As the day begins in late June, people collect flowers and herbs from meadows and riverbanks, fashioning them into wreaths. They craft effigies out of willow and straw of the ancient deities Kupalo and Mara, setting the stage for a nighttime ritual that honors the elemental forces of fire and
At a bar in Moscow leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, reporter Jen Stout interrupts a local parroting lines of propaganda from state-controlled television about so-called Ukrainian Nazis by asking him if he’s ever actually been to Ukraine. He seems taken aback by such a simple
Sasha Maslov is a Ukrainian-American photographer who divides his time between Kyiv and New York. At the start of the full-scale invasion, he returned to Kyiv to document the war. His work, which has been showcased in galleries and art spaces across Europe and the United States, includes regular contributions
For better or worse, memes and video games might now play a more significant role in shaping people’s worldviews than textbooks, movies, and literature. As Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war capture global attention, it’s crucial to consider how people form their conscious and unconscious
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has so far killed 91 media workers, the Culture Ministry reported on June 6, a day marked in Ukraine as Journalists' Day.
"I joined the 13th Brigade of the National Guard 'Charter.' I am undergoing training. I serve Ukrainian people," Serhiy Zhadan wrote on Facebook, adding a photo of him from the training.
Ukraine has a thriving contemporary literature scene with writers from across the country working in multiple genres. There’s a wide variety of texts for readers to choose from, whether they prefer the immersive realm of a science fiction novel or a work of thought-provoking literary criticism. This persistence of
Ukrainian author Volodymyr Rafeyenko never thought he would write a novel in Ukrainian. He was a native of Donetsk, an eastern Ukrainian city where he grew up speaking Russian and completed a degree in Russian philology. Early on in his career, he was the winner of some of Russia’s
Ukrainian violinist Dmytro Udovychenko was announced as the winner of the internationally renowned Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels on June 2.
The aftermath of Russia’s May 23 attack on Kharkiv’s Faktor Druk printing house shocked Ukrainians: mountains of charred Ukrainian books covered its blackened floor. The strike had destroyed over a quarter of the company’s warehouse. The 4,000 square meter building is owned by the Faktor group
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, is a city steeped in history, culture, and resilience. Even in the turbulence of wartime, life in Kyiv, to the greatest extent possible, goes on as usual: Shops, restaurants, clubs, bars, museums, parks, and galleries are all still operating. Tourism in Ukraine is largely on hold
Russian forces destroyed a monument to early 20th century revolutionary Nestor Makhno on May 23, in the center of Huliaipole, a town in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Editor's note: This article features graphic photos. Russian forces destroyed one of Ukraine's largest printing presses amid a mass missile attack on the city of Kharkiv on the morning of May 23. According to regional authorities, Russia used S-300 missiles, fired from inside Russian territory, to strike the factory belonging
Yurii Bardash, a Ukraine-born producer and musician who fled to Russia after the outbreak of the full-scale war, is suspected of spreading war propaganda and justifying Moscow's aggression, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on May 22.
Editor’s Note: This article was published by the twice-weekly newsletter “The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak” on May 20, 2024, and has been re-published by the Kyiv Independent with permission. To subscribe to "The Counteroffensive," click here. When Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine began, Anastasia Boyko considered fleeing Ukraine to
Every year on the third Thursday of May, Ukrainians celebrate Vyshyvanka Day. Vyshyvanka is the Ukrainian word for an embroidered shirt or dress – a central piece to traditional Ukrainian clothing. Vyshyvanka is traditionally made from linen and embroidered with various symbols unique to each region of Ukraine. Throughout history, Ukrainians
Videos circulated on Instagram showed U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken singing and playing guitar along with other musicians onstage.
Ukrainian veteran Oleksandr "Teren" Budko will be the next "Bachelor" of the Ukrainian adaptation of American TV series by the same name, the Ukrainian TV channel STB reported on May 13.
With their song "Teresa & Maria," Ukraine's Alyona Alyona & Jerry Heil qualified for the Eurovision finals in Sweden's Malmo, successfully passing the semi-finals on May 7.
For the nearly two-thirds of Ukrainians who identify as Orthodox Christians, Easter is known as Velykden, meaning “Great Day” in Ukrainian. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine calculates the date of Easter according to the revised Julian calendar. It falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the
The list of damaged sites includes 958 cultural and social clubs, 708 libraries, 153 art schools, 114 museums and galleries, 36 theaters, cinemas, and concert halls, 15 parks, zoos, and nature reserves, and three circuses.
"I'm alive, although according to all the laws of physics and probability, I should have died," Stanislav Aseyev wrote on X, adding: "The positions, unfortunately, have been lost. Now I'm in the hospital with a concussion."
The Pereiaslav Council of 1654 saw the Cossacks, inhabitants of modern-day Ukraine, enter into an alliance with Moscow against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Ukrainian writer and public figure Dmytro Kapranov died on April 16, according to the Kapranov brothers’ official Facebook page. He was 56 years old.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal rejected a petition that called for the funding of the national telethon to be redistributed to the Ukrainian Armed Forces on April 15, responding that the telethon is part of the government's security and defense policy.
If there is one institution in Ukraine impervious to the sweeping decommunization efforts of the last decade, it’s the Soviet-era canteen, or stolovaya as it’s usually referred to in Russian. An invention of the Soviet Union’s founding father Vladimir Lenin, the stolovaya (called yidalnia in Ukrainian) was
Born in Kyiv in 1978, Dmytro Lazutkin is a laureate of the Shevchenko National Prize, the country's highest award for works in culture and arts. While having background in multiple professions, he is best know for his work in poetry.
Ukraine's Culture Ministry has recognized a number of TV channels, circuses, and other cultural institutions as "critically important" companies during wartime, allowing some of their employees to defer military service, according to decrees published on the ministry's website.
When asked which language they speak at home, 12% of Ukrainians said they speak only Russian, while 59% said they speak only Ukrainian, according to a poll by the Sociological Group Rating published on April 4.
Ukraine's Parliamentary Committee on Regional Development supported the renaming of seven more cities and 44 villages, whose names do not meet the standards of Ukrainian language or refer to Russian or Soviet names, lawmaker Roman Lozynskyi wrote on X on April 4.
Ukrainian photojournalist Julia Kochetova was announced as one of the 2024 World Press Photo Contest winners on April 3 for her multidisciplinary project "War Is Personal."
A total of 1,795 cultural institutions have suffered damage at the hands of Russian forces in parts of the country that had been liberated by Ukrainian forces, the country's acting Culture Minister Rostyslav Karandieiev announced on March 29.
The latest on literature, films, art, and traditions from Ukraine and the region. Ukrainian culture has survived centuries of Russian attempts to appropriate Ukrainian art, silence Ukrainian artists, and erase the Ukrainian language. Modern Ukrainian writers, filmmakers, and musicians — some of whom are serving on the front lines — continue to develop Ukrainian culture and fight for Ukraine’s future.
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