Ukraine Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Ukraine Culture - Essay Example Ukrainian art was said to have its beginning in the pre-Christian era but any progress and development that it had gained was squashed by centuries of turmoil during the Tatar barbarism. In the 17th century, however, a Cossack Ukraine took interest in the country’s culture and arts as a way of gaining the trust of the local Orthodox Church and population to create a strong power base. As a result, there was significant movement and progress in Ukraine’s arts and culture, but it was in the 18th century when the Khmel’nyts’kyi Revolution, the Period of Ruin and the last days of the Mazepa era, was brought to a close that they began to flourish. Whatever gains, however, that Ukrainian arts and culture had during that era soon became ineffective when Stalinization and â€Å"russification† was imposed on non-Russian cultures. This implied a suppression of non-Russian culture and the imposition of Russian culture as a guideline for all artistic and cultur al activities. With the death of Stalin in 1953 and the subsequent de-Stalinization of Russian policies during the reign of Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s, Ukrainian art became free once again. Ukrainian Architecture Ukrainian architecture began to take a distinctive shape in the pre-Christian era. Early Ukrainian structures were made of wood. In the 9th to 10th centuries churches, fortifications and even palaces were made of wood (see Fig. 1). Pieces of timber were horizontally placed on top of another to form structures and this tradition of construction was continued even up to the 20th century (My Ukraine).