Literature of the Second Category: How the System of Marginalization of Ukrainian Literature Was Created and Functioned
In the classic model of “colonizers versus natives,” it is often assumed that the latter lack their own literature, making it the “white man’s” mission to bring writing and other civilizing benefits to conquered lands. However, in the case of Ukraine and Muscovy (the precursor of the modern Russian state), the opposite was true. Integrated into the European cultural and intellectual context, Ukrainian culture and education were far superior to Russian.
This was the situation in the mid-17th century when Moscow began its territorial expansion into Ukraine. The conquerors adopted a calculated strategy: they lured Ukrainian scholars and creatives to Moscow and St. Petersburg while systematically closing local educational centers like the Kyiv-Mohyla and Ostroh Academies. Over time, this allowed the empire to claim that Ukrainian education and science had never existed without Russian “patronage.”
Native Literature as Entertainment
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the empire began by cleansing the spiritual sphere (the dominant literature of the time). Some Ukrainian authors were Russified, while others were banned. As a result, the space for Ukrainian (or more precisely, Old Ukrainian) language and literature gradually shrank before completely disappearing.
Read more: Ivan Kotlyarevsky. The creator of the central image of Ukrainian culture
The spoken Ukrainian language of the Naddniprianshchyna region found printed refuge in works like Ivan Kotliarevskyi’s Eneida—a playful adaptation of Virgil’s Aeneid in which ancient heroes were transformed into Cossacks. At the time, literary theorists deemed “simple language” and “low style” suitable only for light, comedic genres. Thus, Kotliarevskyi’s Eneida marked the beginning of “vaudeville from Little Russia”—a genre of funny plays featuring noble gentlemen alongside cheerful characters speaking the “native language.”
This type of literature was not only permitted but actively encouraged by the empire,
as entertaining works “in a funny Ukrainian language” were seen as the rule of good taste.
With the rise of Romanticism, Ukrainian literature expanded slightly to include sentimental ballads about Cossacks and maidens. However, serious drama or literary ambition in the Ukrainian language was discouraged. That role was reserved for metropolitan writers, such as the ethnically Ukrainian Mykola Gogol, who wrote in Russian.
Read more: A guide to the history of oppression of the Ukrainian language
Ukrainian literature began to move underground. A case in point is Panteleimon Kulish’s The Black Council, considered the first Ukrainian historical novel. Written between 1845 and 1847, the novel could not be published due to political repression. It only appeared in print in 1857—and even then, in both Russian (!) and Ukrainian. A second complete edition wasn’t published until 1890 in Lviv, as publishing anything in Ukrainian was forbidden in the Russian Empire at the time.
From the era of Gogol until the relaxation of censorship in 1905, Ukrainian literature in the Russian Empire was largely ignored. The fascination with vaudeville and ballads had faded, and anyone seeking recognition within the vast empire had to write in Russian to align with the literary context shaped by Moscow and St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, Ukrainian books were written and published cautiously. The empire’s authorities likely believed they had fulfilled their “civilizing mission.” The “natives,” they assumed, had embraced the literary norms brought by the imperial center.
Generals and Rank-and-File of Socialist Realism
The short-lived period of Ukrainian statehood following the fall of the Russian Empire (1917–1921) marked the beginning of a revival in Ukrainian culture. When the Bolsheviks came to power, they could no longer ignore it. The Ukrainization policy of the 1920s further strengthened the movement, providing a significant boost to the development of national literature.
During this time, heated debates about the cultural struggle between Ukrainian and Russian identities unfolded openly in the mass media. Mykola Khvylovy, one of the most prominent figures of that era, brought attention to the issue of decolonization. He envisioned Ukraine as a model of liberation for other oppressed peoples, particularly those in Asia. However, the rapid cultural and literary growth of the 1920s came to a tragic end during the political terror of 1937, which left only a few survivors.
Read more: Hit List: The Executions of Ukrainian Writers
The “generals” of socialist realism, the Soviet Union’s dominant propaganda-driven art genre, were exclusively Russian-speaking writers. Works like The Young Guard by Aleksandr Fadeev, How Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky, and Virgin Soil Upturned by Mikhail Sholokhov formed the foundation of Soviet literature. Everyone knew the contents of these books—Tajik, Georgian, Ukrainian—if they had a hope to get higher education. In the literary hierarchy of socialist realism, national writers were relegated to subordinate roles, acting as “colonels” at best.
Dmytro Dontsov, an ideologue of Ukrainian independence, summarized Stalin’s dictum that literature should be “national in form and proletarian in content” with his interpretation: “national in form, Russian in content.”
This observation captured the reality that literature in the Soviet Union’s national republics was designed to serve as a “second tier,” intended to support and glorify the flagship status of Russian literature. There was no need to translate Russian classics into Ukrainian language, as Russian was considered a “commonly understood” language. Libraries across the Soviet republics were generously stocked with Russian books.
Read more: How to colonize libraries: a guide from Soviet practitioners
Translations of national literatures within the republic were also treated with caution, with suspicion if Ukrainian translators tried to translate from English, Spanish, French, etc. The translation institute should concentrate on Moscow and develop the Russian language. This is the reason why there were no terminological dictionaries of the exact sciences in Ukraine, with rare exceptions.
An Invisible Hierarchy
In Soviet cinema, which Vladimir Lenin famously declared “the most important of all arts,” a categorization existed: those intended for all-Union distribution (which required Russian voice acting) and those for screening within specific national republics (which could be filmed in the language of the republic). While this practice appeared to promote multiculturalism, it actually masked censorship. In general, the Soviet authorities employed three methods to restrict the release of films:
- Outright banning—a hallmark of the Stalinist era.
- “Shelving”—keeping a film unreleased for 10 to 20 years.
