Our country has a very long and tangled history. But the most interesting period of its development is a border of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It is the time when the capitalism came into its highest stage. Then Kharkov continued its development as the massive industrial and railway business centre. As we know at that time Kharkov belonged to Russia. By 1917 a number of enterprises of the mechanical engineering and metal working industry exceeded 150, and a number of workers was about 35 thousand.

The development of industry in the country, specially in the South of Russia, raised the requirements of industrial personnel. So in Kharkov in 1885 The Polytechnic Institute was opened, then in 1873 The Commercial specialised school was opened. And in 1878 68 educational establishments were working, where 7849 people studied. But most of the students were from prosperous families. The public actually made a valuable contribution to the development of the education and the culture of the city. In Kharkov a lot of Sundays schools were opened, in 1886 the city Artistic museum was formed, in 1874 the Opera House appeared; then in Kharkov monuments to different great people, for example to Gogol, Push kin, Karasin were established. At the same time in 1886 the public library began to work, but unfortunately this library was not well- known among the common people. The level of Kharkov's development raised, and at the same time the quantity of people who were settling in the territory of the city also raised. The government of the country paid a special attention to the central and the Northern parts of the city. There private mansions of the rich people, thrived bourgeois, the merchants were erected. But the worker districts and the suburbs were sinking in the mud and they were deprived of the water, the sanitation, the roadways and many other conveniences. Bad living conditions, capitalistic exploitation, a low salary, the absence of the political legal rights evoked a strong protest of the people.

In 1870-1880s Kharkov is one of the centres of the national volunteers. Different circles were created. The events of this time inspired many writers and authors to spelling books where they could freely talk about the despotism, which took place then, about their thoughts of what was happening. In the early twentieth century people could more often hear statements about the Russian tsarism, now we know from the lessons of the Ukrainian history that sometimes there were not only words about the tyranny, there were real revolutions. Situation like this has been lasted for many years. Actually the peace came only after the Second World War.

After Kharkov's liberating the great and intensive work of its restoration began. The financial damage was about 33,5 billion roubles. The whole country helped the city to reconstruct Kharkov. In 1945 already 600 industrial factories and plants worked, in 1948 the amount of the produced production reached the pre-war level. But the development was not just about the industry and the science, it was also about the culture of our country. Since 5 years after the victory the network of the l research was widened: there were 42 scientific research centres, 25 higher educational establishments, 6 theatres, the Philharmonic Society, 53 clubs and Palaces of Culture, 410 libraries with the book fund of nearly 9 millions copies, 2 museums, 67 cinemas. The writers', the artists' unions resumed their own activities, the newspapers.
All the workers of Kharkov were filled with enthusiasm, because the government of the Soviet Union expressed a high opinion of them. So they finished the last five-year periods ahead of schedule time. Kharkov also took the role of the large scientific and cultural centre of the country. In general Kharkov was and is a city of students. Now thousand students study In 46 higher educational establishments. In, Kharkov a lot of new monuments and memorials appeared. Here in Kharkov very many distinguished architects and sculptors were born. Thanks to M. Vronskiy, A. Sidorenko we have the monument to V. I. Lenin in the square of Dzerzhinskiy. Among the best monuments of the national art are the monument to the Fighters of October's revolution ( an architect L. V. Gurova), the monument to Sverdlov ( Y. I. Rik) and many, manyothers. In 1977 in our Forest-park the memorial Complex of Glory, the memory to the ruined people in the Second World War, was opened. I'd like to notice without fail that Kharkov has always been the enter of the library affair. Already in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries wealthy townspeople had the libraries for their own use. Little perish libraries were created and a very rich library was organised attached to Kharkov's Collegian. In 1761 a special building for this library was built. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were already two big libraries: the library of the Kharkov's University and of the first masculine gymnasium. At the same time there was an attempt to open the first public library. The founder of the kharkov's University V. N. Karasin promoted a lot to this undertaking. By the way it was he, who gave the selection of several books to this library a bit later. And after all It was opened but actually it dragged out a wretched existence and very soon it was closed because of an absence of the money resources. The Social library, which is called the National Korolenko's scientific library now, was formed only in 1886 and then it was called the Public library. At first the book fund of it was 1700 volumes. In 1901 the public saved up a lot of money and the building of the library was built. Precisely an architect, the member of the Academy A. N. Beketov drew up the plan of the building. Now we can see this building at the following address: the side-street Korolenko, 18. That's why it was called and it is called now the Central scientific Korolenko library.

