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hidden cannon

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.

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Panteleimon Kulish (1819-1897)

The architect of Ukraine’s historical imagination, who turned the past into a battleground for language, nationhood, and the moral future of a people.

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Olha Kobylianska (1863–1942)

The woman who smuggled European modernism, queer subtext, and feminist revolt into Ukrainian prose—quietly detonating the

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Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (1864–1913)

The impressionist who made color and sound the grammar of consciousness, transforming rural Ukraine into a modernist psychological landscape.

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Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880–1951)

The revolutionary who treated literature as a lab for human ethics—interrogating sex, honesty, and social masks with shocking boldness

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Sofia Yablonska (1907–1971)

The Ukrainian globe-trotter whose camera and pen dismantled colonial gazes decades before postcolonial theory had a name.

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Mykhailo 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.

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Mykola 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.

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Vasyl Stus (1938–1985)

The poet who transformed suffering into ethical clarity, writing himself into world literature from inside a prison cell.

Our partner

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.

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