The opening remarks were delivered by Rostyslav Prokopіuk, Director of the Ukrainian Institute in Prague, and Andrii Korol, First Secretary for Humanitarian Cooperation at the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic.
Three intensive days were dedicated to Ukrainian culture and identity. The first day was filled with lectures and interactive exercises on the topics of the 1920s avant-garde, the Shistdesiatnyky movement, and Easter in Ukrainian culture.
A dedicated day was devoted to Ukrainian ethnopedagogy as an educational and developmental resource. Yaroslava Muzychenko — ethnologist and author of the “Circle of Knowledge” manual and methodology — shared her experience and the specifics of its implementation in both offline and online formats.
“Ukrainian tradition is a complex whole. The ethnocultural tradition itself contains the mechanism for passing it on to future generations. Through play, a child passes through all stages of human development: from a mythological worldview gradually transitioning to the modern, scientific one, carrying the emotionally lived experience of humanity from its earliest days.”
The active learning block — dances, haivky (spring songs) and other folk games — took place in a space where tradition came alive through movement, voice, play and shared circle.
The programme includes teachers and representatives of Ukrainian schools and cultural centres from Prague, Brno, Olomouc, Jihlava and České Budějovice: “Friends School”, Shchedryk (Olomouc Region), Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre in Brno, “Palyanytsia”, CenterEduNeuron, “Na Krylakh” (Jihlava), Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Parish in České Budějovice, and “Ridna Shkola”.
The programme is being successfully implemented in cooperation between the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation and the Ukrainian Institute in Prague, with support from the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic.
