The literature and arts festival “Mark of Podillia” was launched in the village of Ostrivets, Terebovlia raion, Ternopil oblast on the day of the great feast of Nativity of the Virgin, to bring together on the annual basis people who love their land, keep traditions alive, and cherish new seeds of the future.
The first festival was timed to the 200th birth anniversary of Taras Shevchenko and featured blessing of the site near the school where a monument to the genius will be erected. People recited poems and sang songs that left an indelible mark in the hearts of villagers as well as visitors from Ternopil, Lviv, and Terebovlia. “They say that amidst the sound of arms the Muses fall silent, but we have shown that Ukraine is still worthy of events like that in Ostrivets,” head of Ternopil Regional Branch of the Stus Memorial Society, Honored Worker of Culture of Ukraine Bohdan Khavarivsky stressed.
As for the name of the festival, it is not accidental, as it is also the title of a book authored by a famous villager, poet, government official, and public figure Roman Lubkivsky, who initiated the event. Ternopil poet and local historian Mykhailo Onyskiv noted: “I think that this idea could become reality only now, with the author focused on the highest levels of his creative quest.”
The village of Ostrivets has a glorious history, going back to Trypillian and Cherniakhiv culture, the princely age [the 9th to 14th centuries. – Ed.], and the period of the national liberation struggle. Many of its natives are known in Ukraine and abroad. Prominent people born in Ostrivets include religious leader Bishop Izydor Boretsky of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) in Canada; environmental scientist Yaroslav Humnytsky; poet, translator, engineer, and civic activist Roman Karpinsky; poet, translator, and essayist Volodymyr Gzhytsky; and biochemist Academician Stepan Gzhytsky. “The people from Lviv, Ternopil, and the village itself are now engaged in an effort to have Ostrivets listed as a heritage village. In fact, it is its essence rather than just desired formal status. This village is located inside a spiritual triangle between the former princely city of Terebovlia, the shrine in Zarvanytsia, and Zazdrist, the birthplace of the UGCC Patriarch Josyf Slipyj,” Lubkivsky told Den.
Ostrivets is also planning to open a museum of sacred culture, as yet another initiative of the famous villager. It will be housed in the defunct Roman Catholic church, destroyed under the Soviet totalitarian regime and being restored now. The village school is the center of patriotic education there, and its students and teachers are now interested in exploring new frontiers and browsing through history with Den, which Lubkivsky has promised to secure subscription to.
