Ukrainian Catholic University Press receives awards (10/26/03)

Ukrainian Catholic University Press receives awards

by Lesya Holovata

LVIV - At the 10th National Publishers' Forum held in Lviv on September 12-14, the press of the city's Ukrainian Catholic University received two awards. "The History of France," by Vadim Adadurov, and the textbook "The Latin Language," co-authored by N. Yakovenko and V. Myronova, both published by the UCU Press this year, received awards in the category of textbooks and reference books for schools of higher education.

The forum assembled 421 representatives of publishing houses, libraries, bookstores, companies and associations that displayed their printed works. George Y. Shevelov's "A Phonological History of the Ukrainian Language" received the grand prize in a competition of 421 books from 97 publishing houses.

"The publication of 'The History of France' is part of a bigger project: to give the Ukrainian reader books that will form ideas about the history of other nations," said Prof. Yaroslav Hrytsak. The director of the Institute of Historical Research at Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Prof. Hrytsak was an early promoter of Mr. Adadurov's book.

"It's no secret that the main subject for modern Ukrainian historical study is the history of Ukraine," Prof. Hrytsak added. "We don't have textbooks about the history of Canada or Spain, or even of neighboring Belarus, Russia, or Romania. This is a result of the artificial isolation and provincialism, this 'black body,' that the Soviet regime imposed on Ukrainian scholarship. Before 1917 in the East, and before 1939 in the West, Ukrainian scholarship was developing in a perfectly normal direction: we recall that our greatest historians from those times, men like, let's say, Ivan Krypiakevych, did not avoid writing non-Ukrainian history."

"Unfortunately," Prof. Hrystak continued, "the contemporary status of Ukrainian scholarship is such that no scholarly institution can by itself successfully realize a project [like that begun by Adadurov]. So, in Lviv two universities have united in this effort, Ivan Franko National and the Ukrainian Catholic. Each of them has their strong points, and also certain structures of limitation. But from this uniting of two universities, the former becomes greater and the latter becomes smaller."

Ironically, the author of "The History of France," Vadim Adadurov, had never been to France before he wrote his book. Thanks to the UCU's initiative, Mr. Adadurov received a stipendium for scholarly study at the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne (Paris) last year. He has since returned to Lviv.

Further information about the UCU in English and Ukrainian is available on the university's website at www.ucu.edu.ua. Readers may also contact the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation, 2247 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622; phone, (773) 235-8462; e-mail, [email protected]; website, www.ucef.org. The phone number of the UCEF in Canada is (905) 465-3388.

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