Ukrainian literature

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Ukrainian literature

Ukrainian literature is literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means "acquaintance with letters" . In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and non-fiction....
written in the Ukrainian language

Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic languages of the Slavic languages. It is the official language of Ukraine. In some areas of Russia there are dialects, Balachka or Surzhyk, which are the Ukrainianized versions of the Russian language....
. Ukrainian literature had a difficult development because, due to constant foreign domination over Ukrainian territories

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
, there was often a significant difference between the spoken and written language. At times the use of the Ukrainian language was even prohibited to be spoken or printed

Ems Ukaz

The Ems Ukaz, or Ems Ukase , was a secret decree of Tsar Alexander II of Russia issued in 1876, banning the use of the Ukrainian language in print, with the exception of reprinting of old documents....
.

However, these foreigners, including Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....
, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
, Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Kaiserlich und k?niglich Monarchy was a state in Central Europe ruled by the House of Habsburg, constitutionally a personal union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary....
, and Ottoman Turkey

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299?1923. It was Treaty of Lausanne by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923....
, have left behind a legacy of new words, greatly enriching the Ukrainian language.

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Encyclopedia

Ukrainian literature is literature

Literature

Ukrainian language

Ukraine

Ems Ukaz

Lithuania

Poland

Romania

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Ottoman Empire

Ancient Period

Kievan Rus

The original literature of the Kievan Rus was written in the Church Slavonic and was strong between the 11th and 13th centuries. This was because the church was the center of education during this period. The church had a liturgy written in Cyrillic and a corpus of translations from Greek that had been produced for the Slavic peoples

Slavic peoples

The Slavic Peoples are a linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans....
. The existence of this literature facilitated the conversion to Christianity of the Eastern Slavs and introduced them to rudimentary Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception....
, science, and historiography

Historiography

Historiography is the aspect of semiotics that is the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted. Broadly speaking, historiography examines the writing of history and the use of historical methods, drawing upon such elements such as authorship, sourcing, interpretation, style, bias, and audience....
without the necessity of learning Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
.

Secular literature was also prominent. Nestor the Chronicler

Nestor the Chronicler

Saint Nestor the Chronicler was the reputed author of the Primary Chronicle, , the Life of the Venerable Theodosius of Kiev the Life of the Holy Passon Bearers, Boris and Gleb, and of the so-called Reading....
was a notable writer and historian during the Kievan Rus period. He is known for writing the Tale of Bygone Years which describes the history of the empire. He also wrote about religious martyr

Martyr

The term martyr is most commonly used today to describe an individual who sacrifices his or her life in order to further a cause or belief for many....
s and saints. Another key work, written by an anonymous author, is the The Tale of Igor's Campaign
The Tale of Igor's Campaign

The Tale of Igor's Campaign is an anonymous epic poem written in the Old East Slavic language and tentatively dated to the end of 12th century....
, whose discovery gave scholars a better view of life in the Kievan Rus along with a good historical account of the prince's battles but also brought about much criticism about its authenticity.

Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth

A significant work was the Ostrih Bible, printed in 1581. It was the first complete printed edition of the Bible

Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
in Old Church Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Bulgarian, or Old Macedonian, was the first literary Slavic language, based on the old Solun dialect of the Thessaloniki region by the 9th century Byzantine Greeks missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who used it for translation of the Bible and other Ancient Greek language ecclesiastica...
, and helped the Orthodox Church resist strong Roman Catholic pressures.

Other works included anonymous Perestoroha and the writing of Hypatius Ponti

Cossack Hetmanate

The Cossack Hetmanate

Cossack Hetmanate

The Hetmanate or officially Viysko Zaporozke was a Cossack state in the central and north-eastern regions of Ukraine during 1649?1775. It came into existence as a result of the Khmelnytsky Uprising and the alliance of the registered Cossacks with the Cossacks of the Zaporozhian Sich and other segments of the Ukrainian populace....
began in 1649 as a result of the Khmelnytsky Uprising

