2/10 Years of War: Events and Resources
A reflection from Dr. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, CIUS Director
How do you respond to the claims by your abuser that you have no name, no identity, no roots, and no history, asserting that you and everything you have belong to him?
This is the situation Ukrainians have been facing for the last ten years, and especially during the last two years of full scale invasion of Ukraine. The president of Russia, a former KGB officer and the ruler of his country for the last 24 years, keeps reviving his own twisted thesis that Ukraine does not exist and therefore can be taken over in a brutal military way.
One of the largest and most fundamental publications from CIUS is the English translation of the ten-volume History of Ukraine-Rus' by Mikhailo Hrushevsky. The most important historical work ever written in or about Ukraine, History of Ukraine-Rus' is widely seen as the intellectual antidote to the relentless Russian propaganda and assertions that Ukraine has no history and therefore does not have the right to exist.
On 21 February 2024, along with Canada's Ambassador to Ukraine Natalka Cmoc, I was pleased to present the First Lady of Ukraine Mrs Zelenska with ten sets of Mykhailo Hrushevsky's History of Ukraine-Rus' for the First Lady's Ukrainian Bookshelf Project. Forty such bookshelves have thus far been set up around the world.
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In times of full scale war launched by the Russian state against Ukraine, the History of Ukraine-Rus' plays the role of a most powerful intellectual weapon that Ukrainians can use in their efforts to withstand the invasion.
The First Lady of Ukraine Bookshelf Project will now feature the Mykhailo Hrushevsky seminal work in English, enabling an international community and global leaders to familiarize themselves with the long history of Ukrainian people and culture. I thank the University of Alberta and UofA President Bill Flanagan for joining me and my team in this gifting ceremony.
