The annual international literary and artistic project “Second Autumn” was held in Drohobych. It began on November 19 with an ecumenical meeting and prayer at the site of the tragic death of Bruno Schulz near Stepan Bandera Park. The participants of the event also went to the Alley of Memory and prayed for the fallen defenders of Ukraine and for all the innocent victims killed by russian terror.
After the ecumenical meeting, the events of “Second Autumn” were moved to the marble hall of the Drohobych City Council. Consul of the Republic of Poland in Lviv Krzysztof Lukyanovich, Director of the Polish Institute in Kyiv, Counselor-Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Jarosław Godun spoke with words of gratitude for the fact that the city of Drohobych cherishes and supports the International Bruno Schulz Memorial Project even during the full-scale russian invasion. Head of the Bruno Schulz Festival Society in Lublin Grzegorz Józefczuk and Head of the Polish Studies Scientific and Information Center at the Drohobych Pedagogical University Vira Meniok welcomed the participants to the annual event.
As part of the opening of the “Second Autumn”, Fathers Myroslav Sobolta and Oleh Kekos, Head of the Drohobych District Military Administration Stepan Kuliniak were awarded with the medal of the President of the City of Lublin for their support of this international project . The Lublin Union Medal for the Development of International Cooperation was awarded to the Mayor of Drohobych, Taras Kuchma.
And special awards of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland for merits and achievements in the promotion of Polish culture and the development of Ukrainian-Polish cultural cooperation were given to Vira Meniok – a lecturer at the Department of Foreign Literature and Polish Studies at Drohobych University, a Schulz scholar, and Mykola Hnatenko, director of the Yuriy Drohobych Lviv Academic Regional Music and Drama Theater in Drohobych. Mykola Hnatenko was honored with the Medal “Merited for Polish Culture”, Vira Menyok – with the bronze Gloria Artis medal.
It should be noted that this year writers, musicians, translators and researchers of Bruno Schulz’s work traditionally gathered in Drohobych for the “Second Autumn” event. Among the invited participants were Grzegorz Gauden, Oleksandr Boychenko, Yaroslav Kursky, Andriy Pavlyshyn, Pavel Prukhniak, Ariel Rozé, Natalia Belchenko, Kateryna Gladka, Yurko Prokhasko, Monika Shnaiderman, Natalia Filevych, Danylo Ilnytskyi, Jacek Podsiadlo, Hryhoriy Semenchuk, Diana Horban, Lyuba-Paraskeviia Strynadyuk, Józef Olejniczak, Maciej Tramer.
The organizers of the project are the Ihor Meniok Polish Study and Information Center at Drohobych University, the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow, the Bruno Schulz Festival Society (Lublin), the Bruno Schulz Museum and Festival Charitable Foundation (Drohobych).
Photo by Ihor Fetsiak
