NEWS AND VIEWS: An autumn report from Lviv (10/19/97)

NEWS AND VIEWS

An autumn report from Lviv

by Larissa M. L. Onyshkevych

Lviv is lovely in October, especially Shevchenko Prospect, which has seen much restorative work recently: buildings have been freshly painted, retouched, regilded, decorated with planters and flowers on balconies, shining, and elegant in a 19th century style. On the strip of grass in the middle of this wide boulevard stand benches, next to them stand sculptures exhibited by local artists from time to time. No matter what the economic situation is here, Lviv is attempting to show its independence from the capital and to provide proof that once it actually did play a prominent role in Ukrainian cultural life, and may do it again.

Lviv University

The Ivan Franko Lviv University - the oldest Ukrainian university - began classes this fall on September 1. After a formal ceremony held in front of the university and Ivan Franko's statue in the park named in his honor, another program was held for faculty and guests. The university had decided to return to a long-forgotten tradition of awarding honorary doctoral degrees, and the first to be chosen to receive this honor since renewed Ukrainian independence was the poet, member of Parliament and civic leader Ivan Drach. Since this event was held only a week after the World Congress of Ukrainians in Kyiv, in his acceptance speech Mr. Drach stressed the need to organize a World Forum of Ukrainian Youth.

During the ceremony the energetic and young rector (or president) of this vibrant and proud Ukrainian university, Dr. Ivan Vakarchuk, reported on the university's achievements during the last academic year. The institution has 16 departments now, with 60 majors, including a new Law School. Last June the university awarded 2,050 undergraduate diplomas. The rector expressed concern about the problems that high school students from rural communities have in being admitted to universities; therefore, for the second year in a row, the university has allocated 36 percent of the slots in its first year class to high school graduates from the villages, the same proportion they represent in the total population of Ukraine.

The total number of students is over 12,000 now, with 700 graduate students, the largest number in any Ukrainian university. There are over 600 foreign students here as well.

The university has 900 teaching personnel who have not been paid for months. Scientists who were strictly involved with research have been let go because of financial difficulties. At this time, the government owes the university, which is state supported, 1.5 million hryvni in salaries and 1.2 million hrv in scholarships for students. Nevertheless, the university is attempting to lead a normal life. It has managed to expand its international contacts, opened several international centers (and plans an American Center), and is introducing new disciplines (e.g., Turkish and Persian).

Publishers forum

The first Publishers Forum was organized in Lviv several years ago; the fourth forum was held this year on September 12-15, under the direction of its president, Oleksandra Koval. The exhibit was bigger than ever, with about 210 publishers, 35 bookstores and 40 libraries (publishing their own series), book distributors and publishers of maps and postcards - a total of 450 individual stands or tables. The majority of books shown were in Ukrainian, mostly from Lviv, Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Kherson. Beside attracting Ukrainian publishers, Russian, Polish, German, Canadian and British houses were represented; there were no American or Ukrainian diaspora publishers.

While Ukrainian children's books were probably the most colorful, the technical quality of other books has improved noticeably. Many new publishing houses were there too. One can marvel at the numerous attempts to provide much-needed books and textbooks in various fields.

A new and small publishing house, Litopys, which just started last year in Lviv, has already given serious readers several gems. They began with "An Anthology of Contemporary Literary and Philosophical Thought" (Maria Zubrytska editor; co-published with the Shevchenko Scientific Society of the U.S.), followed by Tamara Hundurova's "A Discourse on Early Ukrainian Modernism" and "New Europe" (conference proceedings). By arranging for the translation from the Norwegian of Justin Gaarder's international bestseller "Sophie's World" (a history of philosophy in the form of a novel), Litopys not only gave young and older adults a beautiful book, but made readers-to-be a proud part of the international reading public of this unique novel, and also started a Ukrainian chapter of "Sophie's Club."

Kyiv's Osnovy Publishers just published their 100th book, and they were displaying translations of Plato's "Dialogues," Slovak poetry, works of Tagore, as well as books by several authors from North America, such as Zenon Kohut's "Russian Centralism and Ukrainian Autonomy, 1760-1880" and George Grabowicz's, "Towards A History of Ukrainian Literature."

Lybid Publishing House was advertising a book by the Ukrainian American economist Ivan Koropeckyj, "Essays on Ukrainian Economics" and by authors from several decades ago, such as Volodymyr Antonovych, "Selected Works" and Volodymyr Shcherbakivskyj, "Ukrainian Art." Naukova Dumka recently published "A Popular Commentary to the Criminal Codex" and A Russian-Ukrainian Technical Dictionary. A Russian-Ukrainian Dictionary of Aviation and Space Science was published by Dnipropetrovsk University. A multi-volume edition of "History of the Ukrainian Underground Army" was displayed by Litopys UPA; the Ivano-Frankivsk publisher Lilea released a "History of Plast" by Borys Savchuk. Kharkiv's Folio Publishing exhibited Ihor Kalynets' new collection of poetry "Lasting Word" ("Slovo Tryvaiuche").

There were many textbooks for all grades, as well as for college. A local, Lviv publishing house A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-GA, founded by the poet Ivan Malkovych, displayed its bright, colorful and exciting books for children, both new and old stories: "Ivasyk-Telesyk," A Little Golden Spider, "Pan Kotskyi." There were at least another half dozen publishing houses of children's books.

Awards for best books in several categories, published in 1996-1997, were announced at the closing of the forum. In the area of Ucrainica first prize was given for "Tustan': An Old Rus' Fortress" by Mykhailo Rozhko (Naukova Dumka); in current fiction - "Perversions" by Jurii Andrukhovych (Lileia, Ivano-Frankivske); translations - a 3-volume edition of Albert Camus' works (published by Folio, Kharkiv), and in juvenile books - the above-mentioned translation of Gaarder's "Sophie's World". The grand prize was awarded to Dmytro Stepovyk's monumental album-size study of "The History of Ukrainian Icons 10th-20th centuries," (published by Lybid, Kyiv). A special award was given to A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-GA for its children's books.

As many articles continue to point out, the total Ukrainian book output continues to be quite disheartening: Ukrainian books represent only about half of all the published titles in Ukraine, and 40 percent of the total number of books, providing about one book per each Ukrainian this year. It is hardly something to be proud of. Publishers continue to complain about the exorbitant taxes leveled on them, as well as the requirement for bookstores to pay taxes (20 percent) upfront, as soon as they accept any book for sale, a law that is to go in effect on October 1, threatening to paralyze the whole publishing industry and book sales. It is indeed a wonder that Ukraine continues to publish, and that the technical quality of books continues to improve tremendously.

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