Kharkiv: Ukraine’s Own Infolklore Tradition

In 1840s Kharkhiv University led the collection of folktales that established Ukrainianess in the face of Russian oppression.

Source: Twitter Note

These are all the products of purposeful campaigns based around mythology and folklore to establish a unified identity that helped create community that resisted occupation. When the Herder in 1777 launched the German folklore, folk song movement and inspired Goethe And the brothers Grimm, who all of us will remember as children, to collect folktales and inspired Wagner then and led to the first German, unified German state 90 years later. They set out purposefully to collect common culture in the form of stories. The same in Ireland. The Irish Cultural Revival, the first president of Ireland, was a folklore collector.

Source: Human Safari Podcast

Ukraine has its own Infolklore tradition. Kharkiv University — the same city being bombarded today — was once the centre of Ukrainian folklore collection that established national identity in resistance to Russian oppression. The Herder model was not only German: Ireland, Ukraine, and many other nations used folklore to build community and resist occupation. Infolklore has always been the weapon of the occupied, not the occupier.

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