On June 5, the Ivan Franko National Academy Drama Theater hosted the eight awards ceremony of the Koronatsia slova 2008 all- Ukrainian contest of novels, scripts, and plays.
Over the past eight years since its inception this competition has won recognition and, with an annually increasing financial help from its founder, Craft Foods Ukraine, particularly the successful brand Korona (Crown), has found other sponsors. More than 70 novels have been published in 2001-08. One of the television channels premiered the film Hudzyk on June 8, based on Irene Rozdobudko's title novel that won the Koronatsia's Grand Prix several years ago. Among other premieres this year will be Andrii Kokotiukha's prize-winning Temna voda (Dark Waters). Four diploma-winning scripts - Roman Balaian's Nich svitla (The Night is Young) based on Oleksandr Zhovna's Experiment; the young script writers and stage directors Kyrylo Usiuzhanin and Nadia Koshman's scripts - have been turned into movies. As for plays, Valentyn Tarasov's Skazhena spivachka z nevidomym (A Crazy Female Singer with a Stranger) was staged by Kyiv's Academic Youth Theater; Larysa Videnko's Ste (St. Nicholas's Footpath), by Lviv's Children's Theater. Viktor Rybachuk's Solo dlia dvokh (A Solo Number for Two), staged by Andrii Prykhodko, was a success during the international festival Panorama in Belarus.
Also, several diploma- and prize-winning plays submitted to this literary competition have been slated for stage productions in 2008- 09 by drama companies in Donets and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts. Says Yurii Lohush, chairman of the board, Craft Foods Ukraine: "The year 1988 was marked by big expec tations, when books were published with large print runs, when blank pages in the history of national literature were filled in. However, the situation kept deteriorating before 1998, with bookstores closing, print runs on an increasingly downward curve, and with hardly any new names appearing in the literary realm. Now, decades later, we can view our prospects with a degree of optimism. We have worked hard along these lines. Every year thousands of manuscripts are submitted to this literary competition from all over Ukraine. These works are created by young, mature, and middle- aged authors, people who have various occupations, amateurs as well as professionals. Apparently using scripts to make films is the highest priority these days. I read about our northern neighbor's filmmaking industry in The Herald Tribune the other day. I was particularly interested in the statistics: two hundred films made in Russia last year, with one half partially financially supported by the government The financial responsibility for the production and screening of these films was shared by Russia's Ministry of Culture and businesspeople. This year's filmmaking budget alone amounts to 157 million dollars! I think that Ukraine could produce 50-100 films every year. Today's filmmaking industry is a lucrative business and attractive to investors. Apparently, Ukrainian business must get patriotic and socially responsible, but a legal framework and a budget basis must also be prepared."
Koronatsia 2008's winners of the first to third prizes in the drama script division are Stanislav Stryzheniuk with his play Judgment Day. Baturyn ; Eduard Bohush ( Fabius Maximus's Mistake ); Bohdan Pidhirny ( Striving for Consciousness ). In the film script nomination: Vasyl Bosovych and Oleksandr Stoliarov ( An Angel with a Phonograph ); Svitlana Tiapina (The Case of the Devil and a Murdered Bride); Kyrylo Ustiuzhanin ( Performance ). In the novels standing: Volodymyr Lys ( Sylvester's Island ); Maria Ma slechkina ( The Road or the Afghan Rondo ); Anna Bahriana (Habia or Contrary to Superstitions) and Mykhailo Brynykh ( Chess Games for Idiots ) shared the third prize.
Note these names and titles! After a while you may watch plays or movies based on these scripts, or read their bestselling novels. "Our newspaper had a column entitled 'My Ten Books' - in other words, books without which you simply can't exist. I would like to wish our prize winners, especially novelists, to find their works as badly needed by their writers," said Den's editor- in-chief Larysa Ivshyna while presenting one of the awards.
This year's literary competition showed certain innovations. Volodymyr Lys, who placed first in the novels standing, received a badge from the partners: a gold crown studded with diamonds. Vasyl Bosovych, Oleksandr Stoliarov, and Stanislav Stryzheniuk received 5,000 hryvnias each and a watch with the bearer's name inscribed for their best historical and patriotic works. Says Stanislav Stryzheniuk: "I spent eight years working on the play Judgment Day. Baturyn . That historical period sounds quite topical today. Even now we have too many hetmans and so few figures of Ivan Mazepa's caliber. Therefore, Ukrainians must learn to be taught by historical lessons. Oleksandr Stoliarov and I wrote the Holodomor script. This is a socially significant topic and handling it was easier said than done; while working on it we often confronted aesthetic issues that were at odds with ethical ones. A motion picture is being produced using our script. Apparently we must raise such matters to help Ukrainians cleanse their souls, to help establish ties between generations, and to help us realize who we actually are."
"The versatility of genres is a hallmark of adequacy for any literature," sums up Maria Matios, winner of the Taras Shevchenko Prize and the 2007 Koronatsia's Grand Prix, adding, "We are witness to an increasing public interest in Ukrainian literature. I believe that we are about to see a number of new very interesting Ukrainian authors before long. All we have to do is take a closer look at them - precisely what the Koronatsia competition has been doing for the past several years."
