When someone asks me to describe the majority of Ukrainian literature in one word, the only thing coming up to my mind is “depressive”. And that is not all accidental.
The usually grim themes and painful revelations seen in Ukrainian literature are deeply intertwined with the centuries of oppression and tyranny Ukraine’s writers have been subjected to for their determination to protect their national culture from being erased by the “big brother”.
And despite me knowing the horrors, pain, and generational trauma that the current aggressor state has and still is inflicting on the Ukrainian people, it seems that only now – in the second decade of the 21st century – has the international commune finally found out the true nature of “the russian beast”.
Such an unfortunate realization is what has troubled me the most. For the forewarnings of the main catalysts leading to the atrocities happening right now have already been mentioned before – namely since the beginning of the 18th century.
But how come such omens be simply overlooked for so long in the first place? What are the most cited examples of such foretelling warnings? And how does it tie up to the current events?
All that I will try to explain in this info post.
So, how did Ukrainian literature go overlooked up until today?
To answer this question fully, let us remind ourselves that the entirety of Ukrainian society has always struggled against forceful assimilation and largescale eradication launched at different times, with different authorities and their different methods of establishing the dominance over the colonies.
During the period of the russian empire, two of the most eminent contributors to the restrictions and outright repression of Ukrainian culture (including literature) were the Valuev Circular (1863), which implied the censorship ban on printing most Ukrainian-language literature, and the Ems Ukaz (1876), which has added an additional prohibition of the theatrical staging, lectures as well as music publications in Ukrainian.
Nevertheless, such forbidding decrees the russian empire once issued were not as devastating as the tortures the Soviet regime would inflict onto the Ukrainian intelligentsia and numerous of worldly recognized Ukrainian poets. The existence of “the Executed Renaissance” in itself is the epidemy of total annihilation the Soviets have imposed on those who had been creating and rebuilding Ukrainian literary culture.
With daily persecutions, consistent extermination, and forceful oblivion, it was immensely hard, if not impossible, to share even tiny bits of writings with the international commune. Even those Ukrainians, who have been lucky enough to have emigrated abroad, still couldn’t surely push Ukrainian literature into the masses, as it wasn’t quite integrated into “the cultural consciousness or tastes of the world”.
In simpler words: it was irrelevant.
Nevertheless, it’s simply tragic to realize that the course of history could have shifted just a little bit, had the world paid attention to the forewarnings about russia’s open ferocity described in Ukrainian literature. But in the end, they were just unheard of or overlooked.
So, let us travel through centuries of such omens, open the dusted chest of our national literature, and finally discover the fates of those poets-prophets.
“The Prophet and the Daughter of Prometheus”: the dangers of russian imperialism and colonialism (19th century)
The 19th century is considered to be a two-edged time for Ukrainian poetry, as despite numerous severe prohibitions of such literature being imposed by the russian empire, a huge number of magnum opuses were being written and shared – with important figures earning their place in our history.
The only true Ukrainian Kobzar – Taras Shevchenko – is by far the most prominent figure in the records of Ukrainian literature. Born into serfdom, only his talent has helped him earn the much-needed freedom, making him dedicate his whole life to Ukrainian self-determination.
With his works shaping the modern Ukrainian as a literary language, it was only a matter of time until his life became full of oppression, exiles, and sufferings he felt together with the Ukrainian people. That, however, has shaped his literary works to be immensely relevant and far-sighted, with “Katerina” and “Slave (Blind)” being the most cautionary ones.
Yet one of his most prophetic works is undoubtedly his poem “A Dream” (Ukr."Сон"), where he not only accurately analyses the nature of a muscovite, but also describes the colonial tendencies of the imperial russia – which is now finally seen by the whole world:
“… One, with greedy eyes, Looks far out, past the horizon, Whether there remains Some country he can size and bear With him into the grave”.
The only man in Ukrainian literature – Lesya Ukrainka – is the foremost woman writer in such sphere. A poet, a dramatist, and a social activist, she has defied the tsarist imperial restrictions and stereotypes through her literary works, which criticized colonialism and expressed a feminist mindset.
Despite most of her writings depicting the fantasy elements of our national folk, the one piece clearly reflecting the destructive domination and ignorant patriarchy of russia is her historical play called “The Noblewoman” (Ukr."Бояриня"), where she describes how the forced alliance with Moscow became a horrific tragedy for Ukraine.
And despite it being 108 years since its publication, these words still perfectly portray the terrible consequences of the so-called “russian world/peace” seen today in the temporally occupied territories of Ukraine.
