In Praise of Intellect
On April 2, the board of the Ukraine 21st Century Intellectual Cooperation Foundation held a function at the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, where it named winners of the 2003 Volodymyr Vernadsky Prize and selected its new life scholars. These awards are usually conferred on well-known scientists, cultural, art figures, and pedagogues for considerable intellectual contribution to the socioeconomic and cultural development of Ukraine.
This (fourth in number) award ceremony began with the presentation of the third out of the five volumes of A History of Ukrainian Culture . This volume focuses on the Cossack culture of the period of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Over a thousand pages of this book contain about 500 illustrations. Presenting the publication, Valery Smoliy, director of the Academy of Sciences Institute of Ukrainian History, said it was an innovative book which looks at all cultural layers of that time. An enormous array of information is divided on the basis of social groups, such as the political elite, the clergy, representatives of the military chancellery, peasants, Cossacks, and town-dwellers. The third volume of A History of Ukrainian Culture also deals with the system of hetman’s rule, social ideals, and principles of social policies.
Following this literary introduction, Bohdan Hubsky, chairman of the board of the Ukraine 21st Century Foundation, and Borys Paton, President of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, began to present the UAH 10,000 prizes. This year’s laureates are academician and chemist Serhiy Andronati; physicist Anton Naumovets; physiologist and biochemist, Rector of the National Agrarian University Dmytro Melnychuk; corresponding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine and chair of the children’s department at the Amosov Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery Mykhailo Zynkovsky; Minister of Transport of Ukraine Hryhory Kyrpa; People’s Artiste of Ukraine Anatoly Palamarenko; composer Yevhen Stankovych; and German-based poet and literary scholar Ihor Kachurovsky.
The ranks of the foundation’s life scholars, who will be paid an annual 200 hryvnias, were filled this year by astronomer, professor at the Vasyl Stefanyk Carpathian University as well as Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Ivan Klymyshyn; professor at Kyiv’s Shevchenko National University and Doctor of Philology Alla Koval; Academician, stock breeder, and biotechnologist Oleksiy Sozinov; and poet-songwriter Mykhailo Tkach. A foundation scholarship was also awarded posthumously to People’s Artiste of Ukraine, Boryslav Brondukov. For this reason, his life scholar’s identification card and a cash prize were given to his widow Kateryna.
When all the awards had been given, foundation chairman Bohdan Hubsky was in for a pleasant surprise. By decision of Taras Shevchenko National University’s Academic Council, he was awarded a Meritorious Service medal. The ceremony ended with a traditional picture-taking of the winners, scholars, and organizers (see the photo).
