Ostroh Academy publishes series of best-selling books
In terms of importance and magnitude, very few events in the intellectual and cultural life of Ukrainian society can rival the book forum in Lviv and the Kyiv-based Book World fair. Although the Kyiv and Lviv projects have different characteristics and, by all accounts, are pursuing different goals, their organizers have been trying to prove year after year, in the face of widespread skepticism, that Ukrainian books are alive and well, Ukrainian publishing is burgeoning, and readers are demanding high-quality publications.
On Nov. 8 to 11 Kyiv’s Sportyvny Exhibition Center hosted the 10th international book fair Book World 2007. The best Ukrainian and foreign publishing houses showed their latest publication for four days. This is the second year in a row that National University of Ostroh Academy has had its own book stand. In spite of its rather young age (Ostroh Academy was revived only 13 years ago), the university’s publishing house already boasts a broad range of books ranging from scientific literature to fiction written by the academy’s faculty members and students. Always in demand are the series Scholarly Notes and Students’ Scholarly Notes on various subjects, such as economics, psychology, culture studies, and political science, as well as historical and philosophical monographs.
Ostroh Academy Press has the exclusive right to publish the works of Ulas Samchuk, which was granted by Oksana and Yaroslav Sokolyk, the sole executors of the writer’s literary estate. The academy published the well-known trilogy Volyn on the occasion of the prominent Ukrainian writer’s centenary, and Samchuk’s lesser known work, On a White Horse and On a Black Horse, a two- volume collection of memoirs and impressions, was published this year. The first signal copies were presented a short while earlier at the Lviv Book Forum and the Lutsk-based Tverdynia Publishing House. This publication was finally launched at Book World 2007. All the books that were brought to the fair were sold in the first days of the book fest — a response to lengthy literary debates on the writer’s creative legacy: “Ukraine wants to read Samchuk.”
On Nov. 9, Ukrainian Language and Literature Day, Ostroh Academy presented its projects and publications. Among them were works by Petro Kraliuk, the pro-rector of Ostroh Academy and a well-known philosopher. To mark the 425th birth anniversary of Meletii Smotrytsky, the outstanding Ukrainian polemicist writer, philologist, and clergyman who graduated from Ostroh Academy, Dr. Kraliuk wrote the monograph Meletii Smotrytsky and the Ukrainian Spiritual and Cultural Renaissance of the Late 16th-Early 17th Century . This is one of the few events dedicated to the jubilee of the great Ukrainian enlightener, which the Ukrainian public is supposed to celebrate. Much to our regret, Smotrytsky, the author of the Slavonic Grammar, on which basis all the Eastern Slavs are still learning to read and write, is only being marked at Ostroh Academy, even though President Yushchenko issued a special decree on marking the jubilee.
Another work relating to Smotrytsky, published by Kraliuk, is a historical and intellectual whodunit entitled Dioptra, or the Mirror in Which We, Traveling in Time and Space, Can See Not Only Ourselves but Also Others. Written in a dynamic cinematographic style, Dioptra keeps the reader in constant suspense, and historical scenes segue smoothly to the present time. The figures of Smotrytsky and Kraliuk are the heroes of this detective story.
Also launched in Kyiv was a collection of scholarly essays by Kraliuk, entitled ‘ Blank Spots’ in the History of Ukrainian Philosophy, an attempt to erase some blank spots in Ukrainian philosophy and partially to repudiate the opinion of Dmytro Chyzhevsky, who said that Ukrainians are not a “philosophical people.” Mykola Martyniuk, the director of Tverdynia, said: “This book, which was published only a few weeks ago, is already showing signs of becoming a bestseller.”
Ukrainian Language and Literature Day coincided with the launch of Ukrainian-language translations done at Ostroh Academy. Mykhailo Yakubovych, an MA student majoring in Religious Studies, submitted his translation of the Koran. Almost one-fifth of the entire Koran has been published in Ukrainian in the journal Kyivska Rus’. “Islam is one of the world’s greatest religions, and the fact that the Koran has not yet been translated into Ukrainian is a major loss for the language, above all,” said Dmytro Stus, editor of Kyivska Rus’ and a Shevchenko Prize winner. Yakubovych promises to finish the translation in the next two years, when readers will finally be able to see the complete Ukrainian- language edition of the Koran.
Another translation, by no means the first one, was presented by Prof. Rafail Torkoniak, head of the academy’s Theology Department. Last year he won a Shevchenko Prize for compiling and translating the Ostroh Bible into modern Ukrainian. The Rev. Torkoniak displayed the first pages of his new work — a comparison of the Ostroh and Elizabethan bibles. This study aims to prove the once-denied fact that the Elizabethan Bible was based on the one written at Ostroh. Torkoniak plans to finish the work in late 2008 or early 2009. “This will undoubtedly be a fundamental work, one that will be indispensable for recognizing the importance of the legacy of Ostroh Academy and the princes Ostrozky,” Kraliuk said with confidence.
“Just like in the 16th and 17th centuries, so today Ostroh Academy is gazing into the future. While others are living off history, the academy is looking into the future. The academy’s publishing house is ample proof of this,” Stus said at this year’s Book World in Kyiv.