“Ukraine lies bleeding under Moscow’s boots Is it what you call “peace”? A ruined waste?”
“The renaissance in blood” or the disclosure of the gory totalitarian madness of the USSR (20th century)
The beginning of the 20th century embodied a brief period of rapid development in Ukrainian literature, derived from the early policy of Korenization (in Ukraine it would have a form of “Ukrainization”). Nevertheless, such seeming freedom in the expression of one’s native culture would soon be brutally purged after the Soviet regime had witnessed our national literature independently survive and develop much further, than the russian one. Thus, the campaigns of repression, extermination, exile, and assimilative russification were implemented, affecting from 192 to 30 000 Ukrainians.
Among those, was the Ukrainian novelist and politician Ivan Bahrianyi with his literary work “Tiger Trappers” (Ukr."Тигролови"). Based on autobiographical events, it tells a story of a political exile escaping his death sentence and being nursed by the Ukrainian Sirko family in Zeleny Klyn, only to go back for ravage against the one inflicting those suffering against him and his people.
One of its most essential quotes - “The brave are always happy” - is now a fundamental slogan for the determination of Ukrainian people in their struggle against the ruscist orcs.
Yet as much as it seems to lift the spirit of Ukrainian resistance, it also depicts the horrific pictures of abuse, the humiliation of the human dignity, violence, condemnation to oblivion in the hell of concentration camps, which are now transformed into russia’s made “filtration camps”, where up to 300 000 Ukrainians are forced to stay and endure the same tortures their ancestors were subjected to back in the USSR.
It’s painful. It’s horrific. It’s revolting.
And it is still happening in the 21st century.
“It was them, who were discoverers and originators of that horrific page, the first page in the epic of unspeakable human suffering on this earth”.
Honorable mention: “Europe stayed silent” or the dangers of a worldwide privileged ignorance (20th century).
As mentioned before, the 20th century is marked as a red stain in the history of Ukraine: the seizure of power by the Soviet regime, the bloody suppression of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the already mentioned “Executed Renaissance”, the Holodomor, etc. Unsurprisingly, this century would also mark the period of emigration.
Oleksandr Oles was one of those emigrated people: a well-known Ukrainian writer, a dramaturg, and a representative of symbolism in the literary sphere. Yet living abroad and witnessing firsthand the usual European ignorance has influenced him in 1931 to write the poem “Europe stayed silent”, where he not only criticized its mentality of unnoticing other countries' struggles or simply prescribing them as “foreign blood – foreign suffering”, but called out its elite of subconscious cowardliness of having a problem with russia and instead silently witnessing Stalin’s man-made famine unfold, taking lives of 4 - 10 million Ukrainians.
Would it describe the initial reaction of the European leaders towards the Russo-Ukrainian war? Read the poem yourself to find out:
“When Ukraine fought the torturers
Giving life and death for its right to live,
Asking only for compassion,
Europe stayed silent.
When Ukraine lost blood and tears
In an unequal struggle,
Looking for friendly assistance,
Europe stayed silent.
When Ukraine, maimed, labored for the master,
Dragging an iron yoke across the earth,
When even the mute mountains moved,
Europe stayed silent.
When Ukraine was dying,
Having reaped a bloody harvest for the torturer,
Too hungry even to speak,
Europe stayed silent.
When Ukraine cursed its life
And became a mass grave,
When the devil himself wept,
Europe stayed silent.”
What should the international commune do with Ukrainian literature now?
Nowadays, with yet another day of the war raging on, it’s finally time to embrace the literature of a “denied community” and reject the one, that despite centuries of practicing suppression and eradicative imperialism has somehow earned the global title of “the great one”.
One must realize that not only Ukrainian literature, but the literature of those countries, that were once colonies or have been subjected to repressions, extermination, and utter denial of their existence from the country much bigger than them, are usually the ones to create the most prophetic verses one could imagine – as it is formed through ones’ unfortunate experience of historical anguish and torments.
Nowadays, numerous Ukrainian poets are either on the front, in a Territorial Defense Forces or simply volunteering – yet they have not at all abandoned their noble pursuit of creating art. On the contrary, the current informal publications of literary works are rapidly expanding in masses, as the:
“Literature is a comprehensive essence of the intellectual life of a nation”.
Ukrainian literature is a story of a struggle for the permanent existence of Ukrainian identity, culture, and language despite russia’s genocidal attempts of assimilation or complete erasure of it all.
That is why it needs to be finally recognized not only in Ukraine. For exactly this literature has pushed us to stand against the ruscism with such bravery and determination, that it inspires the whole world to act.
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