Last Friday Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv hosted the 4th International Scholarly and Practical Conference entitled “Shevchenko’s Spring.” At the meeting of the history section the books from The Day Library Series were presented. It is difficult to overestimate the scale of this action: 185 young historians arrived in the capital of Ukraine from almost every region as well as from eight independent ex-Soviet countries, including Russia, Moldova, and Belarus.
The main purpose of the conference was to exchange experience and opinions. Tellingly, Ukrainian was the working language of the proceedings, and the foreign guests communicated well with the hosts. The conference was dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Ukrainian independence.
“It will take us, historians, a long time to professionally assess and characterize the period we are living in,” said Prof. Viktor Danylenko, Ph.D. (History), and corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences, in his introductory speech. “This is complicated by the fact that academic research is now experiencing hard times, when industry is not interested in scientific and scholarly innovations,” he added.
Danylenko is convinced that it is possible to popularize scholastic pursuit via the mass media. He also noted that The Day is Ukraine’s only newspaper that carries excellent historical materials. The young historians at the conference were very familiar with The Day’s historical projects, and what was planned as a book launch turned out to be a sequel to our newspaper’s dialogue with readers. For history, according to Larysa Ivsyna, is far more important than politics.
What is the level of history teaching in Ukraine’s secondary and higher educational institutions? What threat does the reduction of Ukrainian history syllabuses pose for pupils and students? What problems must Ukrainian historical research resolve in order to meet world standards? What priorities should be established in the interpretation of historical events? The reader will find answers to these and other participants’ questions in one of The Day’s upcoming issues.
