Historical documents of the Hetman period returned to Ukraine on Monday. They include, in particular, the first publication of a poem "Mazeppa" by Lord Byron, dated 1819, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko said during a ceremony of returning the archives. He said that this publication had returned from the United Kingdom via the Ukrainian embassy.
Vatican returned through the Ukrainian embassy a copy of the unique document of the Hetman period - a letter written in the Polish language in 1684 by Hetman of the Right-Bank Cossacks Andriy Mohyla to Pope Innocent XI in which he thanked the Pope for financial assistance provided for the fight against Turks.
Moreover, Ohryzko said that Estonia had returned to Ukraine the copies of cipher correspondence of the late 17th century in which the issue concerns the movement of Russian troops and the military-political situation in Ukraine.
With the goal of implementing an agreement signed between Hetman's Capital Reserve in Baturyn and Saint Petersburg Institute of History, with the assistance of Ukraine's consulate general in Saint Petersburg, the reserve has already received the first copies of documents from the well-known archives of Baturyn, the last Hetman's capital of Ukraine, which was destroyed by Russian Emperor Peter I in 1708.
Ohryzko said that the archives of outstanding Ukrainian poets Taras Shevchenko and Lesia Ukrainka, as well as the Swiss heritage of ballet star Serge Lifar had been returned from New York, with the ministry's assistance. Over hundreds of archives, which belonged to Ukraine's cultural heritage, have been recently returned to the motherland. This also concerns the tragic pages of history, particularly the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine.
Ohryzko said that owing to these documents, Ukraine's real history is being crystallized and freed from "non-disclosure" and artificial strata of the Soviet period when it was banned in Ukraine even to mention its heroes, Hetmans, writers, and scientists.
