Since April, the Scientific and Technical Library, Lviv Polytechnic, together with the Ukrainian Photographic Society (UPHOTO), has been holding a series of cultural and educational events for Lviv residents and internally displaced persons. Lectures, film screenings, exhibitions, conversations with people who develop Ukraine – all these events are created to acquaint the public with important aspects of Ukrainian history, science, and culture.
Olena Kharheliia, deputy director of the Scientific and Technical Library, says that the close cooperation between the library and UPHOTO has been going on for years. The first joint event «Pavement. Past. Modernity» took place on October 19, 2017. However, taking into account modern challenges, the idea of resuming joint activities appeared this spring.
«It is very precious for us that Lviv Photo Museum is housed in the library today, as the discipline Photography was introduced at our University in the 1920/21 academic year». Among the teachers there are famous scientists, photo artists Henryk Mikolasch, Witold Romer, as well as Yulian Dorosh, one of the active members of the Ukrainian Photographic Society. In general, research work together with UPHOTO has been going on for a long time, because photography is still a technical discipline that is as close as possible to what Lviv Polytechnic teaches. Regarding joint activities, I would like to note that it is very important for us that IDPs come to the library. After all, this is another good opportunity to help them integrate into a new environment, to get to know people and our region».
Roman Metelskyi is the head of the Ukrainian Photographic Society – adds that the uniqueness of these events is that guests or lecturers never have to be asked to come to the library, on the contrary – everyone shows up on their own. Due to the fact that the number of people willing to attend events grows rapidly, we even increased the number of meetings. If earlier the meetings took place once a week, now they are twice or even three times. There were cases when as many as five events took place in the library during the week.
Valeriia Provozin has been attending various events organized by the library for more than seven years. In the spring of this year, she had the idea to involve IDPs who are staying in Lviv to visit artistic and educational events, and for three months the woman has been coordinating this activity.
IDPs join our conversation with the coordinator. In particular, a family from Mariupol says that they do not miss a single meeting, they are pleasantly surprised at how professionally everything is organized. They also note that this is a great opportunity for people from the eastern Ukraine to learn more about Halychyna, so they listen to lecturers very attentively.
Mz. Natalia from Sloviansk came to Lviv at the beginning of spring, but have learned about such a community just recently. Now the woman regrets that she has missed so many interesting events since then, and is convinced that the task of all these events is much more important, because they primarily help IDPs to divert attention from what they have experienced and relax their souls.
The summer at the Scientific and Technical Library will be full of interesting events, but it is no less precious that it will be spent in the company of people who, despite everything they have experienced, have not lost their ability to see beauty and believe in goodness. Therefore, we sincerely wish that, upon returning home, they will forever keep Lviv in their memory.
