Five Ukrainian Writers You Should Know About
Five notable Ukrainian writers that should be on your radar, ranging from 18th century satire to 20th century literary modernism. Browse some of their most famous work and learn their unique stories of fame, creative freedom, and new phonetic alphabets.
1. Ivan Kotliarevsky (1769-1838)
Widely regarded as the founder of modern Ukrainian literature, his quasi-satirical Eneida is his most renowned work. Originally published in 1794 this ‘travesty poem’ is a form of a parody playing off the classic poem of Virgil. It is the first poem to use Ukrainian vernacular language and is recognised as the starting point of Ukrainian literature. This 1936 edition is illustrated by Myron Levitskyi, a student of Sviatoslav Hordynsky.
2. Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861)
Credited as Ukraine’s national bard, Taras Shevchenko is the most famous Ukrainian writer of all time. There are over 1200 monuments dedicated to the poet in Ukraine alone which is the world record for the highest number of statues dedicated to a single cultural figure. This literary almanac published just a year after Kobzar includes numerous works by Shevchenko. The editor Yehven Hrebinka was incredibly enthusiastic about Shevchenko’s work and wrote a footnote for Hadiamaky, ‘It’s a beautiful thing, very beautiful, as delicious, they say, as a beautiful watermelon on a hot day after lunch!’.
3. Pantelelimon Kulish (1819-1897)
Panteleimon Kulish was an accomplished writer but his greatest contribution to Ukrainian literature was developing a new phonetic spelling system coined the ‘Kulishivka.’ This writing system was laid out in his 1857 grammar textbook, the first such book to be published for Ukrainian speakers in the Russian Empire. Its genius lay in its simplicity. He created an alphabet that matched the sounds of spoken Ukrainian. The new writing system was widely celebrated at the time, Shevchenko even wrote in his diary in 1857, ‘How wonderfully, intelligently and nobly this brand-new primer is composed. God grant that it will take root in our poor people.’ It did indeed take root and made Ukrainian orthography much more accessible.
Pavlo Tychyna is a complex figure who submitted to Stalinism after enjoying a period of creative independence and has a problematic reputation for his later work. However, Tychyna’s work from 1917 through 1932 is acknowledged to be his most important and he is accepted as Ukraine's premier poet of the beginning of the twentieth century. These two works are from this early period and display a uniquely Ukrainian form of symbolism. Tychyna dedicated this work (Wind from Ukraine) to his fellow poet and our next writer Mykola Khvylovy.
5. Mykola Khvylovy (1893-1933)
Mykola Khvylovy was a key figure in interwar Ukraine during the 1920s. He was one of the leading representatives of Ukrainian literary modernism and a charismatic persona in the cultural life of Kharkiv. His literary journal published between 1928 and 1930 was a bastion of creative freedom and featured the best writers and artists of the time. The journal did not last long before it was suppressed by Soviet authorities, and practically all its contributors were arrested and killed in what is now known as the ‘Executed Renaissance’. In protest of the arrests and Holodomor, Khvylovy shot himself, leaving a note saying, ‘I love life – you can't even imagine how much’.
