Ukrainian Language and Literature

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From The Ukraine and the Ukrainians by Stefan Rudnitsky, 1915.

An independent nation need not necessarily have a language that distinguishes it sharply from other nations, as is shown by the examples of the United States and Switzerland. But even this means of distinguishing themselves from the surrounding peoples is possessed by the Ukrainians. To be sure the view has been rather widely circulated in Europe that the Ukrainian language is only a peasant dialect of the Polish language, and official Russia has hitherto maintained that it is nothing more than the "Little Russian dialect" of the Russian language.

But the philological investigations of Miklosich, Jagic, Potebnja, Zytezkyi, Ohonowskyi, Shakhmatov, Korsch, Stockyi, and others, have shown conclusively that the Ukrainian language is by no means a mere dialect of the Polish or of the Russian language, but that it is an independent language equal to and distinct from these two languages. Finally, even the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, in its famous decision of 1905, expressed this view, distinctly emphasizing the independence of Ukrainian from Russian, and adding, that the Russian language should not be forced upon the Ukrainians, as the latter possessed a fully developed language and literature.

The Ukrainian written language has a history of fully a thousand years behind it. In the ancient Ukrainian Kingdom of Kieff there arose the so called Chronicle of Nestor, the Epic of Igor, and other important monuments of Ukrainian Literature. Their language has been built up on the foundation of the Church Slavonic dialect, but presents great linguistic departures, as early as the eleventh century, from the literary works simultaneously produced in the Russian territory to the North.

This promising beginning of the old Ukrainian Literature was almost completely crushed by five centuries of Tartar barbarism. Not until the last years of the eighteenth century did it come into its own again, a change that was perhaps due to the introduction of the pure popular speech in place of the Old-Slavic-Macaronic hitherto used in literature. In the course of the nineteenth century the history of Ukrainian literature has a number of great poets and prose writers to show (Shevchenko, Vovchok, Fedkovych, Franko, Kulish, Vynnychenko, etc.), as well as a considerable number of lesser writers. Their works are characterized by enormous variety and versatility. And the second half of the century was also marked by a very active study of the sciences, leading to the founding of two learned bodies very much along the plan of the so called "Academies" (in Lemberg and Kieff). In every branch of human knowledge the Ukrainians can already point to publications, books, dissertations, in their language.

The versatility and richness of Ukrainian literature assure it a prominent place among the other Slavonic literatures, thus furnishing proof, if any is needed, that the Ukrainian language really is a language, and not a mere dialect; it is a civilized language in every sense of the word. And the testimony of Ukrainian scholarship strengthens the case beyond all doubt. The roots of the Ukrainian literary language in the speech of the common people make clear that it will be an admirable means of educating the race, in view of their well known intelligence, into an enlightened and progressive nation. But the Russian government has been thoroughly aware of this fact, and has left no stone unturned in its efforts to stop this young literature in its growth, which efforts culminated in the famous ukase of the Czar (1876), forbidding absolutely the publication of any writings in the Ukrainian language. None but a really living and significant literature could have survived these thirty years (1876—1905) of repression. And Ukrainian literature has stood this test!

Rudnitsky, Stefan. The Ukraine and the Ukrainians. Translated by Jacob Wittmer Hartmann, Ukrainian National Council, 1915.

Stefan Rudnitsky

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