In the creative workplace of the famous and wise Oles Honchar

On Wednesday, April 12, on a not quite fine day, first-year students of specialty "Journalism" together with the professor Mykola Stepanenko were travelling the Kyiv roads of Oles Honchar. Mykola Ivanovych told us a lot about this talented Master of the word. We got acquainted with his multi-genre texts in the classroom, tried to get into the creative laboratory of the novelist, poet and publicist in order to understand the intimacy of the writer's work.

We started our journey from the monument to Taras Shevchenko, which Oles Terentiyovych liked to visit. I remember Honchar's words about our Kobzar: "Born to light up Ukraine". We looked with interest at the exhibition "Oles Honchar – 105 years old" in the M. Honchar library. We were glad for M. Honchar, whose books – "Journalistic heritage of Oles Honchar", "Literary space of the "Diaries" by Oles Honchar", "Axiosphere of the diary discourse by Oles Honchar", "Spiritual message of Oles Honchar", "Oles Honchar-95", "Centenary of Oles Honchar", "Letters to Oles Honchar " (in 2 volumes) – decorated the expositions.

We visited the incredibly beautiful Volodymyr cathedral, whose bells did not stop in Soviet times, their sounds-chants reached the house of Oles Terentiyovych, inspired him, as evidenced by the lines quoted by Mykola Ivanovych from the diarrhoeal discourse. Not far from the church, which charmed us with the luxury of painting, is the House of Ukrainian writers "Rolit" (full name – "workers of literature"), where the author of "Standard bearers", "Tronka", "Cathedral", "Your dawn" lived since 1947. We were struck by the huge number of memorial plaques on this historic building. Mykola Ivanovych briefly but comprehensively revealed to us through immortalized figures the history of Ukrainian literature of the XX – early XXI century. Among the talented artists of the word is also Oles Honchar. Everyone thought that they would definitely come here for a spiritual conversation, that they would carefully and conscientiously study the bright and original pages of our beautiful literature.

We were very lucky to visit the writer's apartment. The guests were cordially welcomed by  Valentyna Danylivna, his wife, who has fulfilled a lot of interesting things about Oles Honchar, about a time that is already a distant and secret history for us. She repeated the words addressed to the professor with particular warmth, Stepanenko , in the preface to his highly regarded monograph "Literary space of the "Diaries" of Oles Honchar" in scientific and artistic circles: "A lot of different things are being written about Oles Honchar today... I am glad when I meet a thoughtful reader and researcher, kindred spirit with a person dear to me, capable of balanced and at the same time truthful, not manipulated by someone else's idea of penetration into Oles's work, into the garden of his images, words, deep and truthful reflections. One of the great supporters of Oles Terentiyovych is the philologist Mykola Stepanenko. I believed Mykola Ivanovych, told him a lot of things that I could not trust others, and saw understanding and sincere response: he felt Honchar's pains, joys, dreams. This man is rooting for our native word, our spiritual future and knows how to read deeply through the text into the human soul. Today I sincerely thank Mykola Stepanenko for his conscientious work and objective coverage of the material. It was through his mouth that Oles Terentiyovych finally spoke with such a welcome, but for certain reasons not always possible, frankness and directness."

Valentyna Danylivna handed over to Mykola Ivanovych more than two hundred still unpublished letters to Honchar. They will be a logical continuation of the ordering of the epistolary heritage of the writer, and also – the canvas of the future book. We are thankful to Mykola Ivanovych for giving us the two-book "Letters to Oles Honchar", so that we could draw wise thoughts from this source worthy of the highest praise.

We also visited the monument to Oles Honchar, laid flowers and mentally talked to the Master.

Our professor gave each student an original journalistic task, and I hope that we will complete them conscientiously and report with dignity in practical classes.

Experienced moments of creative communication power a caring person, such rays of happiness lie in the depths of the soul and memory. We are warmed and inspired by the message of the great intellectual of the ХХth century Oles Honchar, "A person should shine to a person". And light will never be replaced by darkness and gloom...

Tetiana Petruk,

1st year student of the specialty “Journalism"