Winners of a Ukrainian language competition named in Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Russia

The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine announced the winners of the Fourth Petro Jacyk International Ukrainian Language Competition, in the Ukrainian Diaspora category, in Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The names of the winners in other countries (the Baltic states, the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova, the US, Canada) will be known shortly.

Statistics point to some 20 million Ukrainians living in the Diaspora, which explains the keen ethnic Ukrainian interest in the Jacyk competition over the past four years.

Students from M. Hrushevsky #1 School in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, vied in this year’s Jacyk competition for the first time, all determined to be named topnotch experts in Ukrainian. Twenty-two of them will receive awards on the eve of Ukrainian Independence Day. “In 2002, the Kyiv-Mohyla National University took us under its wing, so we are now the academy’s only high school abroad,” says M. Hrushevsky School principal Hanna Matveyeva, adding, “We are happy to take part in the Jacyk competition. Even if our children have not completely decided on their life mission, they already know that they have become part of a single, indivisible Ukrainian spiritual stratum.”

Kazakhstan’s official statistics indicate that more than 500,000 ethnic Ukrainians live in the republic, although local Ukrainians insist that the number is considerably larger, in the neighborhood of a million. Young Ukrainians from Kazakhstan vied in the Jacyk competition for the third time. Nineteen of them won in the fourth contest. These children are enrolled in various schools in Kazakhstan, represented by the Association of Ukrainians in Kazakhstan (Pavlodar), the Greek Catholic Parish Sunday School (Karaganda), and the Vatra Akmolin Ukrainian Association (Astana).

Contestants from Russia proved numerically the strongest, particularly those from Bashkorstan (41 winners). “According to the Ukrainian Embassy in the Russian Federation, there are ten grade schools teaching Ukrainian in Russia, of which seven are located in Bashkorstan,” says Vasyl Babenko, co-chairman of the Kobzar Ukrainian Republican National Cultural Center of Bashkorstan and deputy chairman of the board of the Ukrainian Association of Russia. “Two Sunday schools are in Ufa, one named after Taras Shevchenko and based on Grade School #9, and Zlahoda National School. Under a decree signed by the Minister of Education of the Republic of Bashkorstan, School #9 was granted the status of a base republican Ukrainian study school. Although it is a Russian-language school, the Ukrainian language, literature, and history are taught there from Grade 1 to Grade 7. In addition, there are four villages in Bashkorstan with schools teaching these subjects; there are some 400 children studying Ukrainian in the republic.”

“The results of the Fourth Petro Jacyk Ukrainian Language Competition in the Diaspora are further proof that a good cause will always be made public knowledge,” says emphatically, adding, “Children in Ukraine will be aware of genuine Ukrainian solidarity attesting to the existence of a world Ukrainian community. This competition makes everyone aware of one another’s friendly support.”