“We should have had more links with Bulgarians than with Russia”

Recently the results of the annual Book of the Year ranking were announced. The rating includes new Ukrainian publications over the year 2016 in seven nominations. The sub-nomination of Past History, Popular Publications/Historical Fiction, has 14 best titles out of 31. Past year’s novelty by Den, My Sister Sofia..., is in the Top 10.

“Such competitions demonstrate society’s interest in own book production,” commented one of the experts in the Past History nomination, department head at the Hrushevsky Institute for Ukrainian Archeography and Source Studies under the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Ihor HYRYCH. “Of course, the jury members vary in their approaches and criteria by which they rate books, and on many issues their opinions are very different, but it is quite normal. It pleases me to think that our book industry adds new titles and genres. Book publishing is not a lucrative business, yet the production increases rather than falls. And perhaps the increase is not in quantity but in quality. The main thing is to ensure that books keep being published and read. In general, all the most interesting novelties of Ukrainian publishing go through the competition.”

Such high esteem only proved a great interest in this publication. We would like to remind that My Sister Sofia... also received an award from the Publishers’ Forum in Lviv, and late past year it was presented in Sofia, Bulgaria, where it also garnered a crop of positive reactions.

Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day

The statistics of Den’s web store show that this stylish edition on the unknown pages of Ukraine-Bulgaria relations is one of the best presents for your parents, children, or friends. For instance, Vladyslav Kostenko from Smila bought a copy for his son, a school student, who has been reading extensively from Den’s library; Serhii Perederii from Kyiv says that his father peruses and quotes My Sister Sofia... Natalia Kondratova from Donetsk also thinks a world about this book. By the way, three years ago Den published Kondratova’s grievances under the title “Why I Live in Ukraine and Do Not Know the Nation’s Cream of the Crop?” Later our paper shared her story in the article “40 Years Long Road to Herself” (see Den’s issues No. 65 of April 10 and No. 73 of April 23, 2014). Donetsk, Kondratova’s home city, is occupied, so she is currently working as a tax service officer in Sloviansk. “An excellent book, I liked it. It was very interesting to discover analogies between Bulgarian and Ukrainian history,” said Kondratova as she shared her impressions from the book.

Oleksandr Yukhymchuk from Obukhiv provided his grandma Valentyna with some intellectual challenge from Den. “I have already read four books from Den’s Library: a trilogy on contemporary history and My Sister Sofia... I liked the book and the historical facts it uses as proof,” shares Valentyna, a former teacher, from Hulsk, Zhytomyr oblast. “I can conclude that we, Ukrainians, should have had more links with Bulgarians than with Russia. I am very grateful to all authors who collected the materials, but most of all to the mastermind behind the entire project, Larysa Ivshyna. I am delighted by your works.”

It goes without saying that professional historians have a special interest in the book. In particular, another acquaintance of Den, Roman Bazaka, then a postgraduate researcher at the Classical Private University in Zaporizhia, joined in Den’s spring book flash-mob in 2015 by reciting Yevhen Malaniuk’s piece in a video recording. Then he told: “I am a fan of Den’s Library and its books. They are nothing short of unique encyclopedias on Ukraine’s history in quite an easy, and most importantly, quite an interesting, form.” Now Bazaka, Ph.D. in social communication and lecturer at the Central Ukrainian State Pedagogical University, has just begun reading My Sister Sofia... “I was fascinated by the material on Prince Sviatoslav the Brave, it offers plentiful food for thought,” shares Bazaka. “Unlike the previous books, this evokes a multitude of various thoughts.”

If you, too, would like to “charge your brain,” ask for My Sister Sofia... at a bookstore in your city or follow the link to Den’s web store: https://day.kyiv.ua/uk/library