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OUR LIFE M onthly, published by Ukrainian N ational Women s League of America VOL. XLV JANUARY 1988 Editor: Marta Baczynsky KEYNOTE ADDRESS DELIVERED BY DR. DARIA MARKUS O F C H IC A G O , D U R IN G THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE V CONGRESS OF THE WORLD FEDERATION OF U KRAINIAN WOMEN'S O R G A N IZ A T IO N S HELD IN TORONTO, CANADA IN NOVEMBER 1987 “N O T FR O M A LA N D U N K N O W N A R E WE Metropolitan iiarion, Kiev, 1037 Honorable Guests and Delegates: We gathered here, in this lovely and lively city of Toronto, coming from many countries and many conti nents, not only to promote our organizational activities, but also to celebrate the most outstanding event in the history of Ukrainian people — the millennium of Chris tianization of our ancestral land. It matters not where we were born, whether we have ever seen Ukraine, for as long as we have a historical consciousness of our cultu ral heritage, we are a part of it. Our collective con sciousness reaches into times immemorial when a slow evolution of values, of appreciation of life, was codified into customs and tradition which survived even unto our days. Christianity opened for our ancestors the door to the cumulative treasures of ancient and medieval civiliza tion that Byzantium of the 10th century represented. The effect was euphoric. Art, literature, architecture flourished in Kiev at a pace unmatched in any other period in the history of that land. Volodymyr the Great, shortly after accepting Christianity in 988 as the official religion of his lands, built in Kiev the famous Desiatynna Church, endowed it with a tenth part of his wealth, founded the first school there, and set his people on a soaring journey of creative cultural achievements. All these achievements, be it the famous mosaics of Saint Sophia or Saint Michael’s, the frescoes from Saint Cyril’s, the intricate illuminations of the manuscripts, the golden domes of churches, — they were all insepar ably tied to the Christian religion. Thanks to Sts. Cyril and Methodius, unlike in Western Europe where the language of the books was Latin, here one did not have to learn a foreing language to be literate. It sufficed just to learn the alphabet. Literacy in Rus’-Ukraine was, for that time, surprisingly wide-spread. For us, women, it is interesting to take a look at the role and treatment of women in those long past times. Some historians claim that the best indicator of the level of civilization is the treatment of women in society. In the Chronicle of Times Past — Povist’ Vremennykh Lit — we find that it is precisely the treatment of women that, in the author’s view, distinguishes the Poliany, the founding people of Kievan Rus’-Ukraine, from other tribes. They treated their mothers, wives, and daughters with respect, writes the ancient chronicler, and pro ceeds to praise the beauty, wisdom, and character of one of the greatest rulers of his land, kniahynia Olha, the first Kievan ruler to become Christian. She believed that just setting the example would be sufficient for oth ers to accept the Christian religion voluntarily. This shows both her political perceptiveness and a profound understanding of the true meaning of Christianity. She certainly did set an example for the future prin cesses of the Kievan court of what a woman’s role in society can be, which, in turn, reverberated outside the courtly circles. The daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Anna, who became the wife of the king of France, was literate; her husand was not. Her niece, Yanka, entered a monas tery where she founded a school for girls where read ing, writing, and music were part of the curriculum, while another niece, Eupraxia, wife of the German emperor Henry IV, was brave enough to accuse her husband, in front of 30,000 people gathered at the Council of Piacenza, of immoral and unchristian behav ior. Her grandniece, also named Eupraxia, was the author of the first medical textbook written in Ukraine which, besides the then known facts in medicine, also con tained her own observations in that field. Thus we find in the Chronicle women engaged in reli 20 ’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, СІЧЕНЬ 1988 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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