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Ukraine's comprehensive and free health care includes primary and specialized hospitals and research institutions. Yet folk healing is not ignored by professional medicine. The popularity of folk healing is based on a distrust of standard medicine. The folk healers' knowledge of natural resources and lore is an ancient cultural heritage.
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Rituals, prayers, and charms are used by folk healers only as additional elements of healing. These healers prefer to work individually and let the patient determine the fee. Another type of healer has become popular since the last days of the Soviet Union. These healers hold collective sessions eliciting mass hysteria from their audiences for an admission fee. Their popularity may be explained as a reaction among the less educated to stressful economic and social situations combined with the spiritual vacuum created by seventy-four years of compulsory atheism.
There are several secular official holidays in Ukraine, some left over from Soviet times. The International Women's Day, 8 March, is celebrated now in the same context as Mother's Day: men present small gifts and flowers to all women family members and work colleagues. Constitution Day is 28 June. Independence Day, 24 August, is celebrated with military parades and fireworks.
Support for the Arts. The former Soviet Union provided governmental support for the arts through professional organizations such as unions of writers, artists, or composers. These organizations still exist and try to function despite a general lack of funds.
Young and unconventional artists usually organize informal groups funded by individual sponsors and grants from international foundations. Ukrainian literature begins with the chronicles of Kyivan Rus and the twelfth century epic The Tale of Ihor's Campaign.
Crosses and domes are common on Ukrainian churches. Ivan Kotlyarevskyi — first used the proto-modern Ukrainian literary language in his poem Eneida Aeneid. He travestied Virgil, remaking the original Trojans into Ukrainian kozaks and the destruction of Troy into the abolition of the hetmanate.
Hryhorij Kvitka Osnov'yanenko — developed a new narrative style in prose. This endeavor focused on folklore and history and began to unify the Ukrainian literary language. The literary genius of Taras Shevchenko — completed the development of romantic literature and its national spirit. His collection of poems Kobzar and other poetic works became symbols of Ukrainian national identity for all Ukrainians from gentry to peasants.
In his poetry he appears as the son of the downtrodden Mother-Ukraine. Later, his own image was identified with an archetypal Great Father, embodying the nation's spirit. This process completed the creation of a system of symbolic representations in Ukrainian national identity.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Ukrainian writers under the Russian Empire—Panteleimon Kulish — , Marko Vovchok — , Ivan Nechuj-Levyts'kyj — , Panas Myrnyj — , and Borys Hrinchenko — —developed a realistic style in their novels and short stories.
Osyp-Yurij Fed'kovych — pioneered Ukrainian literature in the westernmost Bukovyna under Austrian rule. Ivan Franko — is a landmark figure in Ukrainian literature comparable to Shevchenko. His poetry ranged from the most intimate introspection to epic grandeur. His prose was attuned to contemporary European styles, especially naturalism, and his poetry ranged from introspective to philosophical.
Mykhailo Kotsubynskyi — ; Vasyl Stefanyk — , a master of short psychological stories in dialect; and Olha Kobylianska — all wrote in a psychologically true style. Popularly, Shevchenko, Franko, and Lesia Ukrainka are known in Ukrainian culture as the Prophet or Bard, the Stonecutter, and the Daughter of Prometheus, images based on their respective works.
After the Soviet takeover of Ukraine, many Ukrainian writers chose exile. This allowed them to write with a freedom that would have been impossible under the Soviets. Their works are distinguished by an elegant command of form and depth of expression along with a commitment to their enslaved nation. Ukrainian literature showed achievements within a wide stylistic spectrum in the brief period of Ukrainization under the Soviets.
Modernism, avant-garde, and neoclassicism, flourished in opposition to the so-called proletarian literature. Futurism was represented by Mykhailo Semenko — Khvyliovyi committed suicide after witnessing the famine. From the s to the s, the so-called social realistic style was officially mandated in Ukrainian Soviet literature.
In to a new generation of writers rebelled against social realism and the official policy of Russification. Novels by Oles' Honchar — , poetry by Lina Kostenko — and the dissident poets Vasyl' Stus — and Ihor Kalynets' — opened new horizons. Unfortunately, some of them paid for this with their freedom and Stus with his life. Writers of s and the s sought new directions either in a philosophical rethinking of past and present Ukraine like Valerii Shevchuk — or in burlesque and irony like Yurii Andrukhovych —.
