The presentation stirred the interest of local news websites as well as television channels. The product offered by The Day is known in Volyn oblast not only thanks to the newspaper, but via master classes and public lectures of The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna. These events always gather a large number of curious listeners. Also, information about the series is spread during the traditional days of The Day in Lutsk, which gather the audience of school and university students, teachers, professors, experts in local history, writers and just anyone who wants to talk about the true Ukrainian history, which Ivshyna once called the most powerful source of Ukrainian identity.
This time, a very young audience was gathered in one of the oblast universal library halls: students of the Law Lyceum and Stravinsky Culture and Arts School. But this was the plan of the library director, Honored Worker of Culture of Ukraine Liudmyla Stasiuk. While working with various categories of readers, she had many chances to see how important it is to bring a word of wisdom at an age when both heart and soul will accept it as truth. The presentation had to become what Lina Kostenko aptly called forming of the “humanitarian aura of the nation.” Librarians prepared an extensive exhibition “The Day as an intellectual leader,” where they presented not only books from The Day’s Library (the institution always buys several copies of new publications because there is always demand for it), but copies of the newspaper itself and of its English digest, as well as works of the authors of forewords to the series “Armor-Piercing Political Writing” and “Subversive Literature.” The host of the presentation, head of the reading halls department Zhanna Lytvyna was very well up in the subject, having thoroughly studied not only books from the presented series, but other publications of the paper, and the periodical itself. And she spoke about the Ukraine Incognita website with so much enthusiasm, she could have been called an ambassador of goodwill in relation to it.
COMMENTARIES
Iryna KONSTANKEVYCH, legislator at the Lutsk City Council, deputy chairman of the charity foundation “Ihor Palytsia Foundation – New Lutsk,” postdoctoral student at the Lesia Ukrainka East European National University:
“I will be sincere in my love for The Day. I want to explain why we subscribe to this newspaper for libraries and schools, why we support the publishing of The Day’s Library. There is only one reason: without exaggeration, since the moment it was founded in 1996, it is the only periodical that carries out a consistent policy and forms the humanitarian aura of our nation. I quote Lina Kostenko for a reason here to indicate what we need today. We need not only to shape a humanitarian aura, which is born and cherished by intelligent people. While preserving the spiritual foundation and the mentality that has been taking shape for many years, these intellectuals must do something specific in the present. That is why Larysa Ivshyna as editor-in-chief, her entire team, and the paper’s partners can do specific things on a daily basis. The most important principle that is formed in this newspaper is that one must not only know and value their past, but draw right conclusions out of it. We must study our defeats and not let them ever happen again.”
Volodymyr LYS, writer:
“I was very pleased when I received a call from The Day’s editorial office with an offer to write a foreword to Ulas Samchuk’s work. I love The Day, it is the most intellectual newspaper of Ukraine, and this is truth. This is a phenomenon that has an explanation: it is the standpoint of the editor-in-chief, our compatriot Larysa Ivshyna-Zhalovaha; it is the professionalism of her team. Ivshyna can work with authors as well, I had plenty of opportunities to see it myself. During the years of independence, I witnessed many births and deaths of newspapers. The ones like Ukrainski Oberehy (Ukrainian Talismans), Rodovid (Family Tree)... They could not keep up in the competition with tabloids. But The Day does not just live, it supports many generations of people who want to know their history, love their history, and want to read quality press. Also, I have very special feelings for Ulas Samchuk. He appeals to the readers’ hearts, to their emotions, and creates such political writing through people’s fates that we yet have to read and understand it. Just like Samchuk himself as well. He is often accused of being an editor at Volyn newspaper during the German occupation. But they must know what he wrote about in that paper. Just imagine, during the occupation he published an article saying that Ukrainians have their own history and can be proud of it, that we are a nation that has its own place in the world history. He ended the article with extremely significant words: ‘It was this way, it is, and it will be.’ It was this way, it is, and it will be in relation to The Day as well, which was never afraid of speaking the reasoned truth.”
Maria ROSTANIUK, student at the Volyn Culture and Arts School:
“I asked at the oblast universal library how the readers perceive ‘Armor-Piercing Political Writing’ and ‘Explosive Literature,’ because I am a future librarian and I understand the importance of people reading good, smart books, which are intelligible at the same time. And I was glad to hear that the books published by The Day are in demand. We have yet a lot to learn about ourselves. For me, a work by James Mace on the Holodomor was a revelation. I was impressed by the fact that he knew more about the Ukrainian tragedy back then than some Ukrainians know now. He spent his life on research so that we could learn the true history. Thanks to The Day, he had an opportunity to bring our history to us. Everyone, with no exception, will find this and other books interesting in order to soberly comprehend the mission of the nation they belong to.”
