Talk:Ukrainian literature

Writing style
Some of the writing seems off. For example: "Taras Shevchenko, born 9 March 1814 in Moryntsi, Zvenyhorod county, Kiev Governorate, died 10 March 1861 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Ukraine's national bard and famous artist." Shouldn't the article be written in complete sentences? Maximajorian Viridio (talk) 01:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Scope of the article, and blatant nationalistic POV
The first sentence of the lead limits the scope of the article to literature written in the Ukrainian language, which automatically excludes everything that was written before the 18th century, or if we stretch things a bit the middle of the 17th century, since there was no Ukrainian language before then, only a dialect of the Ruthenian language, a language that was spoken also in other areas, including Belarus, and before the Ruthenian language came to be (when Russian split off) the language spoken within (most of) the area that now is Ukraine was Old East Slavic (Old Ukrainian as a name for Ruthenian and Old East Slavic, and Modern Ukrainian as a name for the current Ukrainian language, is used only in Ukraine, but this is the English language Wikipedia, where articles must use current English language trems...). Automatically excluding everything that has anything to do with the Kievan Rus', which is why I removed it. I also removed blatant POV, referring to "foreign domination over Ukrainian territories" when talking about events centuries ago, with a link to the modern day country of Ukraine, is blatant nationalistic POV (how can it be the territory of a country that didn't exist at that time?), and doesn't belong here. But has in spite of that been added back again, twice even, by. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 17:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Why would you "exclude automatically"? These entities are are as related as Beowulf is to English.--Aristophile 17:32, 29 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lute88 (talk • contribs)
 * Why do you use a fake, handwritten, signature, instead of your real user name, ? You've done it on two different pages now, in direct violation of WP:SIGFORGE ("Impersonating another editor by using his or her username or signature is forbidden", and picking a username that doesn't exist doesn't change that...), obviously in an attempt to make it look as if you're supported by another user. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 17:44, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not impersonating anyone, and that is my signature I used many years ago. Now I'd prefer if you stopped your slander.--Aristophile 18:02, 29 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lute88 (talk • contribs)
 * I did a quick check of your contributions, and every single talk page comment I looked at back to 2017, except for the latest ones this discussion is about, were properly signed with Lute88, links and timestamp, so why did you suddenly switch to signing with a fake user name? And even if we assume good faith you can't do what you're doing, since all users are required to include a link to their real user page, talk page or contributions page in their signature... - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 18:23, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I do not think this is simply a specific language. Consider Russian literature as an example. Our page tells: "Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to the Russian-language literature". That is fair (one could include writings by Ukrainian authors on other languages). Moreover, something like The Tale of Igor's Campaign was written on a language very different from modern Russian, but still belongs to Russian literature. Or one can check British literature as another example. This is not so simple at all. Should the Kievan Rus be mentioned on the page? I would say no, but whatever sources say. It could be: . My very best wishes (talk) 21:55, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I would have no problems with having the Kievan Rus' in the article if the scope was "all literature from the area that now is Ukraine", but having the scope there is now, "literature in the Ukrainian language", along with material about literature that predates the existence of a uniquely Ukrainian language by several centuries is plain wrong, and just another attempt to claim even the language of Kievan Rus' for Ukraine alone. The Primary Chronicle of the Kievan Rus', for example, is as much Russian and Belarusian as it is Ukrainian, since it tells about the history of the Kievan Rus', which is the early history of all three of those countries (the history of the Kievan Rus' in fact began in what is now Russia, because that's where that political entity originated), and was written in a language that at that time was the common language all over the Kievan Rus', not only the areas that are now Ukraine. So there's a lot more to it than meets the eye... - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 22:19, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The Primary Chronicle of the Kievan Rus', for example, is as much Russian and Belarusian as it is Ukrainian. Yes, indeed, meaning it can be noted on pages about all these literatures. My very best wishes (talk) 22:26, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * ... but not if the scope of those articles limit them to "literature in the Belarusian/Russian/Ukrainian language", since it was written in Old East Slavic. Latin is the ancestor of multiple languages, and not just Italian, so how would you feel if Italians started to change the name of Latin and claim that literature written in the Latin language was written in "Old Italian". Because that is a direct equivalent to what Ukrainian POV-pushers are doing here on en-WP, referring to Old East Slavic as "Old Ukrainian" and the Ruthenian language (the direct ancestor to both Belarusian, Rusyn and Ukrainian) as "Middle Ukrainian". - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 22:43, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I do not see any problem with including Old East Slavic Literature to the History of Russian Literature - the way this is done on ruwiki. Ukrainian literature could be treated similarly, but again, one must follow the sources. I am not expert. My very best wishes (talk) 01:09, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The articles you linked to, on the Russian WP, don't explicitly limit the scope to a single language as this article does (the lead has been changed by someone else now, changing the first sentence from "Ukrainian literature is literature in the Ukrainian language" to a sentence still talking only about the Ukrainian language, so it's still limited to a single language, a language that didn't exist until long after the end of the Kievan Rus'...). Which is exactly what I'm talking about. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 12:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * One needs to check textbooks on Ukrainian literature to properly define the scope of the page. I am only saying this is a typical content dispute, and not a matter for ANI. My very best wishes (talk) 14:08, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

