There Was a New Joy. Favorite Ukrainian Folk Carols and Christmas Carols

I have long dreamed of such a book, and I asked artists, especially Andriy Poturaylo, to make the illustrations for it resemble the Ukrainian Christmas Paradise (as in the carol «Now is Christmas ...»), where everyone is finally home and everyone sings carols to each other, where it is light and cozy everywhere, and smoke curls from the chimneys, uniting heaven and earth and transforming into angels of Christmas coziness (as in the carol «The sky is covered with bright stars»). I will be happy if this book inspires someone to learn at least two or three carols to sing them with friends and experience an unknown pleasure so far ... As a precaution, I remind you that carols are sung on Christmas, and generous on Old New Year. After all, the Christmas cycle lasts from Christmas Eve to Jordan. So let's carol with inspiration, let's be generous with zeal — for the joy of good people and ourselves! May our incredible Christmas songs resound everywhere - in every city, in every village, in every home — throughout Ukraine, throughout the world where there are Ukrainians, because I believe that our common carol is capable of creating a special spiritual unity and destroying all filth.

— Ivan Malkovich