A 19th-century novel for a 21st-century war — Why Panteleimon Kulish’s ‘Black Council’ still matters
A 19th-century novel for a 21st-century war — Why Panteleimon Kulish’s ‘Black Council’ still matters
The Hidden Canon: Ukraine’s Literary Iconoclasts
“The Hidden Canon: Ukraine’s Literary Iconoclasts,” a project backed by the Ukrainian Institute, unveils bold Ukrainian classics long hidden from international readers. These writers defied censorship, reimagined cultural identity, and pushed the boundaries of art itself — showing that Ukrainian literature is a daring, vital, and unforgettable part of the global literary canon.
Meet Olha Kobylianska, the Ukrainian author who redefined women’s freedom
Editor's Note: This story is part of the "Hidden Canon" – a special series celebrating Ukrainian classic literature and aiming to bring it to a wider international audience. The series is supported by the Ukrainian Institute. In Olha Kobylianska’s 1891 novella “A Human Being,” the heroine Olena commits an unforgivable transgression. Not adultery, not theft, not the abandonment of her family — her "crime" is intellectual freedom. She is a woman who thinks for herself and, far worse in the eyes
Coming SoonMykhailo Kotsiubynsky (1864–1913)
The impressionist who made color and sound the grammar of consciousness, transforming rural Ukraine into a modernist psychological landscape.
Coming SoonVolodymyr Vynnychenko (1880–1951)
The revolutionary who treated literature as a lab for human ethics—interrogating sex, honesty, and social masks with shocking boldness
Coming SoonSofia Yablonska (1907–1971)
The Ukrainian globe-trotter whose camera and pen dismantled colonial gazes decades before postcolonial theory had a name.
Coming SoonMykhailo Semenko (1892–1937)
The futurist who tried to blow up tradition—sometimes literally—dragging Ukrainian poetry into the electric pulse of the European avant-garde.
Coming SoonMykola Khvylovyi (1893-1933)
The modernist whose fragmented, cinematic prose fused revolutionary ecstasy with existential dread, foreseeing both the promise and the terror of the 20th century.
Coming SoonVasyl Stus (1938–1985)
The poet who transformed suffering into ethical clarity, writing himself into world literature from inside a prison cell.
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Ukrainian Institute
The Ukrainian Institute is the national cultural institute of Ukraine, affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
As the country's key cultural diplomacy institution, it develops cultural relations between Ukraine and other countries to enhance knowledge and understanding of Ukraine internationally.
