On August 18 the Internet project “Ukraine Incognita” turned four. It will be reminded that it was named after the first book published in the Den’s Library series. Since the moment of creation of the intellectual resource, the reconstruction of truthful Ukrainian history has been deliberately chosen as one of its key tasks. Chief Editor of Den/The Day Larysa Ivshyna is convinced that namely our history is the most powerful source of Ukrainian identity. According to her, in the post-Soviet space “the struggle is going on not for the resources, not only for oil and gas, but first and foremost – for the place in history.” This is the reason why the creators of “Ukraine Incognita” pay special attention to the controversial, scarcely known, and totally unknown to most of Ukrainians episodes from our past.
Today the web portal “Ukraine Incognita” not only includes the traditional newspaper columns “History and I,” “Route No. 1,” and the “Family album of Ukraine,” but for the first time in Ukrainian Internet space it presented the unprecedented virtual fund of the best Ukrainian museums – “Museums online.” The Interactive “Intellectual map of Ukraine,” which was shaped with active participation of our readers, recreates the past of various corners of Ukraine, from whole cities to important streets.
“Ukrainians have finally started to look for answers to modern challenges in their past. Hence the increased interest to ‘Ukraine Incognita.’ And this is good. The interest to the website can be explained by the fact that history has become a strategic instrument of Russia’s information policy. Putin is using it as a means of manipulation, considering Ukrainian nation a part of the single ‘Russian people.’ And the entire history of Ukraine is interpreted in the Kremlin as the history of Russia,” noted in his commentary Doctor of History, Professor, Deputy Director for academic work at the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Den’s contributor Stanislav KULCHYTSKY. “Putin’s current policy is aimed not only at enslaving Ukraine, but also at destruction of the national memory of our people. That is why it is hard to overestimate the activity of the newspaper Den and its numerous projects, in particular, its publications and the Internet resource ‘Ukraine Incognita.’ The newspaper consolidated authoritative Ukrainian intellectuals around itself, in particular, specialists on history. I can say openly now that it has even become hard to get your article published, because there is a great competition among the articles. Only the most interesting are published. But they immediately give the tone to the information picture. The authors write part of the actual material specially for the website ‘Ukraine Incognita.’ The Internet is a modern tool for hundreds of people to read, comment, and share the most important texts with one another. With a proper work in this direction Den generally and the project ‘Ukraine Incognita’ in particular are winning more and more readers. I congratulate the project on the anniversary and wish you more new bright authors and thankful readers!”
