On April 3, 2013 Ukrainians all over the world commemorate the 95th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest representatives of Ukrainian prose of the second half of the XX century, writer, literary critic and social activist Oles Honchar. His name refers to the famous Ukrainian cohort of outstanding artists constituting a whole epoch in the history of national culture. The evidence of this is the fact that Honchar’s literary works were translated into 67 languages and his creative experience is generally recognized by Ukrainian and foreign masters of word.

Oles Honchar is the Stalin prize-winner (1948), the first Taras Shevchenko prize-winner (1962), the chairman of the Union of Writers of Ukraine (1959-1971), the head of the Republican Peace Committee, a member of the World Peace Council (1973), Academician of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine (1978), the Hero of Ukraine (2005 - posthumously). He was also awarded with the Order of “Glory” and “Red Star”, three medals “For Courage” and the medal “For the Defense of Kyiv”.

Oles Honchar left incorruptible inheritance filled with love to earth, nature, a man and mankind. This legacy expresses his will to think, create and live in the name of a great purpose.

There are books in the history of each literature representing the milestones of a nation’s culture climbing to the heights of a mankind spirit. It is the “Cathedral” by Oles Honchar in the Ukrainian literature of the XX century. In this book he showed the Ukrainian people a way to the national revival. Coming to the reader in the end of the 1960-s the novel immediately turned out in the whirlpool of passions, because it powerfully called for spiritual purification and unification, condemnation of national oblivion and cynical careerism. After the violent persecution of “Cathedral” by the totalitarian regime the masterpiece was removed from libraries, bookstores and publishing houses for twenty years. However, the “Cathedral” by Oles Honchar unified the forces of all Ukrainians to create new and democratic way of life.

Speaking about a national sense of O.Honchar’s activity it should be emphasized that writer was one of the bearers of the Ukrainian national revival. Others derive their own stability from his one and strengthen their own faith from his one. These powerful incentives inspire all Ukrainian patriots, so as they come from the highly authorized person who put his word on the nation’s guard.

Writer died in 1995 in Kyiv. In 2001 the monument to Oles Honchar was established in the capital.  In 2005 he was awarded the title of a Hero of Ukraine posthumously.