Halyna Yarova: <I>The Day</I> offers its readers thorough historical studies!

I visited the Museum of Hetmanship on behalf of the editors. It is housed in a beautiful, old two-story building, in the Podil district of Kyiv. According to the legend, it was built by Hetman Ivan Mazepa. However, the second floor had to be rebuilt after a fire in the 19th century. There are permanent exhibitions devoted to Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Mazepa, Pylyp Orlyk, and Pavlo Skoropadsky. The museum also regularly hosts book presentations, workshops and art exhibitions. Today it has an exhibit of works by Kateryna Bruyevych, who is, incidentally, the daughter of the talented artist Liudmyla Bruyevych. In addition to all that, there is a magnificent library at the Museum, too! Though it does not stand out in terms of quantity (more than three thousand units), it certainly does when it comes to quality. Most books are devoted to the Cossacks, their hetmans, and general historical and cultural topics. Some of the books came from the diaspora. The rest were donated by our patriotic countrymen. (Naturally, the funds allocated to the library for the purchase of new books are very limited.) Although The Day’s Library is a commercial project, we could not help but support the museum, by donating Extract +200.

“December 27 is Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s birthday,” the museum’s director Halyna Yarova unexpectedly starts our conversation. “What a multifaceted person he was! What do we know about him? He was a highly educated and noble man. He mastered Latin, spoke Old Polish and Ukrainian excellently. He drank coffee. He fought in Europe. By the way, he participated in the capture of Dunkirk. He conducted a wise foreign policy: Ukraine had embassies in many contemporary states. Just try to think about, his hetmanship included eight years of war, full of betrayals, defeats, and victories... All that responsibility on the shoulders of but one man! I talk a lot about it, because The Day offers its readers thorough historical studies. It’s great that you ‘prolong’ their lives, reprinting them as books. Personally, I like to read articles by Ihor Siundiukov, Volodymyr Panchenko, Stanislav Kulchytsky, Oxana Pachliovska, and, of course, Ivan Dziuba. Twenty years is too short a period for society to recover from almost a century of totalitarian systems, so you are doing good work by publishing the healing Extracts (I mean all four volumes, two published last year, as well as this year’s two books). Holding photo exhibits is also a form of public education,” Yarova continues. “In October, I visited your photo exhibit at the Ukrainian Home together with the museum staff. It produced a lasting impression. Each photo is a distinct work of art. It is, one can confidently say, a sincere and intimate communication between Ukrainians.”

Our collaboration started more than a year ago. Museum activities were always covered by The Day. In addition, our Afisha section announces all events organized by the Museum of Hetmanship, with those of particular interest being covered in separate articles. The most recent thus covered event was the presentation of the Volhynian author Valentyna Shtynko’s book entitled The Hetman’s Son’s Bride (See Den No. 197, October 29, 2010, Ukrainian edition). On December 17 through 18 the Museum will host a workshop in Petrykivka-style decorative painting.