The issues raised by User:Thomas.W and by User:Þjarkur require thorough analysis:
 * First, User:Thomas.W please avoid WP:incivility and calling "All Ukrainian speakers - nationalists"; this is evident from your WP:incivil phrase "blatant nationalistic POV" in the section header. Please avoid name-calling Ukrainians language speakers as "nationalists" - not only is this WP:incivil - but it is also utterly unethical: there are two peoples on earth who have not had their own statehood for the past 400 years, and who for centuries had been prosecuted for the mere fact that they spoke their own mother tongue. I am of course referring to the Jewish people and Ukrainian people. Just for the mere fact that Ukrainian people spoke Ukrainian language, and Jewish people spoke Hebrew/Yiddish language, the two nations have been the subject of the two most gruesome genocides in the history of mankind: nearly 8 million Ukrainians were inhumanely slaughtered in the man-made genocide The Holodomor when in 1932-1933 the Russians attempted to eradicate all Ukrainian language speakers, who rejected the so-called "Russian-Soviet cultural and racial ideology of the homo-sovieticus"; nearly 6 million Jews were inhumanely slaughtered in the man-made genocide The Holocaust when in 1939-1945 the Germans attempted to eradicate all Hebrew/Yiddish language speakers, who did not conform to the made-up "German cultural and racial ideology of the Aryan nation".


 * Second, over the past 300 years, there's been a tremendous amount of academic research in historically Ukrainian territories (e.g., territories where Ukrainians might not have had an independent statehood, yet where Ukrainians represented a significant % of the country's overall population; I'm talking here about the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Rzeczpospolita Królestwa Polskiego and the Russian empire/Soviet empire and to a lesser extend about the main hubs of Ukrainian diaspora, e.g., USA/Canada/Australia/UK and the research performed there at the Ukrainian studies centers such as Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, Ukrainian Studies academic centre at Cambridge University etc.) around "Ukrainian literature" and it virtually unanimously establishes that "Ukrainian literature - is the writings in the Ukrainian language". Please refer to the vast research on this topic by such distinguished scholars as Ukrainian scholar Serhiy Yefremov, Ukrainian-American linguist & literary scholar of Jewish heritage George Schneider‎ etc.


 * Third, authoritative encyclopedias and academic papers state that that "Ukrainian literature - is the writings in the Ukrainian language", please see:
 * 1) Encyclopædia Britannica: Ukrainian literature, the body of writings in the Ukrainian language
 * source: Encyclopædia Britannica 15th ed. (second version, Macropædia) Vol. 28: (1985–2010)
 * source: Encyclopædia Britannica 15th ed. (second version, Micropædia) Vol. 11 (1985–2010).
 * source: Encyclopædia Britannica Online
 * 1) Introduction to Ukrainian Literature in English: 1980-1989: The focus of Ukrainian Literature in English is on  modern Ukrainian literature, i.e. literature written originally in the Ukrainian language and published since 1798
 * source: Marta Tarnawsky. Research Report University of Alberta No. 62. Ukrainian Literature in English: 1980-1989. University of Alberta's Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS). (1969). 534 p: 6-7