Khmelnytsky Uprising

File:Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1648.PNGThe term Khmelnytsky Uprising refers to a rebellion or war of liberation in the lands of present-day Ukraine which continued from 1648–1655....
and lasted until 1775 when it was taken over and dissolved and taken over by the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

File:Russian Emperor Flag.jpgFile:Romanov Flag.svgThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917....
. The Hetmanate had a very high literacy. There was a higher number of elementary schools per population in the Hetmanate than in either neighboring Muscovy or Poland. In the 1740s, of 1,099 settlements within seven regimental districts, as many as 866 had primary schools. The German vistitor to the Hetmanate, writing in 1720, commented on how the son of Hetman Danylo Apostol

Danylo Apostol

Danylo Apostol , was a Hetman of the Left-bank Ukraine and Ukrainian Cossacks starshina.Born in a noble Cossack family of Moldavian boyar origin, Danylo Apostol was a prominent military leader, polkovnyk of the Myrhorod regiment, and a participant in the Tsardom of Russia campaigns against the Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate...
, who had never left Ukraine, was fluent in the Latin, Italian, French, German, Polish and Russian languages

As a result of this high literacy, In addition to traditional printing presses in Kiev

Kiev

Kiev, also known as Kyiv , is the Capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River....
, new printing shops were established in Novhorod-Siverskyi

Novhorod-Siverskyi

Novhorod-Siversky is a historic city in the Chernihiv Oblast of Ukraine. It is the Capital city of the Novhorod-Siversky Raion, and is situated on the bank of the Desna River, 330 km from the capital, Kiev, and 45 km south of the Russian border....
and Chernihiv

Chernihiv

Chernihiv, , is a historic city in northern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast , as well as of the surrounding Chernihivskyi Raion within the oblast....
during this period. Most of the books published were religious in nature, such as the Peternik, a book about the lives of the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk monasatary. Books on local history were compiled. In a book written by Inokentiy Gizel in 1674, the theory that Moscow was the heir of ancient Kiev was developed and elaborated for the first time

The sixteenth century period included the folk epics called dumy

Dumy

Dumy is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Wielkie Oczy, within Lubacz?w County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland, close to the border with Ukraine....
. These songs celebrated the activities of the Cossacks. This period produced Ostap Veresai

Ostap Veresai

Ostap Mykytovych Veresai , was a renowned minstrel and kobzar from Poltava Oblast, Ukraine. He, like no other, helped in the popularity of kobzar art not only in his country, but also outside its borders....
, a renowned minstrel

Minstrel

A minstrel was a Middle Ages European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events....
and kobzar

Kobzar

A Kobzar was a itinerant Ukrainian bard. Kobzars were often blind, and became predominantly so by the 1800's. Kobzar literally means ?kobza player?, a Ukrainian stringed instrument of the lute family, and more broadly ? a performer of the musical material associated with the kobzar tradition....
from Poltava province

Poltava Oblast

Poltava Oblast is an administrative divisions of Ukraine of central Ukraine. The capital city of the oblast is the city of Poltava.Other important cities within the oblast include: Komsomolsk, Ukraine, Kremenchuk, Lubny and Myrhorod....
, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
, who lived in the 19th century and his work helped spread popularity of the Ukrainian language, inspiring a period of Ukrainian nationalism

Ukrainian nationalism

Ukrainian nationalism refers to the Ukraine version of nationalism.Although the first state using the name "Ukraine" is fairly recent, some historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, have cited medieval princes of Kievan Rus, who ruled over a confederation of city-based states spread over what became northern Ukraine, Belarus and the southe...
culminating with the independence of the shortlived Ukrainian State in 1918.

Modern Ukrainian Literature

The Aeneid

The father of Ukrainian literature in the modern vernacular form of the Ukrainian language is Ivan Kotlyarevsky

Ivan Kotlyarevsky

Ivan Petrovych Kotlyarevsky , was a Ukraine writer, poet and playwright, regarded as the pioneer of modern Ukrainian literature....
, who wrote a travesty of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
's Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
(1798). This mock epic poem turns Virgil's characters into Ukrainian Cossacks. Its language was based on the spoken Ukrainian of the Poltava

Poltava

File:Poltava 1850 Main Square.PNGFile:October Parc Poltava 1550.JPGPoltava is a city in central Ukraine. It is the Capital city of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Poltavskyi Raion within the oblast....
region.

