The Day of Ukrainian language and literature was celebrated in Uzhgorod

On November 9, the Day of Ukrainian language and literature was celebrated in Uzhgorod central city library. This holiday was founded in 1997 on the initiative of NGOs and considering the important role of Ukrainian language in the consolidation of the society. The holiday is timed to honoring the memory of the Reverend Nestor the Chronicler, who is considered to be the originator of the "Tale of Bygone Years" – a monument of historiography and literature of Kyiv Rus of the early XII century.

The librarians held an informative excursion into the history of the Ukrainian language, from its origins to the appearance in the annals, polemical writings and fiction of different times, recalled the main advocates for the establishment of Ukrainian language in oral speach and in writing.

They also spoke of the opression, which the Ukrainian language was suffering from its most ardent detractors from the early XVII century to the end of the XX century. 

It would seem that everything is in the past, but the grains of falsehood, that were being sowed for centuries by haters of everything Ukrainian, today are growing into attempts of persecution of our language, labeling it as "not prestigious," "provincial". But it is only an annoying stereotype, which is now being successfully refuted by representatives of political, scientific and creative elite of Ukraine, people of different professions, residents of different regions of Ukraine, representatives of different nationalities.

The library employees urged their guests to read more. In particular, Uzhgorod centralized library system, which consists of several institutions, now keeps almost 167,000 books, more than 80 thousand of which are in Ukrainian: those are books from different fields of knowledge and mostly fiction.