 * Forth, today we live in a globalized world where people reside in whatever country they want, while still maintaining the cultural ties of whatever country they choose to; e.g., it is pretty common for modern American hipsters to move to Bahamas and work as freelancers in journalism from across the ocean. The reason I'm mentioning this is that in today's globalized world location of the person, and in this case the writer, doesn't matter that much. For example arguably the most prominent Ukrainian novelist and poet of the 21st century doesn't even reside in Ukraine, but instead lives in the US - it is Vasyl Makhno (no relationship to the famed Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno) whose brilliant debut novel The House of Baiting Gollov in 2017 received the most prestigious Ukrainian literary award BBC Book of the year 2017, lives and works in NYC, USA (and has been a citizen of the USA for decades now). Would you call him an "American writer"? I think calling him an American writer would be utterly ridiculous, given that all of Makhno's poetry and fiction has been written exclusively in Ukrainian and nobody has ever referred to Makhno anything but Ukrainian writer. The examples like this abound: e.g., arguably the most prominent Ukrainian poet of the 21st century Vira Vovk also doesn't live in Ukraine - she resides in Brazil and have been living there her nearly her whole life.

Given this, I agree with the points raised by above and I don't see any evidence from your statement above of User:Thomas.W supporting the claim that the intro should be changed and mentionng of Kyivan rus' should be removed. I also don't agree with the recent changes diff to the article by Þjarkur, which I'm assumming was born out of the discussion above, which removed the intro "Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. from the article - the academic scholarship supports that sentence.

Laslty, asking for inputs from given that he has contributed to Ukraine-related articles before and has a good track record of finding consensus in contested discussions.--Piznajko (talk) 08:45, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The above rant (a lot of irrelevant and partly false statements, casting aspersions, pinging Roman Spinner, and almost nothing to the point) together with the previous history of the user clearly demonstrates that Piznajko should be topic-banned from Ukraine. I will at some point submit an arbitration enforcement request, stay tuned.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:20, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * diff--Piznajko (talk) 10:46, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You made about 20 edits modifying your statement, and I thought if someone complains, I will just give a diff to the first version. I can not modify my statement every time you modify yours.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:58, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Why do you consistently assume bad faith from me?; WP encourages editors to do the opposite and encourage good faith. I rarely write a "final" comment on WP: I usually edit it to fix grammer and finetune the points for a few more edits (which is exacly what I did now too); in fact, I didn't even notice your comment until I was practiacally done fine-tuning my comment. ps. In general, you made your swift accusation of me within 3.5 minutes of my original post diff, which means you couldn't even physically have read my original comment within that time.--Piznajko (talk) 11:54, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I have read your comment before replying. I do not assume bad faith, I just have made my opinion that your activity in Ukrainian topics is disruptive, and I have enough arguments in support of this opinion to convince uninvolved administrators.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:16, 5 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Just a short comment about 's blatantly false claim that I called "all Ukrainian-speakers nationalists": I of course did nothing of the sort, instead pointing to blatant nationalistic POV in the article. Piznajko's false accusation could be interpreted as either being the result of lacking skills in the English language, or being a deliberate lie intended to smear an opponent, but it doesn't really matter which of the two it is, because either of them should, when combined with their clearly demonstrated inability to edit, and discuss, matters relating to Ukraine in a neutral way, as required by the rules here, be reason enough to topic ban them from any and all pages even remotely related to Ukraine. - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 11:36, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Scope of the article, not taking the current lede as gospel
I agree that the current lede of the article would restrict its scope to the period beginning with mid-17th century. The question is whether it's reasonable to keep the current wording of the lede and leave the literature of Kyivan Rus to be appropriated by Russia (which also didn't exist at the time). For example, would it be reasonable to have an "English literature" article that didn't include Beowulf on the grounds that

By the 16th century the term Anglo-Saxon came to refer to all things of the early English period, including language, culture, and people. While it remains the normal term for the latter two aspects, the language began to be called Old English towards the end of the 19th century, as a result of the increasingly strong anti-Germanic nationalism in English society of the 1890s and early 1900s. However many authors still also use the term Anglo-Saxon to refer to the language. Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53033-4.

