Ukrainian language,
literature and history
Ukrainian
is a Slavonic language, like Polish, Czech, Slovak, the two Sorbian languages,
Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croat, Slovene and most closely related to
it, Belarusian and Russian; the last two, together with Ukrainian, make
up the East Slavonic branch of the family. In numbers of speakers Ukrainian
is the second largest Slavonic language.
Around
988 AD Christianity came to the East Slavs, whose centre was Kyiv, now
the capital of Ukraine. With it came a written form of Slavonic, originally
based on a Balkan Slavonic (Bulgaro-Macedonian) dialect, which began to
acquire East Slavonic features once established m Kyiv. The spoken language
of the East Slavonic region was still East Slavonic, however. It is only
later, as a result of non-linguistic developments, including the destruction
of Kyiv by the Mongols (Tatars in 1240 that we can begin to talk of the
planting of the seeds of separate languages in the East Slavonic area.
As things have turned out, three seeds geminated, those of Ukrainian, Belarusian,
and Russian, though the first two were held back for many centuries for
political reasons.
The
sack of Kyiv in 1240 had the dramatic effect of removing the ancient centre,
a hub of East-West trade endowed at its height with an exceptionally high
level of civilization, from the state of Rus'. Political power moved northeast,
eventually to a relative newcomer on the scene, Muscovy (with its capital,
Moscow). Until the seventeenth century much of Ukraine, including Kyiv,
was ruled by the Lithuanian Grand Duchy and Poland; during this period
dialect divisions between East and West Ukrainian were strengthened. In
the eighteenth century the division of Ukraine (the name means 'borderland')
between Russia and Austria-Hungary (1793-5) led to the increased importance
of the southeastern dialects, centred around Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv.
We can see them as important because this period coincided with both the
rise of Romanticism and the emergence in that area of very gifted writers,
e.g. Ivan Kotliarevs'kyi (1769-1838) and Petro Hulak-Artemovs'kyi (1790-1865).
For Ukraine the Romantic period begins around 1820 and has as its supreme
figures Panteleimon Kulish (1819-97) and, above all, Taras Shevchenko (1814--61).
These writers gave shape to the Ukrainian literary language by taking the
dialect of the south-east and raising it to 'the status of a language by
the adoption of elements from folklore and of styles bequeathed by tradition'
(Shevelov 1980:152-3), The deteriorating political situation in 'Russian'
Ukraine, however, meant that western Ukraine, in Austria-Hungary, began
to exert an influence. Political circumstances created linguistic imbalance
and discontent: which Ukrainian was 'purer'? Though there were moments
of great progress, moments that indeed may have saved the language for
the future, it is probably only now that Ukraine is really shaking off
the shackles of centuries of dependence and subordination.
The
divisions of Ukraine among Poland, Lithuania, Russia and Austria- Hungary
have led to its present diverse and rich cultural heritage, In spite of
all the travails of their history; the Ukrainians have an extraordinary
sense of national identity, an identity of which the language is a most
significant component. The creation of the language during the period of
Romanticism occupies an unassailable and deeply felt place in the hearts
of Ukrainians. As a language of millions and yet about so few have heard,
Ukrainian is now entering a period of healing and of standardization, when
it should acquire the prestige taken for granted by so many other European
languages.
(Source:
“Colloquial Ukrainian†by Ian Press
and Stefan Pugh)
