Украин әдебиетінің тарихы мен дамуы

Overview of Ukrainian language literature

Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian literature mostly developed under foreign domination over Ukrainian territories, foreign rule by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Romania, the Austria Hungary Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, enriched Ukrainian culture and language, and Ukrainian authors were able to produce a rich literary heritage.

Prior to the establishment of Ukrainian literature in 1700s, many authors from Ukraine wrote in "scholarly" languages of middle ages – Latin and Old Church Slavonic. Among prominent authors from Ukraine who wrote in Latin and Old Church Slavonic are Hryhorii Skovoroda, Yuriy Drohobych, Stanislav Orikhovsky Roxolan, Feofan Prokopovych, Jan Tomasz Józefowicz, Paweł z Krosna and others.

During this period of history there was a higher number of elementary schools per population in the Hetmanate than in either neighboring Muscovy or Poland. In the 1740s, of 1,099 settlements within seven regimental districts, as many as 866 had primary schools. The German visitor to the Hetmanate, writing in 1720, commented on how the son of Hetman Danylo Apostol, who had never left Ukraine, was fluent in the Latin, Italian, French, German, Polish and Russian languages

Late 16th and early 17th century included the rise of folk epics called dumy. These songs celebrated the activities of the Cossacks and were oral retellings of major Ukrainian historical events in modern Ukrainian language (i. e., not in Old Church Slavonic). This period produced Ostap Veresai, a renowned minstrel and kobzar from Poltava province, Ukraine.