Who would you like to send Independence Day greetings to?

Den/The Day received the following letter yesterday:

“Dear Yulia Volodymyrivna,

“We are sending you our Ukraine Independence Day greetings. There are no grounds for a festive mood, but there is every reason to greet you. For there are too many people that are free but behave as if they were prisoners, whereas you are an independent-minded person even in jail.

“Unfortunately, the faces of oppositionists behind bars are the symbol of the 20th anniversary of a free Ukraine. But every Berlin Wall will fall sooner or later and its bricks will be taken away as souvenirs.

“We wish you to have a fragment of Lukianivka Jail as a souvenir on your desk as soon as possible – in a Ukraine dependent, at last, on reason, law, and honor only.” 

Yevhen HRYTSIAK, member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, participant in the Norilsk uprising, healer:

“First of all, I would like to greet the entire Ukraine, Den/The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna, Ivan Dziuba, and Lina Kostenko. But I would not share Lina Kostenko’s greetings to Yulia Tymoshenko because

Ms. Yulia has done a lot of disputable and hard-to-grasp things. The story began with the Pavlo Lazarenko case. Then the gas problem came to the fore. Moscow had issued an international arrest warrant for Tymoshenko, and she thus had no right to travel anywhere – but she suddenly left for Moscow. This looks all too suspicious for me.

“As for the cancellation of the Independence Day parade, I must say the president is not a patriot of Ukraine. He may be a good manager, but I so far can see no really positive results of his presidency.”

Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, Professor; Doctor of Sciences (Philosophy); Head, Department for the History, Theory and Methodology of Sociology, and Deputy Director, Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine:

“I would send my greetings to Ivan Dziuba because the independence jubilee almost coincides with his 80th birthday. I must say he has published a really very good book this year. Besides, I would greet Myroslav Popovych. I am also joining Lina Kostenko in her greetings to Yulia Tymoshenko.

“I think Independence Day is the most important date in the life of Ukraine. This heralds, first of all, the making of a new state, a major European country, which, unfortunately, has a lot of problems, but I believe we know the ways of solving them, I think Ukraine will soon opt for the right vector and become a worthy partner in the European community.”