February 25, 2021 will mark the 150th anniversary of Lesya Ukrainka. This holiday will be celebrated at the state level. On this occasion, a complete collection of works by the writer is being prepared at Lesya Ukrainka Eastern European National University.
The project has been initiated by Lesya Ukrainka University. About 30 best researchers from all over Ukraine are already working on the preparation of the 14-volume set (most of them are the scientists of our university); work has been distributed by volumes, directions, genres.
According to one of the project managers, Doctor of Philological Sciences Serhii Romanov, who coordinates the scientific and textological work, teachers of the Faculty of Philology and Journalism and the Faculty of Foreign Philology have taken up this work at our university (Lesya Ukrainka left huge translation legacy; specialists will study the texts translated from French, German, English, Polish).
In addition, employees of other higher educational institutions and academic institutions of Lviv, Chernivtsi, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Ostroh, and Kyiv have been involved in the preparation of the edition.
“Altogether, the most respected scientists and researchers of Lesya Ukrainka's work are participating in the project. We have put together the best team to carry out this project. In fact, there are no better people for this job. They will be able to present Lesya Ukrainka's works to readers from all over Ukraine,” said Serhii Romanov.
According to the scholar, the team hope that by the end of 2020 several first volumes will have been published, and the latter ones are planned to be presented to the world for the anniversary of Lesya Ukrainka.
“By 2020, we want to release at least a few volumes. First of all, the main reason is that Lesya Ukrainka is our patroness. We have to do it for her and for ourselves. An additional motivation is the 80th anniversary that our University will celebrate this year, ”said the university professor.
The quarantine measures, which have been involuntary accepted by the University staff, do not affect the work on the collection, and even contribute to in some way. All team members have access to Lesya Ukrainka's manuscripts in electronic format. It is worth mentioning that the work on such a large-scale project requires a lot of effort. Firstly, it is necessary to prepare the texts of the writer, properly commenting on them and selecting illustrative material, then the publishing house will develop a layout of the edition, which should be verified again to prepare a quality product. Now the scientists are at the first stage: they compare the manuscripts with the works which were published later, identify and eliminate errors, add omissions, as most of the materials from the Soviet editions of the writer's works have been "cut out".
The complete collection of Lesya Ukrainka's works is a unique phenomenon in the history of our book publishing and culture in general. It is important that the institution of higher education, named after the great writer, initiated this large-scale project and began to implement it. The University has previously prepared and published works by Lesya Ukrainka, as well as collective and monographic studies of her life and intellectual output. However, a complete collection of works is a new, large-scale and extremely responsible stage of studying and presenting the works of the greatest Ukrainian writer.
“For 150 years since Lesya Ukrainka's birth, we have no complete collection of her works. All former editions were incomplete and had other faults. For instance, due to ideological reasons, the writer's views on religion, national and language issues were not fully represented. Now, living in an independent country, we can try to read and comment on the writer's works as confidently and freely as it should be.” said Serhii Romanov.
Volyn scientists have applied to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine and are participating in an artistic contest for the development of an information product model of graphic nature on the topic: "Production of polygraphic works" ("Lesya Ukrainka's Works. Full Academic Collection") In case of winning the competition, the creative team will receive funds for the 14-volume edition.
"We have assembled a good team, have the necessary experience, including the preparation and publication of works by Lesya Ukrainka, scientific studies of the writer's life and works, all necessary literary and critical materials, relations with the publishers, so we highly estimate our chances of winning," - summed up Serhii Romanov.
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