On Ukrainian Language Day: From its origins to the present day

By Yana Rudenko
On October 27, Ukraine celebrates Ukrainian Language and Writing Day. This is the second time that Ukrainians have celebrated the day on this date – until 2023, the holiday, which was introduced in 1997, was celebrated on November 9. Since this holiday is associated with the commemoration of St. Nestor, a chronicler at the Kyiv Monastery, it falls on October 27 this year, following the conversion of the church calendar in Ukraine to the New Julian calendar last year.

Language group, origins and the Cyrillic alphabet
The Slavic languages are categorized into three subgroups: West, East and South Slavic, which include more than 20 languages. The Ukrainian language belongs to the East Slavic group. It belongs to the Indo-European family with about 45 million speakers, most of whom live in Ukraine. Ukrainian is the second or third-largest Slavic language in terms of the number of speakers (after Russian and possibly Polish) and is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world (ranked 27-28). In terms of vocabulary, the language that is closest to Ukrainian is Belarusian (84 percent of the shared vocabulary), followed by Polish (70 percent of the shared vocabulary), Slovak (68 percent of the shared vocabulary) and Russian (62 percent of the shared vocabulary). According to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the modern Ukrainianincludes about 256,000 words.
The most popular theory is that all Slavic languages probably originated from a hypothetical proto-language between the 3rd and 1st century BC. However, since no written records of Proto-Slavic have survived, the language has been reconstructed by comparing authentic Slavic and other Indo-European languages. The first mention of Ukrainian words dates back to 448, when the Byzantine historian Priscus of Pannia, during a visit to the territory of present-day Ukraine, wrote down the Ukrainian words “med” (translated: honey) and “strava” (translated: dish) in his notebook.
The Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, a writing system used in Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Eurasia. It is one of the two alphabets of the Old Church Slavonic language and the basis for the alphabets of numerous Slavic and dozens of other languages. It is based on the early Cyrillic alphabet developed in the first Bulgarian kingdom in the 9th century. In total, there are 63 languages with Cyrillic alphabets. On January 1, 2007, after Bulgaria joined the European Union, the Cyrillic alphabet became the third official alphabet of the EU, after Latin and Greek.

Nestor the Chronicler and Kyivan Rus
Nestor the Chronicler was a hagiographer and a follower of the founders of the Slavic written language, Cyril and Methodius (1056-1114). Nestor is considered the founder of the Ukrainian literary language. He is best known for his chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years”, one of the oldest literary monuments in the history of Ukraine and the oldest great chronicle in the Ukrainian language. In it, Nestor recorded the characteristics of the Ukrainian. It is also the first document in Kyivan Rus to present the history of the state against the broad backdrop of world events. Kyivan Rus was an Eastern European feudal-monarchical state with the capital Kyiv, which existed in the 9th to 13th century. Its territory mainly included the areas of present-day Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Poland, as well as some parts of present-day Romania, Russia and Slovakia. The chronicle tells the story of the Eastern Slavs and the power of the princes, the establishment of Christianity in the Kyivan Rus, contains stories about the origin of the Slavic script and reflects the moods of the different social classes. The records are presented year by year. The compilation uses legends, tales and novels. It is written in a language that is close to the living, colloquial dialect and contains a layer of Church Slavonic elements.

Ban on Ukrainian in the Moscow Kingdom and the Russian Empire
After the decline of the Kyivan state and the Rus kingdom, the Ukrainian language had to survive difficult times. In the Muscovite state and the Russian Empire, it was severely suppressed over the centuries, to the point of banning the free use of the Ukrainian language. In 1718, for example, Peter the Great ordered the library of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (Kyivan Caves Monastery) to be burned, and in 1720, a decree of the Senate removed Ukrainian texts from church records. However, the most severe restrictions on the use of the Ukrainian were imposed by the Valuev Circular of 1863, which banned the printing of religious, educational, and training books in Ukrainian, but allowed the publication of fiction, although censorship restricted the printing of these books. The Ems Decree of 1876 led to an even greater restriction of the Ukrainian language. The language was banned in many areas of life, including in the church, in music, in theater and in book printing. It was also forbidden to import printed books in the Ukrainian language into the empire. The use of the Ukrainian language was restricted to domestic use only. Furthermore, various performances and public readings in the “Little Russian dialect” – as Russian propaganda often refers to the Ukrainian language to this day – were banned.

