We continue to publish our readers’ reviews of the new books published by Den. Those who haven’t bought them yet should hurry, because the number of available copies is decreasing fast. Only a month has passed since the launch of our new books, the historical book Return to Tsarhorod and publicist triptych “The Trap,” or A Case without a Statute of Limitations, I, an Eyewitness. Notes from the Occupied Luhansk, and Catastrophe and Triumph. Histories of Ukrainian Heroes, at the Publisher’s Forum in Lviv, but the most part of the pressrun has been sold out. People are especially actively buying and sharing their impressions about the book Return to Tsarhorod. This is an important signal for all of us – in this difficult time the Ukrainians not just read, but choose guideline books for themselves. No less remarkable is the fact that the pressrun of the book compiled by the editor of the Den’s politics department Ivan Kapsamun about the Gongadze case has been sold out as well. Fifteen years have passed, but people continue to take interest in this case, which gives hope that it will be brought to the end, not dropped. Besides, it is a demonstrative example of readers' search for the answer to the question, when the war began and how. And unless we know when and why the war began, there won’t be an answer to the question, when it will end and what should be done for this. And the great demand among the readers for the new books published by Den is an additional emphasis for the process of looking for the answers.
It has been a year and a half already that Ukraine lives in the circumstances of war and pain. This is a time when the heroes live next to us – they are real, as real as the war is; they are not merely some historical characters. Many of them are Ternopil locals. Some of them, giving their lives for the united Ukraine remain forever in our hearts. Among the many stories presented in the Catastrophe and Triumph. Histories of Ukrainian Heroes, part of the journalism trilogy compiled by Maria Semenchenko and presented at the September Publishers’ Forum in Lviv (by the way, the publication is already available in Ternopil bookstores), I have found one about the soldier from Ternopil region. It is about Yaroslav Antoniuk from Klebanivka, Pidvolochysk raion. This man was on Maidan, and went to the ATO zone in April 2014. He was gravely wounded in the firefight with the terrorists, and his memories describe this experience. Now the 24-year-old Hero is a disabled person. In May this year he received rehabilitation treatment in Georgia.
Photo by Ivan PSHONIAK
Another hero is also familiar to Ternopil citizens: Oleksii Kurylov, vice-commander of the corvette Ternopil, who visited the city together with his faithful crew of sailors after the vessel was seized and Crimea was annexed. On the Theatre square, the heart of the city, the public gave them a warm welcome and a loud applause. The flag of the heroic corvette was donated to the citizens of Ternopil. The sailors are continued to be taken care of by our community, though they now serve in other parts of Ukraine. Maria Semenchenko’s Catastrophe and Triumph. Histories of Ukrainian Heroes, under the general editorship of Larysa Ivshyna, Den newspaper editor-in-chief, is not just another collection, which shows examples of heroism and sacrifices of Ukrainian people – it is also a good example for journalists and writers on how to collect and publish biographies of our defenders for the sake of the future generations. God grant that they may not know war.
Oleh LIVINSKY, acting editor-in-chief of Evening Ternopil
