The memorial plaque for the great Kharkivite George Shevelov will return to its place from which it was barbarically removed in September 2013, but not before the current Kharkiv city authorities are replaced, we have heard at a press conference held in Kharkiv. To explain this decision, they said that protecting the plaque would be too hard a task before the city council elections, slated for this fall.
For the time being, activists of the Fifth Kharkiv movement, cultural, philological, and local history societies are going to conduct mass educational activities to tell the city’s residents about the life of their great countryman and the importance of his legacy. They plan to hold a series of performances, concerts, tours of the Shevelov-related landmarks and publish his articles and books. The complete concerted program of the events is still in the works, so its co-organizer Viktoria Skliarova invited everyone who has creative ideas to join this activity.
The fact that after a year of hearings, the court invalidated the city council’s decision to remove the Shevelov plaque, is seen by supporters of the great scholar as a symbolic victory.
“He was a world-renowned scholar who boasted extraordinary achievements,” philology professor Ihor Muromtsev reminded. “Shevelov deserves our respect, he was an honorary member, lecturer, and professor at many universities all over the world. His contribution to Ukrainian linguistics is just invaluable. For 50 years, he purposefully worked not only on de-Sovietization, which is a laudable objective in itself, but on the revival of scientific truth that asserts separateness of the origin and development of the Ukrainian language as well, starting with his works of 1941-43, with An Enslaved Language, his first contribution to this field. Both Soviet and post-Soviet rulers always felt he was a ‘pain in the neck’ for them.” It was professor Muromtsev who spent years trying to get the city to bestow honorary citizenship of Kharkiv on the scholar.
The activists would like to use restoration of the memorial plaque and even raising funds for it as a new opportunity to familiarize the masses with Shevelov’s legacy. Skliarova reported that the plaque’s restoration would cost approximately 20,000 hryvnias, and they have already found a patron ready to provide this sum. However, members of the Shevelov commemoration group decided that the plaque would be more valuable if its restoration would involve as many conscious participants as possible, especially young people and students, so they have set the lowest contribution to the plaque fund at just... two hryvnias. Thus, even the least well-off members of society will be able to get involved with it and learn more about the scholar, the organizers believe. “The fundraising campaign aims at promoting Shevelov’s name rather than installing the board immediately,” chairperson of the Historical and Philological Society professor Ihor Mykhailyn added.
