We are among the winners of the Petro Jacyk Ukrainian Language Contest
On the 142nd anniversary of the interment of Taras Shevchenko’ body, returned to the great poet’s motherland in accordance with his will, another important event took place at the Kyiv Opera, the awards ceremony of the Third Petro Jacyk International Ukrainian Language Contest. There were over 5 million participants since, according to Minister of Education Vasyl Kremen’s order, students of secondary, technical, and vocational schools as well as university students took part in the contest. Schoolchildren from Eastern and Western diaspora were also involved.
The contest’s organizers, best participants, their teachers, and representatives from state institutions were present at the ceremony. Ms. Nadia Jacyk, daughter of the contest’s initiator and principal founder, also came to the ceremony. First Deputy Chairman of Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Zinchenko spoke on behalf of Ukraine’s parliament, saying, “The Ukrainian language is what has united us and brought us together here.” The people’s deputy also noted, “The meaning of national languages grows in the epoch of technological dominance... The Ukrainian language is a symbol of our presence on this planet.” Of course, such understanding of the meaning of the language gladdens one’s heart. People’s Deputy Zinchenko also presented awards to the teachers who trained the contest’s first prizes winners: Liudmyla Shelukha, Nina Maystrenko, Valentyna Soloniy, Olesia Panashchuk, Tetiana Dzhupyna, Emiliya Chornohuz, Natalia Kumeyska, Mariya Doboni, Natalia Sosiuk, and the only man in this meritorious company, Oleksandr Zabolotny.
The list of the first prize winners is: second grade Yuliya Pyshko (Rivne), third grade Oleksandr Kysil (Kyiv oblast), fourth grade Iryna Bondarenko (Kyiv oblast), fifth grade Olha Bibko (Rivne oblast), sixth grade Olha Kosova (Kyiv), seventh grade Roman Oskolov (Chernivtsi), eight grade Yana Hryshkina (Kherson), ninth grade Maryana Dobni (Transcarpathian oblast), tenth grade Dmytro Oliynyk (Kyiv oblast), and eleventh grade Olha Kosianchuk (Rivne). University students who won first prizes were Viktoriya Tsupryk (Chernihiv), Tetiana Chukhlian (Sevastopol), Olena Spivak (Kyiv), Ruslan Zhmurin (Zaporizhzhia), and Valentyna Ovsiyenko (Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky). In the words of Minister Kremen, 70% of Ukrainian children go to schools where Ukrainian is the language of instruction. The following day the mass media outlets most active in covering the contest’s trend were marked. Chief editor of our newspaper Larysa Ivshyna and this author (in the photo) received an Honorary Diploma “for an active civic stand.” In our turn, we are sincerely grateful to the contest’s organizers for their fine job.
