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.[4] 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[5]
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.
The establishment of Ukrainian literature is believed to have been triggered by the publishing of a widely successful poem Eneida by Ivan Kotliarevsky in 1798, which is one of the first instances of a printed literary work written in modern Ukrainian language.[6][7] Due to Kotliarevsky's role as the inaugurator of Ukrainian literature, among literary critics he is often referred to as "the father of Ukrainian literature".[8] Modern Ukrainian prose was inaugurated by Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s novel Marusya (1834).[6][7]
^Ukraine: Cultural life — literature // Encyclopædia Britannica 15th ed. (second version, Macropædia) Vol. 28: S-U (1985–2010). 1050 p.: 981—1982 pp. (in English)
^Ukrainian literature // Encyclopædia Britannica 15th ed. (second version, Micropædia) Vol. 12: Trudeau — Żywiec (1985–2010). 968 p.: p. 111 (in English)
^Volodymyr Sichynsky (1953). Ukraine in foreign comments and descriptions from the VIth to XXth century. New York: Ukrainian Congress Committee of America
^ abUkrainian literature // Encyclopædia Britannica 15th ed. (second version, Micropædia) Vol. 12: (1985–2010). 948 p.: p. 111 (in English)
^Parody and Burlesque // Hardie, Philip. The Last Trojan Hero: A Cultural History of Virgil's Aeneid. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. 2014. 264 p: 187 (in English)
Bibliography
A History of Ukrainian Literature (From the 11th to the End of the 19th Century): With an Overview of the Twentieth Century (Annals of the Ukrainian Academy … and Sciences in the U.S., Inc, Vol 17–19) by Dmitrij Tschizewskij, George S. N. Luckyj, Dolly Ferguson, and Doreen Gorsline
Ukrainian Literature Through the Ages by Yevhen Shabliovsky, Abraham Mistetsky, and Andrew Marko (Paperback – 1 January 2001)
Toward a history of Ukrainian literature. Grabowicz, George G. / distrib. by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute / 1981 (104: SLA U 50 : 50s Bungehuis-Spuistraat 210, 2e etage)
A history of Ukrainian literature, from the 11th to the end of the 19th century. Cyzevs'kyj, Dmytro / Ukrainian Academic Press / 1975 (UBM: H 77–63, Singel 425, UB magazijn)
Ukrainian literature. Kasinec, Edward / Harvard University / 1977 (UBM: Br. f\0 L m 9)
Ukrainian literature in the twentieth century: a reader's guide. Luckyj, George S.N. / Univ. of Toronto press / 1992 (UBM: H 96-1818)