Esteemed colleagues!

Dear Guests!

I am Ukrainian poet Ihor Pavlyuk in whose veins might be the blood of the legendary hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks - Pavlyuk Boot. Today I am proud to belong to the Ukrainian nation, although just recently returning home from Ireland, America or Poland with a sad anxiety, I was telling my friends and myself, "Well, we do not choose our motherland ..."

Today I know that Ukraine is seen as proud and strong, not only by Europe, but also by the whole world and they will know it not only as a territory of the largest man-made disaster of mankind - Chernobyl, as the territory of the Holocaust, but as a place of strange gathering of people who peacefully want to gain democracy and freedom, which many people received through blood and war.

This is a divine feature of Ukraine.

Therefore, "what is Caesar's to Caesar; and what is God's to God."

I was an active member of the Romantic Orange Revolution, where I went, saying goodbye to my daughters and wife, because as a former cadet, understood that there might be the chance of not coming back.

Fortunately no blood was shed then.

I was proud of Ukraine being like that.

My trouble as the father, husband, PhD, professor, and citizen, is that these December days I was betrayed.

Those were neither friends, nor colleagues or neighbours.

We are all people.

And let the God judge everybody.

I was betrayed by my political power – our public servants, who are taking advantage of our taxes and the nation’s wealth.

And betrayed in a very mean way.

It is only on Tuesday that I heard and saw how three former presidents of Ukraine and the current president during their meeting said the right words about the situation in the country and talked about a peaceful and wise way out of it, but at night Ukrainian riot police "Berkut” by an order from above again rushed to attack my colleagues, teachers ... children ... the future.

As the proverb says: "Fear the anger of a good man!"

To our sorrow, the war broke out, but fortunately, not civil, but the war of the people with the ruling power .

I 'll be a poet-soldier in it.

As a man I am still healthy and know a lot.

I do not like fighting, I do not like judging.

I write poems that are noticed and are printed as individual books in the world.

This is my humble contribution to Ukraine's integration into the world community, which I know enough, because I travelled and lived in different parts of the world. I had an opportunity to stay in a prosperous and stable country. I love all nations, peoples and their individual representatives.

But I consciously, with my heart choose Ukraine, land, home, where my umbilical cord is buried, and I am ready to fight for her proud and bright future, or die for it.

Now I will read excerpts from my dramatic poem "Boot" dedicated to Hetman Pavlyuk.