Contemporary culture, politics, and social issues are discussed in the periodicals Krytyka and Suchasnist'. Graphic Arts. Ancient Greek and Roman paintings and Byzantine art modified by local taste were preserved in colonies in the Northern Black Sea region. The art of the Kyivan Rus began with icons on wooden panels in Byzantine style. Soon after the conversion to Christianity, monumental mosaics embellished churches, exemplified by the Oranta in Kyiv's Saint Sophia Cathedral. Frescoes on the interior walls and staircases complemented the mosaics.
Medieval manuscript illumination reached a high level of artistry and the first printed books retained these illuminations. Printing presses were established in Lviv and Ostrih in , where the Kiev University. Every large or medium-sized urban center has at least one university.

Ostrih Bible was published in In the seventeenth century Kyiv became a center of engraving. The baroque era secularized Ukrainian painting, popularizing portraiture even in religious painting: The icon Mary the Protectress, for example included a likeness of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Kozak portraits of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries progressed from a post-Byzantine rigidity to a high baroque expressiveness. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, several Ukrainian artists worked in Saint Petersburg: Antin Losenko — , Dmytro Levyts'kyi — , Volodymyr Borovykovs'kyi — , and Illia Repin — An ethnographic tradition of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is represented by Lev Zhemchuzhnikov — and Opanas Slastion — Mykola Pymonenko — organized a painting school in Kyiv favoring a post-romantic style.
National elements pervaded paintings of Serhii Vasylkyvs'kyi — Impressionism characterized the works of Vasyl — and Fedir Krychevs'ky — The highly individualistic and expressive post-romantics Ivan Trush — and Oleksa Novakivs'kyi — ushered western Ukrainian art into the twentieth century. Yurii Narbut's graphics — combined Ukrainian baroque traditions with principles of modernism. Mykhailo Boichuk — and his disciples Ivan Padalka — and Vasyk Sedlyar — combined elements of Byzantine art with modern monumentalism. Anatol' Petryts'kyi — , an individualistic expressionist, survived Stalinist persecution to remain a champion of creative freedom to the end of his life.
In Lviv of the s Ukrainian artists worked in different modernist styles: Pavlo Kovzhun — was a symbolist and a constructivist. Many artists, such as the neo-Byzantinist Petro Kholodnyi, Sr. Old icons influenced Vasyl Diadyniuk — and Yaroslava Muzyka — Alexander Archipenko — , the most prominent Ukrainian artist to emigrate to the West, attained international stature with paintings and sculptures that combined abstraction with expressionism. Jacques Hnizdovsky — achieved wide recognition in engraving and woodcuts.
The highly stylized sculpture of Mykhailo Chereshniovsky showed a unique lyrical beauty.
After Stalin's genocide of the s, social realism a didactic kind of cliched naturalism applied to all literary and artistic media became the only style allowed in the Soviet Union. In the s some young Ukrainian artists and poets, who also defended civil rights, rejected social realism. For some of them this proved tragic: the muralist Alla Hors'ka was assassinated, and the painter Opanas Zalyvakha was imprisoned in the Gulag for long years.
During the s, modernism and postmodernism appeared in Ukraine in spontaneous art movements and exhibitions.
Post-modern rethinking infused the works of Valerii Skrypka and Bohdan Soroka. An identity search in the Ukrainian diaspora showed in the surrealistic works of Natalka Husar. Performance Arts. Ukrainian folk music is highly idiosyncratic despite sharing significant formal elements with the music of neighboring cultures.
Epic dumas —ancient melodies, especially those of seasonal rituals—are tonally related to medieval modes, Greek tetrachords, and Turkic embellishments. Typical genres in Ukrainian folk music are solo singing; part singing groups; epic dumas sung by frequently blind bards who accompanied themselves on the bandura a lute shaped psaltery ; and dance music by troisty muzyky, an ensemble of fiddle, wind, and percussion including a hammered dulcimer.