Ostroh Book Museum to close indefinitely
The bad news swept through Ukraine last week. The Book Museum in the Lutsk Tower, a 15th-century architectural site, is being destroyed by a parasitic fungus that has attacked the tower walls. “In the past five years the roof over the museum has been leaking copiously and this must have triggered the fungus,” says Svitlana Pozikhovska, the book museum’s director. Serhii Kybkalo, director of the Ostroh State Historical and Cultural Preserve, which includes the book museum, told The Day that the museum was ordered closed by the regional culture department on Feb. 2, 2007, because ancient manuscripts are at risk of being destroyed.
The museum collection boasts the famous Ostroh Gospel printed by Ivan Fedorov in 1581 (even the Ostroh Academy does not have a copy), an anonymous pre-Fedorov medium-font Moscow Gospel published sometime before 1556; one of the first printed books, the Vilnius Psalter (1576); a handwritten mid-16th-century Gospel, originating from the area of today’s Rivne oblast, printed by Fedorov’s friend and colleague Petro Mstyslavets.
The Ostroh Book Museum is thus one of Ukraine’s two full-fledged museums in the field, but it is in dilapidated condition. No major repairs have been done in 20 years, since the museum’s inception. In Pozikhovska’s opinion, the cosmetic repairs only served to aggravate the situation: the fungus was allowed to spread unnoticed all over the building.
The Day asked Petro Davydiuk, the head of the Rivne State Administration’s culture department, why a museum that is regarded as the pride of Ukraine was not properly cared for. He said that three million hryvnias were allocated for the restoration of the Ostroh State Historical and Cultural Preserve in 2006. Out of this subvention the municipal authorities assigned 400,000 hryvnias for preparing the documentation on the repairs to the book museum premises, including the roof.
I decided to trace the remainder of the money and interviewed Ostroh Mayor Taras Pustovit. “Another million and a half hryvnias were used to complete the construction of General Educational School No. 3 in Ostroh. I believe it was the right decision to make because the old building was totally unfit for teaching children; besides, this subvention was meant not only for reconstructing architectural sites, but also for completing socially important projects.”
Once again this year’s budget has not earmarked any funds for repairs to the Lutsk Tower. So it is anyone’s guess how long the museum will be closed. The director of the Preserve nevertheless assured me that two exhibition halls will remain open after the main collection is removed. It is difficult to assess the losses that will be inflicted on the Ostroh preserve once the museum closes. According to Kybkalo, they will be heavy.
The moral damages are incalculable. Every year the Ostroh Book Museum is visited by thousands of tourists, including visitors from all regions of Ukraine and foreigners. Most of the visitors are schoolchildren, who come for organized tours during which they learn that the history of Ukraine does not mean endless wars but also high cultural standards and intellectual potential. One can only hope that the regional budget will scrape up the funds to renovate the Lutsk Tower, so that City Hall will not have to make the choice between providing normal schooling conditions for children and preserving our cultural heritage.
