Roads of Ukraine: we celebrate the day of Ukrainian writing and language and join the writing of the radio dictation of national unity

 Language is the fate of our people,

and it depends on how jealously we all cherish it
Oles Honchar

Words grew out of the soil like rye. The tongue was a selected grain.
It's like bread. It's a saint. And the blood of the ancestors is heavily purple.
Lina Kostenko

 Every year on the Day of Ukrainian literacy and language  in Ukraine and abroad, there are many events to promote the Ukrainian language, including radio dictation of national unity. Thousands of Ukrainians join the writing process of radio dictation. The purpose of the event is to unite people around Ukraine all over the world. The idea of the radio dictation originated 23 years ago, it was founded in 2000 by the Ukrainian radio team in order to unite all Ukrainians. 

 This year, according to the decree of the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, the date of the celebration of the day of Ukrainian writing and language was shifted from November 9 to October 27 and, accordingly, the radio dictation of national unity was held for the first time – on October 27. The holiday of Ukrainian writing and language is traditionally celebrated on the day of honoring the memory of the monk Nestor The Chronicler (writer-hagiographer, the first historian of Kyivan Rus, thinker, scientist, Monk of the Kyiv Pechersk monastery), whose name is associated with beginning of the written Ukrainian language.
 The text to the radio dictation was called "Roads of Ukraine" and was written by a Ukrainian translator and poetess Kateryna Kalytko. A theater and film actor  Olexiy Hladkovskywas reading the dictation.
 Teachers of the department of philosophy and international communication and 1st year students of the specialty "International relations, public communications and regional studios" joined the writing of the radio dictation of national unity in NULES of Ukraine to write it together with thousands of people around the world – not to test literacy, but for the sake of national unity. 

 It was both exciting, responsible, and painful: after all, the realization that at that time millions of Ukrainians from all over the world rallied in writing dictation shows only one thing - language matters. The path of development of the Ukrainian language is a thorny path of struggle. Language is our shield, our armor and our strength, language helps to protect and protect our independence, our identity. Communicating in Ukrainian, we establish ourselves as a nation of Free, strong, invincible. We study, honor, cherish and cherish the Ukrainian language "as a sprout of a vine, we will not be lazy to take care of our garden", as was bequeathed to us by M. Rylsky, because as long as the language lives, the nation also lives.
 

Tetiana KYCHKYRUK,
associate professor of the department of philosophy and international communication,
curator of the MV-23002b group