Ukrainian Science Fiction

Science fiction, fantasy and horror are literary subgenres of speculative fiction (a.k.a. "fantastyka") found in Ukrainian literature and media, written in Ukraine or by Ukrainian writers in both Ukrainian, Russian, Crimean Tatar, & some other languages. The most influential classic writer of Ukrainian science fiction is Oles Berdnyk.

Language and culture

Writing for ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', Jonathan Clements noted that "Any account of Ukrainian Fantastika must distinguish between works written in ''Ukraine'' and works written in '' Ukrainian''". For most of the 20th century, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and before that, the Russian Empire, where Russian language was dominant. Although Ukrainian is now the official language of independent Ukraine, many Ukrainian authors speak and write in Russian, which also allows them access to a larger market. Writing in Ukrainian is, however, becoming increasingly common in the 21st century, also in part due to tensions and conflicts between Ukraine and Russia. Because of that complex history, some writers born in territories of modern Ukraine are not usually considered Ukrainian; for example, Mikhail Bulgakov is commonly described as Russian, even though he was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Stanisław Lem as Polish, though he was born in Lviv, Ukraine. Likewise, Nikolai Gogol, one of the originators of Russian fantasy, has Ukrainian origins and often used Ukrainian folk motifs in his works. For these reasons, while Ukrainian literature, including fantasy and science fiction, is increasingly distinctive, traditionally it has close ties with, and has often been analyzed in the context of, the Russian literary tradition.

Some works are also written in other languages, including English, by Ukrainian emigree writers, such as R. B. Lemberg and Anatoly Belilovsky.

History

As in many other countries, the history of Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, although it draws inspirations from earlier works. The first speculative fiction books created by authors from Ukraine were Ivan Kotlyarevskyi's a novel in verse "Eneida" in Ukrainian (1798) and Yan Pototsky's novel "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa" (1804) in Latin. Among those are fantasy & horror works of Orest Somiv and Nikolai Gogol or magic motifs in the poetry of the 19th-century Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka. Over the next century, Ukrainian works would be inspired both by the Russian and Western science fiction and fantasy literature. One of early major influences on Ukrainian speculative fiction would be Kurd Lasswitz ("the father of German science fiction"), whose novel ''Two Planets'' was translated to Russian in 1903 (many years before it was translated to English.

Among the first Ukrainian authors of science fiction were (1882-1952) and (1918-1988). Krat's works represent utopian social science fiction, whereas Berezhnyi's is the more traditional, adventure- and science-focused classic science fiction-type of literature. Other older generation Ukrainian writers include the author of first Ukrainian-language science fiction novel, written specifically in Ukraine "" Volodymyr Vynnychenko, briefly a prime minister of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic in the late 1910s; ("'the progenitor of space voyages in Ukrainian science fiction"), , , Mykola Chaykovskyi, , , and . Other figures of 20 century Ukrainian speculative fiction include figures such as the Soviet-era dissidents Oles Berdnyk, described as the most significant Ukrainian classic science-fiction writer; Mykola Rudenko, Ihor Rosokhovatskyi who coined the Ukrainian word for cyborg

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