Department of the Ukrainian Language, Literature and Culture

History

The Department of the Ukrainian Language, Literature and Culture was founded on October 5, 1989. It became the first department of Ukrainian studies in a technical university, even before the Law on Language Statehood was adopted.

Since its foundation, the department has been headed by Associate Professor Olena Petrivna Onufrienko.

The department started its work with teaching Ukrainian as an optional discipline. In September 1, 1990, the Ukrainian language was introduced as a compulsory discipline at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, while Ukrainian culture remained an optional study course. Since 1994, the department has been the structural part of the Faculty of Linguistics.

In the year of its foundation, the department initially employed 6 lecturers (at present there are 15 lecturers), who directed their work, in the first place, to the formation of national awareness among the students. The first lectures started with an explanation of the reasons what and why happened to the Ukrainian language, its culture, and history. The teachers tried to turn the young people to national values, the language among them occupying the primary place, the language that makes the people and eliminates their spiritual enslavement. Therefore, special attention was given to the language both in lectures and in practical classes. Later on, the department introduced a number of courses previously impossible to be taught at technical universities, namely: “Introduction to Ukrainian Studies”, “Historical and Cultural Processes in Ukraine”, “Ukrainian Culture”, and of course, different levels of the Ukrainian language courses.

The department became a small hub of the Ukrainian-speaking environment in a traditionally Russian-speaking university. Therefore, the lecturers responded not only with great enthusiasm, but also with joy, to every request to help the students in learning the Ukrainian language, to assist in translating into Ukrainian, or editing technical texts, or giving the expertise as to terminology in Ukrainian.

Staff

The Department of the Ukrainian Language, Literature and Culture employs full-time 15 staff members, including:

1 professor;

7 associate professors;

5 senior lecturers;

2 lecturers;

9 candidates of sciences;

1 Doctor of Science.

Disciplines

Today, the department lecturers teach a number of compulsory and optional subjects. Compulsory disciplines are taught for students of the Faculty of Linguistics, namely:

Modern Ukrainian. Ukrainian for specific purposes.

Modern Ukrainian. Stylistics of modern Ukrainian.

Stylistics of the Ukrainian language according to specific purposes.

Introduction to Roman-and-Germanic linguistics. Introduction to Linguistics

The Department of the Ukrainian Language, Literature and Culture is the only department that delivers classes to the students of absolutely all faculties of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Thus, a number of disciplines of the student’s own free choice have been developed for technical specialties:

Ukrainian for professional purposes.

Basics of oral professional speech (rhetoric).

The culture of scientific and technical speech.

Language culture and business speech.

Stylistics of modern Ukrainian (III course).

Ukrainian culture: the code of the nation.

Ukrainian artistic code within a present-day context and a historical retrospect.

Language in the sphere of legal activities (for FSP students).

History of the Ukrainian culture (for FL students).

New disciplines connected with the Ukrainian language studies provide the students with basic knowledge of the culture of Ukrainian speech and the modern Ukrainian literary language used in professional communication and professional activities. The study of these disciplines contributes to the formation of not only the culture of Ukrainian speech, but also allows solving the tasks of both social and professional interaction, since via the context of a scientific style, special terminology and semantic-grammatical structures of the scientific language of the chosen profession are studied.

The cultural studies disciplines get the students acquainted with the general theoretical problems of culture, conceptual foundations of the origins and civilizational milestones of Ukrainian culture as well as nationally distinctive and pan-European vectors in the formation of the national tradition.

Culture-cultivated work among the students

Over the years, the lecturers of the department have been organising the student science-and-research conference “The Ukrainian culture: yesterday, today, always”, which at present has acquired the status of the All-Ukrainian conference (http://ukr-kult-vsz.kpi.ua/)

The following activities are held for students every year:

– the 1st (university level) stage of the International Taras Shevchenko Literary Language Competition;

– the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language;

– the Olympiad in the Ukrainian language for the students of humanitarian and technical majors;

– the preliminary (university level) stage of the International Peter Yatsyk Competition.

Every spring, the lecturers of the department hold “Shevchenko’s readings” literary evenings.

The lecturers of the department take students to the theatres and museums of Kyiv, meetings with the prominent figures of our time, competitions, scientific and practical student competitions.

 Website of the department: http://kumlk.kpi.ua/