of the wide-reaching translation rights, privileging the author of the original work
while threatening to impose liability on translators and publishers of translations,
76
preventing the spread of knowledge and ideas at the time when it was crucial for raising
literacy levels.
This chapter illustrates how the geography of copyright regimes in Europe and (non)accession
to the Berne Convention at the end of the XIX—the beginning of the XX century intertwined
with other domestic policies and influenced the access to literature in minority languages on
the example of Ukraine and publications in Ukrainian. Although neither the Austrian-
Hungarian nor the Russian Empire joined the Berne Convention because of translation rights,
the access to literature in Ukrainian, including translations of foreign works, varied and also
impacted access to education and literature in a mother tongue. The chapter thus also sheds
light on the significance of copyright policies for access to knowledge and education,
particularly in multi-national states.
76
Sara Bannerman, International Copyright and Access to Knowledge (Cambridge University Press
2016) 100.