Romantic Period

Shevchenko

Realism

Modernism, Expressionism, and Impressionism

As in all European countries, literature in Ukraine was involved in the modernism process. Topics of feminism were raised in the works of Lesya Ukrainka

Lesya Ukrainka

Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka better known under her literary pseudonym Lesya Ukrainka , was one of Ukraine's best-known poets and writers and the foremost woman writer in Ukrainian literature....
and Olha Kobylyanska

Olha Kobylyanska

Olha Kobylyanska was a Ukrainian language modernist writer.Together with Lesya Ukrainka she was the first to explore feminist topics in Ukrainian literature....
. Other two important writers were Valerian Pidmohylny

Valerian Pidmohylny

Valerian Pidmohylny was an important Ukrainian novelist, most famous for the realist novel Misto . Like a number of Ukrainian writers, he flourished in 1920s Ukraine, but was finally constrained and eventually arrested by the Soviet authorities....
and Viktor Petrov

Viktor Petrov

Viktor Petrov was a prominent Ukrainians existentialist writer. He signed his works with pen names Viktor Domontovych and Viktor Ber ....
. Their writing was inspired by existentialism.

20th century

Revolution and Avant Garde

Soviet Realism and 1960s opening

Post-Communist writing

List of notable Ukrainian writers

(should be incorporated above) Ukrainian writer

Writer

A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms....
s include: Hryhori Skovoroda

Hryhori Skovoroda

Hryhorii Skovoroda was a Ukraine poet, philosopher and composer.Skovoroda received his education at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Haunted by worldly and spiritual powers, the philosopher led a life of an itinerant thinker-beggar....
, Ivan Kotlyarevsky

Ivan Kotlyarevsky

Ivan Petrovych Kotlyarevsky , was a Ukraine writer, poet and playwright, regarded as the pioneer of modern Ukrainian literature....
, Taras Shevchenko

Taras Shevchenko

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko was a Ukrainians poet, artist and Humanism. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language....
, Marko Vovchok, Panteleimon Kulish, Ivan Franko

Ivan Franko

Ivan Yakovych Franko was a Ukrainians poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, economist, and political activist. He was a political radical, and a founder of the socialist movement in western Ukraine....
, Olha Kobylyanska

Olha Kobylyanska

Olha Kobylyanska was a Ukrainian language modernist writer.Together with Lesya Ukrainka she was the first to explore feminist topics in Ukrainian literature....
, Lesya Ukrainka

Lesya Ukrainka

Vasyl Stefanyk

Vasyl' Semenovych Stefanyk was an important Ukrainian writer.Vasyl Stefanyk was born May 14, 1871 in the village of Rusiv in the historical region of Pokuttya, in Western Ukraine....
, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky

Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky

Mykhailo Mykhailovych Kotsiubynsky , was an Ukrainians author whose writings described typical Ukrainian life at the start of the 20th century....
, Volodymyr Vynnychenko

Volodymyr Vynnychenko

Volodymyr Vynnychenko was a Ukrainians writer, playwright, political activist and revolutionary, politician, statesman. Vynnychenko is recognized in Ukrainian literature as a leading modernist, prerevolutionary writer in Ukraine, who wrote short stories, novels, and plays, but in Soviet Ukraine his works were proscribed, like that of many...
, Pavlo Tychyna

Pavlo Tychyna

Pavlo Tychyna was a major Ukraine poet. His initial work had strong connections to the symbolist literary movement, but his style transformed a number of times during his long career and frequently aped the acceptable socialist realism....
, Mykola Khvylovy

Mykola Khvylovy

Mykola Khvylovy Born as Nikolay Fitilyov in Trostyanets, Kharkiv province to a Russian laborer father and Ukrainian schoolteacher mother, Khvylovy joined the Communist Party in 1919....
, Valerian Pidmohylny