Kotliarevsky’s “Eneyida” and Shevchenko’s “Legacy”
Nevertheless, some works were published in Ukrainian – with the note “in Little Russian”. One of them is the poem Eneyida”, the first great work of Ukrainian literature written in the Ukrainian vernacular. The poem marks the beginning of modern Ukrainian literature. The first three parts of the poem were published in St. Petersburg in 1798 without the knowledge of the author, Ivan Kotliarevsky.
The poem was written at the time of the rise of romanticism and nationalism in Europe, against the backdrop of the Ukrainian elite’s longing for the Ukrainian Cossack state, which was liquidated by Russia between 1775 and 1786. Eneyida was first published in its entirety after Kotliarevsky’s death in 1842. This work is an excellent source for Ukrainian studies, Ukrainian life and Ukrainian culture in the eighteenth century.
Despite all the harassment, many Ukrainian writers tried to continue their work during this period. They therefore suffered many consequences, including repression, arrest, exile and imprisonment. One of the most famous examples is Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), a Ukrainian poet, prose writer, thinker, painter, engraver and ethnographer. Shevchenko’s literary heritage is considered the basis of modern Ukrainian literature and to a large extent also of the Ukrainian literary language. Of his 47 years, he spent 34 years in captivity: 24 years under the yoke of serfdom and more than 10 years in exile under the harshest conditions. Taras Shevchenko’s Legacy became the most translated book from Ukrainian and one of the five most translated books in the world (preply | most translated books).

The Ukrainian language in the Soviet Union
The consequences of the language policy of the Russian Empire, in the form of the suppression of Ukrainian in all areas of life, were felt most keenly in eastern Ukraine – in contrast to the western Ukrainian territories that had previously been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where there was a relaxation of restrictions on the use of the Ukrainian language. During the 70 years of the Soviet era, Ukrainian was theoretically and de jure the most important local language in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In practice, however, Ukrainian had to compete with Russian, which was privileged by the policies of the Soviet leadership. Over time, Russian came to dominate, especially in the cities. Despite all this, according to the 1989 census of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, 64.7 percent of the republic’s inhabitants considered Ukrainian to be their mother tongue, while only 32.8 percent considered Russian to be their mother tongue.

Language Today and Bilingualism in Ukraine
The consequences of this centuries-long language policy can still be felt today. In Ukraine, many people use both languages: Ukrainian and Russian. In addition, there is a widespread sociolinguistic phenomenon called “surzhyk”, a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. Ukrainian is predominant in central, western and northeastern Ukraine, while Russian is used more in the industrial centers of eastern and southern Ukraine and in Crimea. According to a study by the Financial Times in April 2017, the Russian language has been steadily losing popularity among Ukrainians for 20 years. In 1994, the number of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens was 33.9 percent, in 2016 it was 24.4 percent. The situation is similar in Kazakhstan and Georgia. In Belarus, on the other hand, the situation is different: from almost 50 percent in 1994, the number of Russian-speaking citizens rose to 71 percent in 2016.
Although Russian is still spoken by the majority of the population in many other post-Soviet countries, the Kremlin uses the prevalence of Russian in Ukraine as one of the justifications for military aggression – after the outbreak of war in 2014, Moscow repeatedly claimed that it was allegedly protecting the interests and rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine. As a result, more and more Ukrainians view the revival of the Ukrainian language as a matter of national security and identity, and speak of the importance of “language borders.” Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the prevalence of the Russian language in Ukraine has declined, and the popularity of the idea of upgrading the status of Russian has reached its lowest level since Ukraine’s independence.

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