Hoverla Stepan [Gel Ivan]. The Boundaries of Culture.London, 1984

Stepan Hoverlya [Ivan Hel]. The Facets of Culture / introduction by Bohdan Strebelsky; artistic design by Rostyslav Hluvko.

London: Ukrainian Publishing Union, 1984. — (Political Lectures for Ukrainian Youth). — Printed by Ukrainian Publishers Ltd., London.

Hardcover edition, dust jackets covered with laminated paper: on the front — a golden-yellow field with the title in white letters, a diamond ornament and the author's name in a thin black frame, on the white field the artist's signature "R. Hluvko"; the back dust jacket is white, without decoration. The laminate is worn and dirty, there are scratches on the back dust jacket; at the top of the front dust jacket near the spine, the laminate has peeled off with loss of paper; the edges and corners of the dust jackets are worn, on the flaps along the edges — yellowing and stains. The block is firm, the paper is white and clean. There is a pencil mark on the title page. Condition: good.

Lifetime edition. The book has historical and cultural value and is of collector's interest.

INFORMATION

"The Facets of Culture" — a response to Ivan Dziuba's brochure "The Facets of the Crystal", which the "Ukraine" society published in 1976 for abroad as proof that the author of "Internationalism or Russification?" had renounced his views. Hoverlya analyzes the brochure and contrasts the official picture of "flourishing" with his own: ethnocide as the goal of imperial policy, socialist realism, falsification of history, censorship, the situation of churches, the organization of the resistance movement, collaborators; a separate chapter is devoted to the very concept of dissidence. The publishers called the work perhaps the most mature work of Ukrainian samizdat.

Behind the pseudonym is Ivan Hel (1937–2011), a Lviv dissident originally from the village of Klytsko in Horodochyna. In 1965 he was sentenced to three years in the camps for distributing samizdat, in 1972 he was arrested again and as an "especially dangerous recidivist" was given ten years in the camps and five years of exile — Mordovia, the Urals, Komi. It was in prison that he wrote this book. After his release in 1987, he headed the Committee for the Defense of the UGCC, was among the organizers of "Memorial" and the Movement, in 1990–1994 — deputy chairman of the Lviv Regional Council.

The book was published in London in 1984, when the author was still serving his exile, so on the title — only a pseudonym. The introduction was written by Bohdan Strebelsky, designed by Rostyslav Hluvko, who also designed other publications of the Ukrainian Publishing Union; it was published in its series "Political Lectures for Ukrainian Youth".