- Assigning it to the “second category”—allowing the film to be shown only within the republic where it was produced.
The third method was less toxic and widely used, especially for Georgian filmmakers, who had established their own distinct school that did not align with the all-Union artistic canon.
What topics could Soviet writers write about?
- боротьба вашого народу в роки громадянської війни
- боротьба проти фашистських загарбників
- мирне будівництво
Being assigned to the “second category” effectively marginalized a film. It would not be overlooked by “prominent” critics, excluded from international film festivals, and unnoticed even in the republic’s own capital. Instead, it was relegated to screenings in rural areas for less demanding audiences.
A similar hierarchy existed in Soviet literature, though there were no explicit categories for writers or works. The hierarchy was invisible. My high school Ukrainian teacher often repeated a clichéd phrase: “The work tells about the difficult fate of the enslaved Ukrainian people.” This definition seemed to fit every Ukrainian literary work included in Soviet textbooks, from Taras Shevchenko to USSR era authors.
For USSR time, the clichés shifted: “The work tells about the struggle of the Ukrainian people during the Civil War,” “the fight against fascist invaders,” or “peaceful construction.” Socialist realism allowed no room for other themes in the literature of the “second category.”
Students of Ukrainian literature in Soviet schools were left with a simplistic narrative about their people: before the “Great October” (the Bolshevik coup of 1917), Ukrainians suffered and wandered. Afterward, happiness arrived, but it had to be defended, and even now, vigilance was required to repel “evil capitalists” if necessary.
The typical hero of such literature was simple—almost primitive. He suffered, rebelled, and often died. Alternatively, he worked peacefully on the land and fought against those who disrupted his idyllic agricultural life.
The hero of second-category literature had no complex moral dilemmas, spiritual struggles, or personal evolution. Concepts such as the conflict between emotion and duty or profound inner growth were absent. These “high matters” were reserved for “great” literature—meaning Russian literature.
The Canon from the Village
The biography of every officially approved Ukrainian author in the Soviet era seemingly began with the phrase, “born in a village.” This was a deliberate effort to frame Ukrainian literature as rural, and therefore backward, in contrast to the “serious” urban concerns addressed by Russian literature. Ukrainian authors were confined to themes like collectivization, but it had to be depicted as a positive transformation, hindered only by sinister kulaks, without any mention of the Holodomor.
Today, few people remember works like Andrii Holovko’s “Weeds” or Oleksandr Korniychuk’s “In the Steppes of Ukraine.” These are, at best, second-rate examples even within the framework of socialist realism. Yet, during their time, they formed the core of Ukrainian literature in Soviet school curriculums. The canon left no room for modernists or the rebellious authors of the 1960s who sought to move beyond socialist realism. Without these talented generations, Ukrainian literature was doomed to stagnate as little more than a chronicle of serfdom and collective farm life.
Ukrainian Soviet in the USSR = literature without
Soviet-era Ukrainian readers were denied access to the vibrant urban and avant-garde experiments of the futurists or the morally complex characters of Mykola Khvylovyi and other writers. Authors who were openly anti-Soviet or too intellectually sophisticated for the “literature of the second category” were effectively erased from the cultural conversation.
From a modern perspective, the “canonical” Soviet Ukrainian literature was built on ideological substitutions. Instead of Mykola Kulish, a pioneering innovator of drama, the canon elevated Oleksandr Korniychuk, a mediocre but ideologically reliable writer. Similarly, the modern, psychologically rich prose of Valerian Pidmohylnyi was sidelined in favor of the simplistic, unimaginative novels of Mykhailo Stelmakh and Petro Panch.
Even poets who survived the Stalinist purges, such as Maksym Rylsky, Pavlo Tychyna, and Mykola Bazhan, were forced to prioritize ideological propaganda. Their worthwhile poetic contributions were overshadowed by their obligatory odes to collective farms, Soviet leaders, and the “feats of the Soviet people.”
Read more: Mykola Zerov: The myth
The few bright writers who managed to secure a place
in the so-called canon were reduced to flat, one-dimensional figures.
Their literary legacies were propped up by clichéd interpretations in official literary studies,
as well as through monuments and museum exhibitions.
“The Cathedral” in a Shadow Ban
Oles Honchar, a celebrated writer who had been favored by the authorities during the harsh Zhdanov regime for his novel Guide-on Bearers, fell out of favor in the late 1960s. In 1968, he published his novel The Cathedral, when the Khrushchev Thaw had already ended. The era of daring texts was over, and the living classic was quickly reminded of this.
Read more: Everything for your “creative rest”
Initially, The Cathedral received praise from critics, but the tone shifted dramatically after the Dnipropetrovsk regional committee of the Communist Party issued its command to suppress the novel. The simplest accusation leveled against Honchar was that “the work is simply unsuccessful.” Like an inconvenient film, the book was effectively “shelved.” It was not removed from libraries but was no longer mentioned, discussed, or promoted for 20 years. The Cathedral finally made its triumphant return to Ukrainian readers in the late 1980s.
This was not an overtly anti-Soviet book. It merely touched lightly on silenced aspects of history, explored themes of identity, and reflected on the moral decline of Soviet citizens who were supposed to witness the arrival of communism. Yet, Honchar—a representative of the “second category” of literature—had dared to ask questions that exceeded the boundaries of what was permitted. This act was unforgivable, and the novel was subjected to a shadow ban. Hundreds of similar works were left in drawers for decades.
Author: Dmytro Krapyvenko
Translator: Viktoriia Pushyna
This article is a part of the special project ‘Erasure of a Word’ created in support of the exhibition ‘Antitext’. The project is implemented by the Chytomo media in cooperation with the Kharkiv Literary Museum