Today, more than ever, the topic of unity, rallying around the ideas of democracy, the development of national culture, and the very existence of the Ukrainian state is important for Ukrainian society. Therefore, the national holiday of Unity Day of Ukraine is a great opportunity to turn to our history to find events and names full of high symbolism and significance for the present.
In conditions when many Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes, the idea of unity also has such a dimension as the understanding of the entire Ukrainian nation as a big family, despite certain regional peculiarities. It was precisely to this leitmotif – the idea of the unity of the east, center, south, and west of Ukraine in the lives of our outstanding compatriots – that the joint event of the Bakhmut Museum of Local Lore and the Gorlovka Institute of Foreign Languages “United United Ukraine”, held with the support of the Department of Youth Policy and Children’s Affairs of the Bakhmut City Council, was dedicated.
Having outlined the historical prerequisites and circumstances of the proclamation of the Act of Union on January 22, 1919, the speakers and participants in the discussion recalled the famous names of natives of Bakhmut region and other parts of Ukraine connected with the East of our state, who played a major role in the establishment of Ukrainian science, culture, national idea, and self-awareness.
Thus, the director of the Bakhmut Museum of Local Lore, Igor Kornatsky, highlighted the pages of the biography of archeographer Yukhym Sytsynsky, poet Mykola Chernyavsky, and political figure and sociologist Mykyta Shapoval. The director of the Chasovoyarsk Historical and Local Lore Museum and senior lecturer at the Department of Domestic and Foreign History of the State Institute of International Relations, Valery Bohunenko, spoke about the activities of bibliographer Fedor Maksymenko. A separate interesting topic was the report of Kyrylo Ivlev, deputy director of the Institute of Francophilology of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, about the connections of this outstanding writer and public and political figure with Kharkiv and Kyiv. All speakers emphasized how the idea of unity of different regions of Ukraine was realized in the activities and life guidelines of the mentioned figures.
The participants of the meeting were able to see that even in the conditions of the tragic 20th century for the history of Ukraine, regional features were understood by scientists and cultural figures as manifestations of diversity, unity, and the cultural heritage of our people, which should be preserved and multiplied.
