More than fifty scholars, writers, museum workers of Ukraine, Poland, Spain, France, Greece, Switzerland, as well as Polish and Ukrainian officials, participate in the 12th International Literary and Artistic Forum “Dialog of Two Cultures,” which has traditionally been hosted in Kremenets, Ternopil oblast, starting on the birthday of a great poet Juliusz Slowacki. For three days, September 4-6, the Slowacki museum-estate is going to host conferences, roundtables, presentations of this year’s literary publications, photographic plein airs. The visitors pay tribute and honor to the geniuses of two nations – Taras Shevchenko and Juliusz Slowacki – by laying flowers to their monuments.
The opening ceremony featured introductory speeches by Volodymyr Stefansky, head of Kremenets Raion Council; Oleksii Kovalchuk, Kremenets Mayor; Krzysztof Sawicki, Consul General of Poland; and Dorota Januszewska-Jakubiak, deputy director for Cultural and National Heritage at Polish Ministry of Culture, who presented a letter from the Minister of Culture Piotr Glinski. Dmytro Pavlychko, famous Ukrainian poet, social and political activist, translator of Slowacki’s works, and Honorary Citizen of Kremenets noted that Slowacki, being a Pole, nevertheless dedicated much of his attention to Ukrainian struggle for statehood. “Ukrainian Cossacks were his heroic epic,” he said. Pavlychko also asserted that no enemies can succeed in breaking Ukraine and Poland apart. Mykola Zhulynsky, Doctor of Philological Sciences at National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Director of the Institute of Literature said that the Ukrainian-Polish history has many positive aspects that essentially show the fate of our peoples to live in friendship and peace.
Tamara Sienina, director of Juliusz Slowacki Literary Memorial Museum in Kremenets, mentioned in an interview to The Day, that this year’s main feature of the “Dialog of Two Cultures” is that it would be held in celebration of Ivan Franko’s and Lesia Ukrainka’s anniversaries. In particular, the conference “Literary Polish-Ukrainian Relations in the 20 Interwar Years” featured the work by Dr. Hryhorii Shton, Professor at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (entitled “Stateless Romanticism. Aesthetic and Spiritual Dimension. Slowacki-Shevchenko-Lesia Ukrainka”) and the scientific work of Henryk Duda, professor at St. John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (entitled “Polish-Speaking Ivan Franko. A Few Details on the ‘For the Hearth’ Short Story”). The first day of the “Dialog of Two Cultures” was concluded by the “Literary cafe” with a birthday cake. As a present to Juliusz Slowacki, the participants planted roses – the poet’s favorite flowers.
