CIUS and Kyiv Mohyla Academy to Cooperate on Scholarly Projects

On May 4, 2009, an agreement on scholarly collaboration between the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, and the Kyiv Mohyla Academy National University (KMA) was signed in Edmonton by CIUS Director Dr. Zenon Kohut and KMA President Dr. Serhii Kvit.

The agreement will promote cooperation in the fields of history, culture, and Ukrainian literature  of the Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries. More specifically, it includes a project involving the study and publication of old printed texts and manuscripts, especially polemical, didactic and homiletic works of the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries; the study of literary, historical, and social aspects of contemporary Ukraine; seminars and short-term educational and research trips for undergraduate and graduate students; and the exchange of books, journals, and other literature and information. The first project will deal with the study of Ukraine’s religious and cultural heritage. A series of texts, including works of prominent preachers and clergymen such as Inokentii Gizel, Varlaam Yasynsky, and Stefan Yavorsky, as well as collections of occasional and thematic sermons, will be published under the title An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Ukrainian Sermons. A catalogue of manuscript sources will be published separately. The project will also include a collection of scholarly essays on these texts that will address the culture, language, and stylistics of the Ukrainian sermon, the evolution of theology in Ukraine, rhetorical and ethical aspects of oratorical prose, and its philosophical and anthropological analysis.

Dr. Kvit also had an opportunity to meet with the staff of CIUS and other University of Alberta units. Dr. Irene Sywenky informed him about the Ukrainian programs at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies. At a meeting with representatives of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, Dr. Kvit acquainted himself with the administration and structure of the faculty’s doctoral programs. These are particularly relevant to the KMA, which intends to establish the first such programs in Ukraine on the basis of Western models. Dr. Kvit visited the Alberta School of Business, where his host was John Doyle, the program director. At a reception held at the Faculty Club, the KMA President was greeted by Dr. Britta Baron, Vice Provost and Associate Vice President (international), and by the director of the Education Abroad Program. He also visited Grant MacEwan College and was hosted by Roman Petryshyn, the Director of the Ukrainian Resource and Development Centre.

Dr. Kvit gave two lectures to members of the Ukrainian community in Edmonton, speaking in detail about the KMA as the oldest higher educational institution in Ukraine. Founded in the Early Seventeenth Century, it developed Ukrainian intellectual life in a period of radical social and political change, liberation movements and wars, and promoted the formation of the Ukrainian state. The many famous Ukrainians who studied there include the Cossack hetmans Ivan Vyhovsky, Petro Doroshenko, and Ivan Mazepa, the architect Ivan Hryhorovych-Barsky, the composers Maksym Berezovsky and Artem Vedel, the poet and archbishop Lazar Baranovych, the Orthodox Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky, and the philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda. Between 1819 and 1918 the KMA was turned into a theological academy by Imperial Decree; during the Soviet period, it was reduced to a military school. Only with the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence in 1991 was its academic status restored.

Today, the KMA is proud to be one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Ukraine. Oriented on Western models, it has adopted two working languages, Ukrainian and English, and well-known lecturers from abroad are invited on a regular basis. There are important architectural monuments on the KMA premises, such as the congregational Church of the Annunciation, where the academy’s students and graduates hold their weddings and baptize their children. Dr. Kvit was elected President in 2007, succeeding Dr. Viacheslav Briukhovetsky, the first President of the KMA. He is the author of ten books and numerous publications in the fields of communications and media, journalism and literature.

Dr. Kvit’s visit to Canada was organized by the Canada Ukraine Foundation and its President, Bob Onyschuk. In the course of his busy trip, Dr. Kvit also visited Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Winnipeg, and Calgary, where he met with representatives of various Canadian universities, business circles, and Ukrainian organizations to promote the activities of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

  CIUS Press Service