UJE at the 5th Ethnofestival "Portal Through the Centuries: Old Bohuslav"
"Portal Through the Centuries: Old Bohuslav," an annual history festival about the Bohuslav region of the 19th and early 20th centuries, was held in the Kyiv region on 13 June. It was launched in 2022, the year of Russia's full-scale invasion, by a team of volunteers with the aim of rallying the community around the discovery and understanding of local history and cultural heritage.
The idea behind the festival is to create a kind of portal in time, through which everyone can look into the past, experience its atmosphere, and see themselves as part of the great history of their native land. Not fictional, not imposed — real history. More than just an event, it is an opportunity to experience the past live, through music, traditions, everyday life, and personal stories. The unique atmosphere of the ethnofestival recreated 19th-century Bohuslav, populated by Ukrainians, Jews, and Poles, where Ivan Nechui-Levytsky, Sholem Aleichem, and Marko Vovchok wrote their works.
Visitors had the opportunity to transform themselves into 19th-century burghers by donning costumes recreated from historical models, meet local writers and artists and the characters of their works, and immerse themselves in the diverse world of their stories.
The melodies and songs found during expeditions to villages were played and sung at the festival. Ethnic dancing and traditional crafts were taught amid the bustle of a fair, where special local dishes were served to the accompaniment of colorful tales. There were, of course, also books about the history of peoples who have lived in the territory of modern Ukraine for centuries.
UJE has participated in Bohuslav's ethnofestival before. This year, it attracted over 5,500 guests from different cities, towns, and villages of Ukraine. The book fair featured books published with UJE's support, which visitors could receive in exchange for a donation for the needs of soldiers in Ukraine's Defense Forces.
More information about the ethnofestival and Bohuslav's history and culture is available here.
Vladyslav Hrynevych, Jr., regional manager, UJE, Ukraine
