14 june 2024 # Projects

The Ukrainian School of Political Studies and its graduates have purchased Osnovy Publishing

The Ukrainian School of Political Studies represented by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives along with USPS graduates Andriy Vyshnevsky (2017 USPS Alumnus), Anastasia Borodina (2015 USPS Alumna), and Svitlana Matvienko, Executive Director of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, jointly acquired the ownership of 100% of the shares of Osnovy Publishing.

The publishing house is awaiting upgrades, but in addition to this, new owners promise to republish important books that have been characterising Osnovy Publishing for the past 30 years. Osnovy will return to the subject of specialised publications and issuing world literature, recognised textbooks on philosophy, history, economics, politics, and literary studies, and publishing Ukrainian classics.

For all of us, the beginning of a new stage in the life of Osnovy Publishing will symbolise returning to the foundations on which we can rely on the path to victory, further modernisation of Ukrainian social and political institutions, and the upbringing of new generations of Ukrainians. This is a very personal story for me because books on political philosophy and policy analysis published by Osnovy in the 1990s formed my intellectual identity, and my collaboration with Bohdan Kravchenko in the early 2000s around public administration reform defined the development of my professional career. For this reason, Osnovy Publishing is a piece of my heart, and this event is a true return to the basics.

New owners of Osnovy Publishing are grateful to Dana Pavlychko, an alumna of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies programme (2017 USPS Alumna), for the new horizons she opened for the publishing house as its owner and leader during the last decade.

It is a great honour for the USPS to contribute to further developing the Osnovy Publishing House, created by Solomiia Pavlychko and Bohdan Kravchenko in 1992. Being aware of the responsibility of this mission, we will rely on the involvement and multifaceted support of the USPS community in the development of the legendary publishing house. Without its books, imagining Ukraine’s intellectual and aesthetic space during the last three decades would be difficult. Taking into account the value landmarks and intellectual and organisational potential of the USPS graduates’ network, we expect that the modernised Osnovy Publishing will be much more than a publishing house.

On the Osnovy Publishing House

Osnovy Publishing House is a Ukrainian publishing house co-founded in 1992 by Solomiia Pavlychko, a literary critic and publicist, and Bohdan Kravchenko, a political scientist and ex-director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

Immediately after the declaration of independence, Bohdan Kravchenko settled in Ukraine, where he made a significant contribution to the state building. In particular, he founded the Committee on State Building and Local Self-Government within the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, which became a hub for shaping a new administrative elite at the dawn of modern Ukrainian statehood.

Osnovy was the first to publish modern European philosophers, high-quality translations of classical literature, and world-level textbooks in Ukrainian.

In particular, translations of Aristotle, Plato, Ovid, and Seneca, and a historical edition of “Europe. A History” (2000) by Norman Davies, “Philosophy of the Theatre” by Les Kurbas, scientific works by John Locke, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, José Ortega y Gasset, and others.

On the Ukrainian School of Political Studies

The Ukrainian School of Political Studies (USPS) is an educational and network project of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives under the auspices of the Council of Europe. It aims to train and unite leaders from different environments who share a desire to develop a strong state of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian School of Political Studies was founded in 2005 as a democratic achievement of the Orange Revolution. The institution has become a centre of civil and political education with many projects in Ukraine, which embody not only studies but also the defence of common values and principles.

Through its activities, the School constantly strives to establish democratic values and preserve Ukrainian cultural, historical, and social heritage.

On the Agency for Legislative Initiatives

The Agency for Legislative Initiatives (ALI) is a leading independent Ukrainian analytical centre operating since 2000. The activities of ALI are primarily aimed at strengthening the institutional capacity of the parliament and government, continuing European and Euro-Atlantic integration, supporting stabilisation and reconstruction of Ukraine to overcome the consequences of aggression by the Russian Federation, monitoring and supporting reforms in the sphere of justice and security, political and civic education.