History CD Hits The High Notes

Twelve years of independence have done Ukraine’s textbook publishers a good turn. Despite the existing tax structure, which is not exactly favorable for book publishing, school textbooks have undergone remarkable transformations, especially those dealing with history.

However, what is badly needed at this stage is a new manner of presentation of the educational material. Children show an increasing interest in interactive computer games, and Internet chat sites rather than books. Although books will long and deservedly remain in the lead among teaching aids, the time has come to develop new such aids, primarily books in CD format.

CD textbooks have been used for quite some time in Russia. There is nothing of the kind in Ukraine, not until recently (except CDs dealing with Ukrainian history, particularly those dedicated to Bohdan Khmelnytsky and an electronic encyclopedia of Kyiv released by the National Academy of Sciences), at least no CD books for grade school.

This absence is explained by several reasons. For example, large publishing companies with sufficient assets feel perfectly content to cope with state hardcopy textbook contracts, and need no cardinal changes. Small publishing houses, supposedly more mobile and likely to be willing to explore new business opportunities, simply cannot afford to develop such complicated innovative products.

All this makes the daring venture of Diyez Product [literally, Product in the Sharp Key], a small publishing firm releasing a set of an ordinary textbook and a CD called World History: Current History, 1939-2003 all the more worthy of praise. The texts belong to history Prof. Stepan Vidniansky, Meritorious Worker of Culture and Technology of Ukraine and Head of the International Relations Chair at the National Academy’s Institute of Ukrainian History. He has an undeniable gift of eloquence and every article is highly informative as well as entertaining. The closing entries relate to the US and UK antiterrorist operations in Iraq and a number of Central and Eastern European countries entering the European Union.

The book serves as a CD guide with references to CD entries. The disk also contains over 500 illustrations, a chronological table, glossary (including some 100 portraits of leading historical figures), 61 video materials, some 40 copies of documents, and 16 maps. There are hyperlinks allowing quick access to illustrations, chronological table, glossary, and pertinent web sites. Every theme is complete with interactive tests. Both the book and CD conform to the existing curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

Regrettably, Diyez Product cannot rely on any financial or other support from the state in its noble endeavor. For the most part, high and mid-level officials when asked to help reply that there are other priorities; who will buy your product, considering that there are only 5,000 computerized schools in Ukraine, and we have enough trouble trying to keep the schools supplied with ordinary textbooks. True, Ukrainian schools are undersupplied in every way, as usual. However, the kind of society we are headed for (a capitalist one, face it) is heterogeneous by definition, with the poor and the rich, those wishing to study and pay for tuition to be able to earn more in the future along with those who will add to unskilled labor, owing to one’s character or circumstances. Such are the realities of the lifestyle, toward which we are supposed to be decisively moving, if one were to believe the numerous declarations made from above. Also, the publishing firm in question carried out a poll showing that 90% of the respondents wish to have their CD.

Diyez Product does not intend to rest on the laurels, planning to release eleven such sets dealing with world history and that of modern Ukraine meant for Grades 7- 11. Work is in progress on the set History of Ukraine at the Turn of the Twentieth Century for Ninth Grade by Oleksandr Reyent, and Oleksandr Rubliov’s History of Ukraine, 1939-2003.