Ukrainian literature

Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language.

Historically, Ukrainian literature mostly developed under foreign domination over Ukrainian territories. At times Ukrainian language was even partly prohibited in print. However, foreign rule by Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Turkey, enriched Ukrainian culture and language, and Ukrainian authors were able to produce a rich literary heritage.

Many Ukrainians also contributed to the closely related literature in Russian language.

The development of original literature in Rus was based on both a rich folk oral tradition and a dissemination of translated religious texts. The oldest and most noted Kievan didactic work is Sermon on Law and Grace (1050) by Metropolitan Ilarion, the first native metropolitan of Kiev. A more subtle form of didactic literature can be found in the numerous hagiographic works, describing the lives of saints. Modeled on translated hagiographies, lives of Saint Anthony of the Caves, Saint Vladimir the Great, Saint Princess Olha, and others were written and collected in the Kievan Cave Patericon, the most remarkable collection of lives in the Kievan period. A collection of tales about the monks of the Kievan Cave Monastery. The original version arose after 1215 but not later than 1230 out of the correspondence of two monks of the monastery: monk Simon (by then the bishop of Suzdal and Vladimir) and monk Polikarp, who used the epistolary form as a literary device. The letters contain 20 tales about righteous or sinful monks of the monastery based on oral legends and several written sources, such as the Life of Saint Anthony of the Caves and the Kievan Cave and Rostov chronicles, which have not survived. Most of the original text deals with events of the 11th century. It varies from brief accounts of particular facts (Poemen and Saint Kuksha) to novella-like or novel-like narratives (Moses the Hungarian and Theodore and Basil)... Also noteworthy are the early chronicles, which are unique for their wealth of information and their blending of fact and fiction, written sources and eyewitness accounts. Quite prevalent were apocryphal writings as well as translated tales. Also popular was the first travelogue by Hegumen Danylo. The most unusual and outstanding monument of old Ukrainian literature, however, is the secular epic poem Slovo o polku Ihorevi (The Tale of Ihor's Campaign, ca 1187).

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