Valerian Pidmohylny

Mykola Bazhan

Mykola Platonovych Bazhan was a Soviet Ukraine writer and poet....
, Maksym Rylsky

Maksym Rylsky

Maksym Tadeyovych Rylsky was a Ukraine poet. He began writing as a representative of 'pure art' doctrine, during the Stalinist years adopted the official doctrine of 'socialist realism' ....
, Mykola Zerov

Mykola Zerov

Mykola Zerov was perhaps the most talented of the Neoclassicist movement of poets in 1920's Ukraine. Despite the populist and propagandistic impulses of Communism, the neoclassicism movement stressed the production of 'high art' to an educated and highly literate audience....
, Mykhail Semenko, Ostap Vyshnia, Borys Antonenko-Davydovych, Olena Teliha

Olena Teliha

Olena Ivanivna Teliha was a Ukraine poet and Ukrainian activist of Russians ethnicity....
, Ivan Bahrianyi

Ivan Bahrianyi

Ivan Bahrianyi was a Ukrainians writer and political activist. The writer's real name was Ivan Pavlovych Lozoviaha....
, Oles Honchar, Vasyl Symonenko

Vasyl Symonenko

Vasyl Symonenko a well-known Ukraine poet, journalist, activist of dissident movement. He is considered one of the most important figures in Ukrainian literature of the early 1960s....
, Lina Kostenko

Lina Kostenko

Lina Kostenko is a Ukrainians poet and writer, recipient of the Shevchenko Award . .Kostenko is a leading representative of Ukrainian poets of the sixties known as Shestydesiantnyky ....
, Ivan Drach, Yevhen Hutsalo, Hryhir Tiutiunnyk, Pavlo Zahrebelnyi

Pavlo Zahrebelnyi

Pavlo Arhypovych Zahrebelnyi was a well-known Ukraine novelist. In 1941, when Germany World War II Pavlo enlisted the Red Army as a volunteer. He participated in the Battle of Kiev and was severly wounded....
, Valerii Shevchuk, Ihor Kalynets

Ihor Kalynets

Ihor Mironovych Kalynets was a Ukrainians poet and Soviet dissident....
, Emma Andijewska

Emma Andijewska

Emma Andijewska is a modern Ukrainian poetess, writer and painter. Her works are marked with surrealist style. Some of Andijewska's works have been translated to English and German....
, Vasyl Stus

Vasyl Stus

Vasyl Semenovych Stus was a Ukraine poet and publicist, one of the most active members of Ukrainian Dissident#Soviet dissidents. For his political convictions, his works were banned by the Soviet Union regime and he spent 23 years in detention....
, Yuri Andrukhovych

Yuri Andrukhovych

Yuri Andrukhovych is a Ukrainian language prose writer, poet, essayist, and translator. With Oleksandr Irvanets and Viktor Neborak, he co-founded the Bu-Ba-Bu poetic group in 1985 ....
, Oksana Zabuzhko

Oksana Zabuzhko

Oksana Zabuzhko is a contemporary Ukrainian poet, writer and essayist....
, Oleksandr Irvanets, Viktor Neborak, Yuri Vynnychuk, Izdryk, Serhii Zhadan, Svitlana Pyrkalo

Svitlana Pyrkalo

Svitlana Pyrkalo is a London-based Ukrainian writer and translator.She was born in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Poltava in 1976. She graduated from the Kyiv National University, linguistics faculty....
, Natalka Snyadanko, Maria Matios

Maria Matios

Maria Matios ? Ukrainian writer. Winner of the ?Book of the year 2004? and of the Taras Shevchenko National Award in 2005 . Author of 12 volumes of poetry and prose....
, Joseph Oleskiw

Joseph Oleskiw

Dr. Joseph Oleskiw or J?sef Olesk?w was a Ukraine professor with who promoted Ukrainian diaspora to the Canadian prairies. His efforts helped encourage the initial wave of settlers which began the Ukrainian Canadian community....
, Boris Yampolsky

Boris Yampolsky

Boris Yampolsky...
.

External links

Danylo Husar Struk. at the