The Ostroh Academy boasts such names among its graduates as Zaporizhian Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, first rector of the Kyiv Brotherhood School Iov Boretsky, Lavra archimandrite Yelisei Pletenetsky, writer Meletii Smotrytsky, author of the famous Palinode Zakharia Kopystensky, famous church and culture figure Isakia Boryskovych, etc. Currently the Ostroh Academy continues to multiply the best education traditions of its predecessor, by graduating not only highly qualified experts, but whole-hearted patriots and leaders of the Ukrainian nation as well. The university’s slogan is “Modern education via the experience of centuries.” So, over a comparatively short period of its modern history the Ostroh Academy has obtained huge authority not only in Ukraine, but also abroad. It is being regularly visited by famous civic-political figures and high-ranking officials. For them the Academy has become a kind of a Mecca.
The birthday of the Ostroh Academy (October 4) is traditionally been celebrated in the circle of close friends, partners and all those who stood at the origins of its revival. Incidentally, for nine years by now the Academy has been maintaining special friendly relations with Den/The Day. This friendship has resulted in realization of many ideas, in particular, the Ostroh Club of Free Intellectual Communication of Youth, regular meetings of students with The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna, their participation in the Summer School of Journalism, etc.
Every year on this festive day the Academy turns into an “apiary” with faculty “beehives,” “bees,” and fair. This year’s celebrations will also include the action “My language is alive!”: a flash mob “436 names of the Ostroh Academy,” “Ukrainian harmonious sounding,” and “An Open Microphone.”
Over 18 years the Academy, maintaining high standards, has managed to achieve much, and hopefully it will gain even more success. I am offering for the readers the most interesting facts of the university of this period:
Overall, 2,906 people have graduated from the Ostroh Academy.
Scholar Rafail Torkoniak has translated the Ostroh Bible into Ukrainian.
The university’s rector Ihor Pasichnyk has become the laureate of the State Award of Ukraine in the sphere of architecture for realization of the stage of revival of the National University of Ostroh Academy – a co-authorship in the project of Ukraine’s first virtual library.
The Ostroh Academy has become a member of the European University Association.
The university’s researchers have published an encyclopedic edition Ostroh Academy of the 16th-17th centuries.
The Academy has opened an underground art gallery where the Capuchin Monastery used to operate.
The Haiduk couple has presented the university with the original of the Ostroh Bible (1581).
A monument to the first student of Eastern Europe was erected in the university’s courtyard.
Ukraine’s only lab of sacral texts translation has been functioning at the Ostroh Academy.
Ostroh Academy researcher Mykhailo Yakubovych has completed the translation of Koran into Ukrainian.
Tennis tournaments of international level have been annually held on the university’s courts which meet the highest standards.
A regional resource center of foreign languages learning has been operating in the Academy.
The Academy has been awarded with the 27th international prize “For Quality” by the International Trade Club in Paris.
The academy’s researchers Petro Kraliuk, Mykhailo Yakubovych, and Vitalii Shchepansky have carried out a research on and published the works of the outstanding Polish-Ukrainian scholar Jan Latosz (1539-1608), who in the period between 1598 and 1602 held first regular astronomical observations on Ukraine’s territory, specifically in Ostroh.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved the decision to confer on the Ostroh Academy the status of an autonomous national research and higher educational institution.
The president of Ukraine has issued a decree, which confers on the academy’s rector Prof. Ihor Pasichnyk the title of the Hero of Ukraine for outstanding personal merits before Ukraine in the sphere of preserving and multiplying the national education heritage.
