У статті здійснено аналіз публікацій щотижневика «Руководство для сельских пастырей» за увесь період його виходу, які містять інформацію про церковний спів у храмах Православної церкви Російської імперії середини ХІХ – початку ХХ ст.
The theological and publicistic magazine «Guide to Country Clergymen» («Rukovodstvo dlya Selskikh Pastyrey») was published for 57 years (1860-1917), edited by the rector and was of great popularity among readers. After the release of the first several issues, about two thousand people subscribed the magazine, and their number grew year by year. The magazine was oriented, first of all, at the parish clergy, as well as regents, teachers of church parish schools and the ordinary people. Such a conclusion has appeared on the basis of the articles subject matters analysis. In general, the pages of the magazine contained articles of spiritual and moral content, materials on church history, medicine, ethnography, advice and guidance to country clergymen, preachings to the common people, situations with believers, non-believers, adherents of different faiths, old-believers and sectarians, as well as religious education. The publications on the church singing of the weekly «Guide to Country Clergymen» for the whole period of its existence are analyzed in the paper. The level of their information value and their suitability as a historical source are determined. The examined publications are united according to the thematic principle into three main groups: teaching church singing; general materials with critical remarks (criticism of Italian parte singing, mistakes made by choristers); practical recommendations for improving the church singing. Despite the presence of a number of scientific researches on the issues of the development of the church press in the Russian Empire, information about teaching church singing on the pages of the «Guide to Country Clergymen» has not attracted the attention of researchers yet, though about eighty articles were devoted to the issue of church singing during the period of the journal's existence, therefore it becomes obvious that this theme was extremely popular in the nineteenth century and this fact precisely caused the relevance of the research. The magazine «Guide to Country Clergymen» is informative enough on the theme of the research. From the analyzed articles it is possible to learn about the state of education in the rural areas and the role of parochial schools in the development of church singing, the major mistakes which were made by choristers during the church chanting and the methods suggested for correcting them. This material is a valuable source for the study of the church singing history, as well as the history of Ukrainian culture of the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
