This paper seeks to discover what it means to be Ukrainian. The concept of the Ukrainian national identity has developed and changed many times over throughout the history of this land. This is especially true in the years following the Russian Revolution in 1917. However this paper will begin with an in-depth look at the meaning of a national identity. It will then look at several influential people who helped to shape this idea over approximately the last three hundred years. Finally, this paper
tsars who dictated over the entire Russian empire. The Ukrainians were used to being held under a heavy hand though, and at this point in time, groups of men call Cossacks were gathering in numbers to fight against the outside authority over their homeland and to once and for all bring freedom to Ukraine. Nostalgia of the original Cossacks and “national revival among the Ukrainians since around 1840” became fused with “ideas of Enlightenment in the works of people like Taras Shevchenko (1814-61) and
My First Goose is a prime example of a decisive initiation story. A series of events taking place in this protagonist’s life changes him from a young adult to a mature man. As Mordecai Marcus explains, “An initiation story may be said to show its young protagonist experiencing a significant change of knowledge about the world or himself, or a change of character, or of both, and this change must point or lead him toward an adult world.” There are many elements in this literature which qualifies it
Dead Souls was written by Nikolai Gogol and first published in 1842. Even though Gogol was born in the Ukraine, he is widely known for being a Russian author. Dead Souls is a story about a fictional character, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, who travels to a small town in Russia to swindle himself a fortune. Chichikov enters the town and almost immediately begins to sway the favor of anyone with status or nobility. His charm makes him seem unlike any other passerby, in that almost all of the town’s officials
Analysis of The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Sultan of Turkey to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire Il’ya Yefimovich Repin is considered one of the greatest Russian painters and is known for painting realistic scenes that depict the climate and times in which he was raised. Born in 1844 in Chuguyev, Russia, now a part of Ukraine, Il'ya Repin was born into the military settlers class. Both his social standing and his homeland would become important influences in his later paintings