Yes, what is called Old Ukrainian in modern Ukraine is properly classified as Old East Slavic or Ruthenian, but by the same token, calling the language of Beowulf "Old English" is a relatively recent and nationalistically-motivated development, so one should have excluded Beowulf from an article that would deal with "literature written in English." And since each designation of something that is nation-/country-/ethnicity-related has a complex history and many factors playing into it, articles can have complicated ledes like English literature that begins with a complicated hedging of what the scope includes and doesn't include, treating the period up until the 19th century and the period after that differently, and including US literature (I would find it strange if Toni Morrison were called an English writer...). It will be hard to come to a clear-cut definition, and I don't see how Ukraine could or should be different from Britain in this regard; the talk page of British literature includes several discussions on the scope of the article. Coming back to this particular article, why couldn't the lede be something like,

This article is focused on: (1) literature written in Ukrainian and the languages it descended from, on the territories comprising modern Ukraine prior to 20th century and anywhere in the world starting with the 20th century; (2) literature in other languages by authors whose most significant body of work is in the modern Ukrainian language and/or who identified as Ukrainian; (3) literature in any language by writers of Ukrainian nationality starting with 1991. No. 1 takes care both of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" (Ukraine's Beowulf), and for Ukrainian-languge literature of the 20th century and later (Ukrainian diaspora authors, including, e. g., Ivan Bahrianyi, who emigrated to Germany in 1945; there is also any number of poets and writers living in the United States and Canada). No 2 takes care of cases like Taras Shevchenko (I don't think his Russian-language prose should be part of Russian literature, the guy is practically Ukraine's Shakespeare, and while I don't know that Shakespeare wrote anything in Latin, if he had done so, I guess it would be part of English literature). No. 3 takes care of anything happening in Ukraine now, as it should. Andrii Kurkov writes mostly in Russian, but he strongly identifies with Ukraine (here is a video where he is saying that Russian should not be the second state language in Ukraine). Insisting that the lede can be only as it is now (and cutting the article based on that, ignoring complex historical developments, matters of identity), and that "Ukrainian literature" has an actual referent that can be defined in a simple and clear-cut way, is a referential fallacy. — Latreia (talk) 00:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The proposed new scope of the article is exacty what I have been calling for, so yes, I support it... - Tom &#124; Thomas.W talk 06:23, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * with the new scope of the article proposed by, which would remove the Lead's sentence Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. (which is widely supported by academic research as the scope of Ukrainian literature, see above for examples of RS's like Britannica). I support clarifying the scope of the article (which should be limited to Ukrainian literature, which is literature written in Ukrainian language after late 1700s, e.g.g:
 * No change to the Lead of the article (e.g., it should still say Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. per academic RS
 * The article body should be rewritten, removing any mentioning of the literatures written prior to late 1700s, e.g., remove any mentioning of examples of literature written in ancient (pre-modern) Slavic languages like The Tale of Igor's Campaign etc.--Piznajko (talk) 18:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

And so, literature written in Russian in Ukraine or by Ukrainians?
Shortly above: we're told that the article should say "Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language". Whether or not it actually says this, this is, rightly or wrongly, what it seems to assume. Also above (by a different user): "Andrii Kurkov writes mostly in Russian, but he strongly identifies with Ukraine" (to which I'd add that I believe Andrey Kurkov lives in Kiev/Kyiv and has Ukrainian nationality). He's in Category:Ukrainian writers in Russian, which is in Category:Ukrainian writers, which in turn is in Category:Ukrainian literature, which contains both Category:French-language literature in Ukraine and Category:German-language literature in Ukraine but no Category:Russian-language literature in Ukraine.

If I wanted to read a general article in en:WP that might be expected to cover both Kurkov's books and The White Guard (and perhaps also the works of Yuriy Vynnychuk) -- as I did just yesterday -- then where should I look for it? -- Hoary (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Odessa § Requested move 11 July 2022
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Odessa § Requested move 11 July 2022. Rei (talk) 00:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Who the hell is Iryna Vilde?
Why this article contains this section?? And no mention on any other writer — not Franko, not Shevchenko, not Kotliarevsky — just Vilde, why Vilde? W.M.drossel (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Iryna Vilde again
In the list of notable writers, she's named twice. Current restrictions don't allow me to fix this, so I hope someone else will. --Ehitaja (talk) 08:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)