Odesa’s Maxim Gorky State Research Library hosted the presentation of three books from The Day’s Library Series: Wars and Peace, Day and Eternity of James Mace, and Klara Gudzyk’s Apocrypha. Since the members of the Odesa community were not familiar with these publications, once again the presentation evolved into a lengthy discussion, which was facilitated by the surroundings. The discussion took place in a hall filled with rare editions and manuscripts on the premises of Ukraine’s first public library founded more than 170 years ago.
Ukraine’s oldest library boasts some five million documents in some 100 languages. The library’s pride and joy are 52 incunabula, over 100 paleotypes, and 1,500 miniatures. The library also owns the famous Gospels of Ostroh. “If you make up your mind to swear allegiance to the Ukrainian nation, come visit us,” said Tetiana Podkupko, who heads the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, during a very informative tour of the library.
Our newspaper had the honor of presenting our books amidst those literary treasures. Remarkably, one week before the parliamentary elections, there were few references to politics during the readers’ conference, only in the global context: the significance of modern politics for future history. Larysa Ivshyna, The Day’s editor in chief, stated during the discussion that history is something around which all the other spaces are crystallized. Therefore, the main objective set by the authors of The Day’s book-newspaper project is to allow Ukrainian society to realize that the world is competitive. “In order to make Ukrainians winners, they ought to orient themselves toward the most competitive contestants.”
Without knowledge of at least the key moments of history, it is impossible to even consider the future. One of these key moments is the Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-33), which The Day has highlighted practically since the newspaper’s inception. The result of these studies is the book Day and Eternity of James Mace which includes scholarly research done by Professor James Mace, our colleague and consultant to The Day.
The Gorky Library’s bibliographic guide entitled The Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-1933 was a response to this book. “Studying problems relating to the Holodomor genocide of the Ukrainian people was never a mainstream subject and it is still not. No one has recounted this event with as much sincerity and passion as Mace,” the editor of The Day noted. Gorky Library director Olha Botushanska told The Day that the idea to invite our newspaper was conceived because of the unifying factor of publishing books about the Holodomor.
The Day reciprocated by supplying one five-volume collection of The Day’s Library Series each to the Gorky State Research Library of Odesa, the local Centralized Children’s Library System, Odesa’s Ivan Franko Central Library for Adults, Ushinsky South Ukrainian Pedagogical University, Odesa’s M. Hrushevsky Research Library, and to university teachers and students in the city.
