On October 19, 2013, the Director of the Jewish Studies Center of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Editor-in-Chief of the “Dukh i Litera” publishing house, Euro-Asian Jewish Congress General Council member Leonid Finberg was decorated with the honorary award of the Omelian and Tatiana Antonovych Foundation for his contribution to Ukrainian culture.

 

The awarding ceremony took place in Washington, at the Embassy of Ukraine to the USA.

Honorary guests included Ambassador of Ukraine to the USA Oleksandr Motsyk and former Ambassador of the USA to Ukraine John Herbst.

The Omelian and Tatiana Antonovich FoundationOmelian and Tatiana Antonovych Foundation is a private charitable organization, created in 1980 by the spouses Antonovich to aid in the development of Ukrainian culture and in promoting an understanding between the Ukrainian and American peoples.

The Antonovych Foundation sponsored the restoration of the Stefanyk Scientific Library of Lviv, the restoration and outfitting of the National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy library, the building of the regional “Boykovschina” museum in Dolyna city of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast’, the restoration of the exhibition hall of the Ukrainian museum in New York, and so on.

The annual award is yet another venue of the Foundation’s activity. The Honorary Prize of the Omelian and Tatiana Antonovych Foundation was established in 1981, and is awarded for exceptional literary works in Ukrainian and studies in the field of Ukrainian Studies.

The first awards were given to Vasyl Barka (1981), Vasyl Stus, and Orest Subtelniy (1982). Over 60 famous writers and scholars were decorated with the foundation award, including Yuri Shevelev, Lina Kostenko, Valeriy Shevchuk, Ivan Dzyuba, Vyacheslav Brykhovetskiy, Mikhaylina Kotsyubinskaya, Roman Shporlyuk, Yuri Andrukhovich, Nikolai Ryabchuk, father Boris Gudzyak, and Yaroslav Grytsak.

The EAJC website congratulates Leonid Kushelevich on this high honor.