Chronologically, the last and at the same time the main event of the second day of Lviv Book Forum was the “Zustrich” literary award ceremony, which took place on October 5. The award is designed to be based on the common centuries-old experience of Ukrainians and Jews, which has found expression in fiction and non-fiction literature. The award is awarded annually for the most influential work of fiction and non-fiction (alternating) that promotes Ukrainian-Jewish understanding, helping to strengthen Ukraine's position as a multi-ethnic society and embodying the motto “Our stories are incomplete without each other.”
The initiative to establish the “Zustrich” Award, as well as its implementation, takes place with the full support of the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter (UJE) initiative (Ukraine-Canada).
In 2023, Sofia Andruhovich's novel “Amadoka” was awarded the main prize. The book saw a reader as early as 2020, but even after three years have passed, the work remains at the top of cultural reviews.
The participants of the award ceremony were members of the jury, who throughout the year performed a titanic and painstaking job of selecting works that alternately formed a long and a short list of contenders for the victory – Olga Mukha, author, philosopher, culture manager and expert in international culture and human rights protection (Ukraine / Great Britain), Oksana Forostyna, publisher, editor, translator, member of the Ukrainian PEN; Dr. Igor Shchupak, director of “Tkuma” Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies, member of the UJE Board of Directors; Natalia Fedushchak, UJE communications director, one of the initiators of the “Zustrich” award; Maryana Savka, editor-in-chief of “Stary Lev Publishing House”, which published the novel “Amadoka”, as well as several other works that claimed victory this year, and, of course, the author herself – the writer Sofia Andruhovych.
Except the awarding of the winners, all those present had a unique opportunity to be the first to hear Sofia Andruhovych's yet-to-be-published essay dedicated to Buchach, a city that is not only one of the central locations where the events of “Amadoka” unfold, but also a kind of personification of the memory of coexistence Ukrainians and Jews. In memory of the traumatic one associated with many tragedies that befell its inhabitants in the stormy 20th century – two world wars, pogroms and, as a culmination – the catastrophe of the Holocaust. To feel a neighbor's pain and remember it as one's own, not to lose the ability to empathize and to be merciful and effective in one's mercy – values that will never lose their relevance for Ukrainians of various ethnic origins. A terrifying experience does not remain hermetically sealed in the past, it continues to live – first in the unspoken memory of the immediate participants of the events, and later - in the suppressed and partly unconscious expectation of their descendants.
The importance of not losing the ability to empathize, to feel the pain of others, is now daily reminded of the news about the death of Ukrainian Defenders and civilian residents of our country. Unfortunately, yesterday evening was not an exception, because it was on the eve of the solemn event that everyone present became aware of another terrifying crime of Russia – the murder of 55 residents of the village of Groza in the Kharkiv region... And after the book event – another crime of the Russian Federation in Kharkiv itself…
We do not live in a book story. But at least now we have to realize its lessons.
Text – Yehor Vradii, Igor Shchupak
http://www.tkuma.dp.ua/en/the-latest-news/news/3719-tseremon-ya-vruchennya-l-teraturnoji-prem-ji-zustr-ch-na-l-v-vs-komu-forum-vidavts-v#sigProId5f26b5ef22