On 16 November 2016, the first competition of Chinese calligraphy among the 1st and 2nd-year students specialising in “The Chinese language and literature” was held at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.
The Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Philology Iryna Yaremchuk, who teaches the Chinese language, greeted the students.
“This is the first competition in the Chinese language at our University. The speciality “Chinese Language and Literature” appeared in 2015. However, the history and traditions of Oriental Studies at Lviv University are very long”, said Iryna Yaremchuk and spoke more about the development of Oriental and Chinese Studies at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.
The scholar focused on the major milestones of the history of Lviv Oriental Studies and the figures who created it: “In 1938, nine departments worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of Lviv University, where 36 Oriental languages were taught. However, in 1939, western Ukrainian lands became a part of the USSR, and soon World War II and the occupation stopped the development of Oriental Studies for a long time. Its recovery began in the second half of the 50s: Indologist and Sinologist M. Knoroz (1911-1984) taught Sanskrit and the Chinese language at the faculties of History and Philology, he involved I. Saydakovska in it, while the Arabic and Persian languages were taught by Ya. Polotniuk “.
According to Iryna Yaremchuk, teaching the Chinese language again began in 2013. “With the support of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, the teacher of Chinese Liu Shaofei arrived at the University and thus, the groups to study the Chinese language for teachers and students were organised. This was a precondition for launching the speciality “The Chinese Language and Literature.” The first students for this speciality started studying in 2015 “, said the Deputy Dean.
The initiators and organisers of the competition in Chinese calligraphy are the teachers of Professor Yaroslav Dashkevych Department of Oriental Studies: Wang Xiaoyu, Zhang Dan, and Iryna Yaremchuk.
The first and second-year students competed in writing Chinese characters. Following the competition, the jury selected the winners. The best calligraphy writers were awarded diplomas and prizes.
After the official part of the competition was over, the student from Shanghai University of Foreign Languages Xu Sinen showed the audience the art of traditional Chinese calligraphy, while the student of Mykola Lysenko Lviv National Music Academy Dai Guoziye recited a poem «Shui Diao Ge Tou · Ming Yue Ji Shi You». Hence, everybody who was interested in it had an opportunity to deepen their knowledge about China and the Chinese culture.