Like the Belarusian and Russian languages, Ukrainian is an Eastern Slavic language, one of the closest to the original 9th-century AD Slavonic language used in Kiev before the formal Slavonic Church was introduced from Bulgaria, in the 10th Century. Ukrainian language has been preserved and is now more widespread, despite influences of the Russian and Polish languages and its banishment by Tzar Alexander II in 1876. The Ukrainian language was adopted as the official language of the country in 1990.

The Ukraine’s literary heritage is a product of centuries of development. The origins of the national literature of Ukraine can be traced back to the medieval Slavic chronicles, exemplified in the ballad Slovo o polku Ihrevim (The Tale of the Armament of Ihor). It is said that modern Ukrainian literature was laid by the mid-18th-century philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, who wrote poems and philosophical essays in Ukrainian, directed toward the common person rather than the elite. The first major writer in Ukrainian was the national hero Taras Shevchenko, a nationalist born a serf in 1814. Shevchenko’s literary contribution marked the golden age of Ukrainian literature. Ivan Franko was known as the most prolific writer of the early 20th Century, who wrote poetry, fiction, drama, children’s stories and philosophy. The Soviet regime was a subject for many writers, as it was a source of suffering. The poet Vasyl Stus reflected the agony of dissidence with his 'Winter Trees' in 1968 and 'Candle in the Mirror' in 1977. Stus was eventually murdered in a Soviet labour camp. One of the instruments of independence was the 1991 Ukranian Writer’s Union, founded in Kiev.