Hurry to Do Good!
“Hurry to do good!” Fedir Plotnir quoted Oleksandr Dovzhenko, addressing and setting the tone of a meeting in Kirovohrad between the local intelligentsia and the Den’s Chief Editor Larysa Ivshyna visiting to present the book Ukraina Incognita at the city’s college of art.
The conference hall, seating 250, was jammed, the students competing to get seats and filling standing room. Also present were local school and college teachers, artists, journalists, professional historians, and local history devotees. In a word, the local intellectual elite attended in full force. The place was chosen specially. The college of art was founded more than 30 years ago by the indefatigable Prof. Anatoly Korotkov (People’s Artist of Ukraine), a calling card of Kirovohrad oblast. The college-sponsored children’s dance group Prolisok, winner of numerous Ukrainian and foreign contests and festivals, opened the meeting with “Red Guelder Rose on the Meadow,” setting the tone. Several other numbers were performed by college students, each marked by skill and professionalism matching every professional company in Kyiv.
Getting back to the presentation of Ukraina Incognita, Chief Editor Ivshyna stressed in her address that Ukrainian history must not be in the archives. The audience applauded and did again when she thanked the children’s dance group, adding, “I think that our country should be represented abroad by children rather than politicians, until the new generation grows up to produce new politicians. This would improve Ukraine’s image.”
Oleh Poliarush, rector of the Vinnychenko Pedagogic University in Kirovohrad, said that there had been a lot of debate of late on what kind of history textbooks the school students of independent Ukraine should use. In view of this, Ukraina Incognita ought to have a print run, at the expense of the state, to supply enough copies to every school library. There are a number of historic figures only recently portrayed in the school textbooks as enemies of Ukraine, who were actually her pride and glory. All this is in the features included in Ukraina Incognita. He further touched on a problem now and then emerging on newspaper pages: command of the Ukrainian language by ranking bureaucrats and people’s deputies.
“At times you are pained at heart, watching sessions in parliaments and hearing people’s deputies sitting there not for the first time; they can’t put two words together in Ukrainian. It’s as though they did not realize what country they are representing before their children and friends!”
Olena Krykunenko, an 11th year high school student, made a very interesting statement:
“I was thrilled to read about all those outstanding personalities, the pride of Ukraine, among them Yaroslav the Wise, Volodymyr Monomakh, Petro Mohyla, Yevhen Chykalenko, Petro Shelest, and Volodymyr Vinnychenko. For me it was an eye-opener on our relic, St. Sophia’s Cathedral of Kyiv, and tragic events during the Wisla operation (we recently discussed it in class). Ukraina Incognita is like a textbook on Ukrainian history.
“Finally, I’d like to quote from Viktor Zhenchenko’s verse: It’s so hard rising from your knees,
It’s even harder trying to forget
That slavery and fear,
Gnawing at your heart
Like vicious dogs
About to pounce and tear apart
Your soul, your very heart.
Arise! The time has come!
We’ll never have a chance like this.
My downtrodden, cringing people,
You are so beautiful, drawn up to full height!”
And, of course, the audience was enchanted by Fedir Plotnir, former Ostarbeiter from Nova Praha, a village in Kirovohrad oblast. Larysa Ivshyna quoted from her foreword in the book. The man had lived all his life in Nova Praha. During World War II, he had been arrested and taken away by the Nazis. He had returned after the war and when he received his Ostarbeiter compensation a couple of years ago he had published his manuscript on the village’s history.
“People like him are our aristocracy originating from the province. They are aristocrats not by blood but by their cultural standard. Den/The Day’ is honored to have them among the readers,” said Larysa Ivshyna.
And then, very much to her surprise, an elderly man with a gray beard rose from his seat in the audience and approached the microphone.
“Dovzhenko wrote in one of his diaries, ‘Hurry to do good!’” he said, “I wish to thank this young lady for doing a very good thing, publishing Ukraina Incognita. And I would like to present her with a signed copy of my book on the history of my village.”
Needless to say, Larysa Ivshyna reciprocated, presenting Fedir Plotnir with a signed copy of Ukraina Incognita. The Editors also presented the selfless local history researcher with a 2003 subscription for the Den’. The Publisher assigned him a monthly scholarship in recognition of his meritorious contribution in making Ukraine incognita. The soiree, emceed by Oleh Popov, teacher at the local pedagogic university, featured Serhiy Diomyn, Merited Artist of Ukraine. Svitlana Nehoda, deputy head of the regional state administration, thanked Den/The Day and the college of arts for the well organized cultural event.
Earlier that day, Larysa Ivshyna took part in a meeting of the regional press club held at Kirovohrad’s regional business center, involving the managers and chief editors of the local media, including radio and television companies, and leading journalists. They discussed the role of the media in the development of the Ukrainian state, freedom of speech and the attendant responsibility, journalist public conscience, and parliamentary hearings of the freedom of speech status in this country.
After the meeting, something interesting happened as Larysa Ivshyna was signing copies of Ukraina Incognita for local journalists. Andriy Ivanko, chairman of the local office of the Prosvita Society, produced a heavy ledger with the Den’s clippings, mostly from the Ukrayina Incognita section, collected before the book came off the presses, and a copy of the book with penciled comments.
Larysa Ivshyna offered him two copies of Ukraina Incognita in exchange for the clippings and the copy with his comments, adding that both would be put on display at Den/The Day’s museum to be set up shortly.
Finally, here is a quote from a review on the book written by Andriy Ivanko, a veteran reader of the Den’ and national history devotee (both categories getting to be synonymous these days), for the regional newspaper Narodne Slovo [The People’s Word]:
“Most importantly, this book has a magic force, giving a powerful impetus to one’s desire for knowledge. Even before you get halfway through reading it, you are tempted to reach for the shelves of your home library and reread Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Franko, Taras Shevchenko, Marko Vovchok... You want to study works by Maksymovych, Drahomanov, and Hrushevsky, leafing through volumes written by classics of the Ukrainian historical science, so you can have an insight into the genuine Ukrainian past, whose various aspects and events are captivatingly portrayed in Ukraina Incognita. ”
Another characteristic of the book is that every feature is a penetrating message addressing the powers that be, modern Ukrainian political elite, urging them to learn their lessons from Ukrainian history. Personally, as a teacher of history at the regional postgraduate institute, as one involved in the educational domain, I do hope that this book’s print run of 1,500 copies is just the beginning, because it is badly needed by every teacher, student, every Ukrainian family. We must have 100, even 150 thousand copies. I also hope that the publisher’s enterprising spirit and true patriotism will be rewarded with the appearance of powerful philanthropists who will have the book reprinted. In Larysa Ivshyna’s own words, it “addresses all who are aware of their Ukrainian identity, as well as all those taking an interest in Ukraine... This should become a nationwide project.”
The Editors would like to thank the Kirovohrad regional state administration for their help in organizing Den/The Day’s presentation and all their colleagues working for the local media for participation in it.
