The Ukrainian Conversational Club of the Ukrainian Language for Internally Displaced Persons from Regions of Active Combat and all interested has opened at Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University.
On March 29, the first lesson took place at Lesya’s University. In the future, the language club will be open every Tuesday and Thursday at 16:00 in Room 108 of the main building of Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University. Supported by Lutsk City Council, the University representatives decided to organise a conversation club to study, promote the Ukrainian language and to adapt citizens to the Ukrainian-speaking environment. The idea of starting such a club was prompted by the beginning of the war. Attendees were sought with the support of the city council, on social networks.
The first lesson was attended by 10 people who were forced to leave their homes by the war and settle temporarily in the regional center of Volyn.
The Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and Recruitment Yurii Hromyk noted that the club will work as long as people are interested in it.
«We are from different parts of the country, slightly different cultural traditions. But we must understand that this is our wealth and the wealth of Ukraine. Today, the Ukrainian language has also proved to be a means of protection. The Ukrainian-speaking population, thank God, is not going to “protect”. You know very well that there were no problems for Russian-speakers in Ukraine. But when an imperialist wants to create problems for the whole nation, he will invent them,» Yuriy Gromyk, the Vice-Rector of the Lesia Ukrainka University stressed.
Citing the Vice-Rector, the aim of the club, is neither to humiliate, nor to point out that it is necessary to speak Ukrainian here, but to help.
The project will be supervised by Oksana Pryimachok, Associate Professor of the Department of History and Culture of the Ukrainian Language at the Faculty of Philology and Journalism, and Tetyana Polezhaeva, Associate Professor of the Department of Slavic Philology at the Faculty of Philology and Journalism.
At the first lesson, the club members were told about traditional Ukrainian greetings, all present read a poem by Vasyl Symonenko «You know that a human you are», did a language «warm-up» pronouncing the particular word «palyanitsa».
Information Policy Department