After that a number of other libraries appeared: a medical one, an agricultural library and many others. In 1897 the library attached to the Congress of the southern mining workers of Russia was formed. Nowadays it's the central scientific and technical library of the Kharkov's information centre.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Kharkov's society of the spreading the literacy created the series of folk reading-rooms. A bit later the people's readings were carried out. A great interest was about the anniversary readings dedicated to A.S.Pushkin, M.U.Lermontov, I.A.Krilov, two centenary of Poltavskaya battle.

In the second half of the twentieth century in Kharkov many club entertainment establishments of the bourgeois landowner's society appeared: a commercial club, clubs of the economical, merchant's and the officer's assemblies. In 1903 in February the People's House of the dissemination of the education was built. Today it is Palace of Culture. It had two halls and a reading-room. It was very popular among ordinary people as there were evening schools, mass concerts, different performances there. Amateur dramatic circles were run by Hotkevich, later he became a very famous Ukrainian writer and ethnographer, by G.S.Alekseev, the brother of a soviet director and a very talented actor K.S.Stanislavskiy, whose real surname was Alekseev. An outstanding Russian singer Shalyapin several times appeared in the People's House. But the government steadily watched the activity of it. And after the first Russian revolution in 1907 the People's House was closed and fired by the order of the governor general.

In Kharkov together with the appearing of the libraries and clubs some gardens and parks were opened, for example: the University garden, the garden of Kulikovskiy, Osnovyanskaya copse. The first public garden with the payment for the entrance was turned on in 1858 on Rimarskaya street. In the evenings dances were organized, on Sundays fireworks were arranged. In the mete sixties "Bavariya", "Tivoli", "Shato-de-Fler" and many other gardens were established. The first beds of the park which we call now the park of Gorkiy were in 1893-1895. The official opening of it happened in 1907. In 1895 a very famous scientist M.F.lvanov took an active role in the creation of a zoo.

In the nineteenth century a lot of museums were opened. The first of them was the museum of Kharkov's fine arts in 1837. The collection of it started in 1803-1804 when V.N.Karasin gave to the museum 2477 prints. The museum was generally available in 1870. There were about 10 thousand exhibits including the paintings of 280 Italian and Russian artists. The museum arranged exhibitions of the pictures of Peredvizhniks, painters of the nineteenth century Russian realistic school with democratic tendencies. In 1902 the department of the antiquity was formed. It was created to the XII archaeological Congress. The first theatre performance in the city took place in 1780 during the celebration of Kharkov's vice-gerency. The first constantly active theatre was opened in 1791. The troupe consisted of the students, who left the government colleges, and officials. The plays there were a success. But the theatre didn't exist very long. In 1796 performances were ended because of the mourning. The reason is that the death of Ekaterina II was announced. But in 1808 it was restored. In 1868 Maliy theatre was opened, where the opera company of Berger was working. The conductor of it was a very famous Russian composer K.P.Vilboa. In 1874 the lyric theatre was built on Ekaterinoslavskaya street in Kharkov. Now we know this part of the city as the street of Sverdlova.

At the end of the nineteenth century the cinematography was born. In 1896-1902 a photographer A. K. Fedeckiy was a first person in Ukraine who shot and showed factual films. In 1917 on the Eve of Great October 10 dumb cinemas existed.

