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Ancient Ukraine: Trypilian Culture this Fall at ROM

August 20, 2008 Andrew 2 Comments

Ontario ROM The exhibit runs from November 29, 2008 to March 22, 2009. artdaily has a great write-up on it:

ONTARIO.- This Fall, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: the Remarkable Trypilian Culture (5400 â€“ 2700 BC), the worldâ€™s first large scale exhibition uncovering the secrets of this ancient society which existed in present day Ukraine 7,000 â€“ 5,000 years ago. The mystery of this compelling and sophisticated culture, known for creating the largest settlements anywhere in the world at the time, only to inexplicably disappear, is illuminated through some 300 artifacts, many never before seen in North America. The exhibition is on display in the Museumâ€™s 3rd floor Centre Block from Saturday, November 29, 2008 to Sunday, March 22, 2009.

With Ukraineâ€™s First Lady, Mrs. Kateryna Yushchenko serving as honorary patron, Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: the Remarkable Tryplian Culture (5400 â€“ 2700 BC) is organized by the ROM in collaboration with the National Museum of the History of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine), the Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Archaeological Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Odessa Archaeological Museum, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Vinnytsia Regional Museum (Ukraine). The exhibition is based on artifacts first discovered by Ukrainian archaeologist Vikenty Khvoika in 1896, including tools, items of adornment, ceramic figures, earthenware portraits, and pottery. Trypilian pottery, with its sophisticated decorative schemes, attractive forms and fine execution, is generally recognized as second to none in the Neolithic world.

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Ukrainian news round-up – August 18, 2008

August 18, 2008 Andrew Leave a comment

Remember Russia’s accusations of Georgia committing “genocide” in South Ossetia to justify invasion?Â Turned out to be a big fat lie:

Russian-backed leaders in South Ossetia have said that 2,100 people died in fighting in Tskhinvali and nearby villages. But a doctor at the city’s main hospital, the only one open during the battles that began late on Aug. 7, said the facility recorded just 40 deaths.

That explanation, that Russians were saving South Ossetians from total annihilation, undergirded Moscow’s rationale for the invasion.

A senior member of Russia’s parliament, Konstantin Zatulin also said that the Russian government intended to spend some $100 million on building a “Moscow district” in the city (Tskhinvali, Georgia); he did not explain what that would entail.

Georgia’s leadership maintains the war was launched by the Kremlin because of longstanding resentment about the former Soviet republic’s close ties with the West.

Of course it’s not like they haven’t lied before.

Russia has been accused of handing out its passports to residents in Crimea to stoke another separatist movement.
President Yushchenko has accused Prime Minister Tymoshenko of high treason by not speaking out against the Kremlin in the conflict and plotting to use a deepening crisis with Moscow to take over as president.
Ukraine is ready to make its missile warning defence system available to Europe.
A lady in Glenside, PA has grown a 9-foot tall sunflower to be the the symbol of her graduate Holodomor class at Kean University in Union, N.J.
The 36th annual Ukrainian Festival was held in Irondequoit near Rochester, NY on Saturday as well as the 33rd annual Ukrainian Festival in Middletown, NY.
Ukraine has propped itself up to 10th place with a slew of medals, including Oleksandr Petriv setting an Olympic record in men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol.
Remember how the Orthodox church said it didn’t want to get political?
Madonna’s 50th birthday apparently quite the news in Ukraine.
‘Hutsul’s Year‘ a much talked about play in Edinburgh had to be cancelled after the lead actress was knocked down and seriously hurt.Â ‘Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors‘ will air at the Nairm film festival.

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The shameful roots of the Shaw Festival

August 13, 2008 Andrew Leave a comment

The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario founded in 1962 as a salute to Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw.Â The Globe and Mail noticed how this year among others the lack of diversity among actors, which mirrored Shaw’s own beliefs:

Shaw was a Stalinist and helped whitewash the Ukrainian Holodomor…

From his Wikipedia page:

After visiting the USSR in the 1930s where he met Stalin, Shaw became an ardent supporter of the Stalinist USSR. The preface to his play On the Rocks (1933) is primarily an effort to justify the pogroms conducted by the OGPU. In an open letter to the Manchester Guardian, he dismisses stories of a Soviet famine as slanderous and calls reports of its exploited workers falsehoods.^[57] Asked why he did not stay permanently in the Soviet ‘earthly paradise’, Shaw jokingly explained that England was a hell and he was a small devil. He wrote a defense of Stalin’s espousal of Lysenkoism in a letter to Labour Monthly.

You can download the play here, it should be in the public domain in Canada.

Edit:Â I found a lot more information online.Â Very scary to know we have a festival for a man who believed Auschwitz was caused by overcrowding.

language, uk

Teach yourself Ukrainian

August 12, 2008 Andrew Leave a comment

From Ucrainica (UK):

Online resources

Read Ukrainian! â€” an online course of interactive materials designed to support the acquisition of reading skills in Ukrainian. www.lww-cetl.ac.uk/ukrainian
Laboratory drills â€” online audio exercises from the Slavic Department of the University of Toronto. lab.chass.utoronto.ca/slavic/Ukrainian/SLA208

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Ukrainian news round-up – August 11, 2008