Great transformations in the cultural building happened in Kharkov after the victory of Great October. The city became one of the most considerable centres of the cultural life of the republic. To satisfy the rising demand of the workers in newspapers, books, magazines a lot of libraries were opened. Party and worker libraries were created attached to the party committees, the governments of the professional unions and clubs. And all the private libraries were nationalized. To the fifteenth jubilee of the Soviet power in Kharkov there besides the Central national Korolenko's library with 796 thousand of volumes there were also 6 scientific libraries for a mass use, 317 libraries attached to schools, institutions of higher education and scientific offices. In general in 1932 777 libraries and the central office for the distribution of books to libraries worked in Kharkov. The book found in 1940 was over 2 million volumes.

In 1922 The Central Institute of Bibliography was formed in Kharkov. Later it became the centre of the state bibliography, of the statistics and the centralized cataloguing of the press and the bibliology. From the day it was opened it started to receive compulsory copies of the published production of the whole republic.

During the period of reconstruction (1921-1925) every big plant and factory had worker clubs where a lot of sections worked, for example: dramatic, choral, musical, artistic one and many others. A wide network of the cultural life and the rest organized.

In the city's park of Gorkiy a green theatre, a cinema, a reading pavilion, different sideshows, children's town and a radio broadcasting center. In 1929 Kharkov's Philharmonic Society was formed with the symphony orchestra.

Plenum of the International Bureau of the revolutionary literature was hold in 1930 in November. The delegates of other republics of the West were present there: Ernst Gleser, Anna Zegers, Sella 1llesh, Louie Aragon and many others.

German fascists made an enormous damage to the cultural values Iof Kharkov during the period of the Second World War. They barbarously destroyed and annihilated libraries, clubs, theatres and museum collections. At once after the liberation of our city dedicated Kharkovites performed a vast work to reconstruct institutions of the culture. Half a month later 21 libraries, the historical museum, 8 cinemas functioned. 3 years later in 1948 there were 7 theatres, 53 clubs and palaces of Culture, 67 cinemas, 410 libraries with the found about 9 million copies in Kharkov. In 1949 a lot of plays were on the stage of Kharkov's dramatic theatre. By the way in 1960 it was renamed to the theatre of the young onlookers.

After the consummation of these restored works new offices of the culture began to open in Kharkov. But still the workers continued building new districts of the city. As the result a lot of new structures appeared, especially libraries: a scientific library for adults (1951 ), a city's library for young people (1977), a city's musical library (1956), central district libraries of I.S.Turgenev (1950) and I.Franko (1954) and 41 mass district library for adults.

The State scientific Korolenko's library was turned into the most biggest library of the whole Ukraine. In 1978 its book found was 5 million copies. Among the book treasures of it over 30 thousand of them are rare and valuable publications; works of the classics of the Marxism- Leninism in their lifetimes, of scientists, literary scholars; manuscripts, very old books with aged way of printing.
In 1980 there were already 759 libraries which had 40,7 million copies. Nearly 2,5 thousand librarians served many thousands of readers. One of the most biggest collection of books belonged to the Central I.Fedorov Institute of Bibliography. At that time there were 8 million books, booklets, newspapers and illustrated production in Kharkov. In the late 50-s there was a great movement of creation people's universities, many of them were opened attached to Palaces and Houses of Culture. And in 1979 106 folk universities worked. About 20 thousand of students visited lectures there.

But still museums in our city were widely popular among the inhabitants. It was overcrowded in 33 exhibition halls of Kharkov's historical museum. Its lay-out which had 200 thousand of exhibits told about the history of our region from the ancient times to our days. Some new department were opened: the history of the primitive society, feudalism and others. About 500 thousand of people visited it every year. Today there are very many different museums, theatres, cinemas, libraries, monuments, scientific agencies in Kharkov. And of course it is because of the Kharkovites who made really a lot in the cultural and the recreational life of our native town beginning from the first World War to the twenty first century.