There is a lot to say about Ukrainians and their culture of doing, choosing to do something instead of remaining idle. We'll explore how work became an integral part of Ukrainian life by examining what they do and what they think by looking at their tools and songs.
From the earliest, hard-scrabble settlers to today's industrious citizens, Ukrainians have sought ways to improve their tools and techniques to make work easier, faster, and more efficient. The drive to perfect what they do is not just a testament to resilience, but to the belief that labor is the foundation of life itself.
Trypiltsi may be the ones who've settled the minds of future inhabitants of Ukrainian lands to permanent improvements.
Trypiltsi were a Neolithic people who lived in present-day Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania between approximately 5400 and 2700 BCE. They represented the Trypillian-Cucuteni culture, known for their advanced agricultural practices, settlements, and artistic achievements. Trypiltsi are especially renowned for their earliest urban building in the region.
Around 5,000 years ago, they not only farmed the land — they mastered it while their grinding stones and early agricultural implements laid the groundwork for centuries of farming innovation.
Trypiltsi were also known for the earliest forms of ceramics, made not just for decorative purposes but to store and preserve food. Trypiltsi invented the earliest known potter's wheel in the middle of the 5th millennium BCE.
As Kyiv Rus was becoming one of the most powerful states in Europe thousands of years later, its blacksmiths demonstrated a remarkable capacity in metallurgy.
Blacksmiths of the era exemplified relentless dedication, perfecting techniques such as the cementation of blades to increase durability and three-fold welding for crafting tools with exceptional hardness and elasticity. According to scholar David Larreina García, similar technologies, discovered in the Basque Country, were considered not only matching but often surpassing the quality of ancient time tools.
While agricultural tools continued to evolve around the globe, military innovations appeared in Ukrainian lands during the Cossack era. Apart from their world-renowned fortifications, the Cossacks impressed their contemporaries with chaika boats.
These boats were light, fast, and maneuverable, allowing the Cossacks to defend their land and support their way of life. They could have chosen any existing model of the vessel, but the chaika reflected the Cossacks' work ethic and drive for improvement in all things that ensured survival and autonomy.
Regardless of their class — whether serf or Cossack — most Ukrainians of the time worked the land or raised animals. However, serfs specifically were subjected to forced labor, often from childhood. They formed a distinct class of people who knew no life beyond relentless hard work in the service of their lords.
For some serfs like Fedir Symyrenko and Mykhailo Yahnenko, however, this hardship became a reason to rebel against the system. Both men are known in Ukraine as influential benefactors and successful businessmen. But they were much more than that.
After purchasing their freedom from serfdom, Fedir and Mykhailo started their own company, built the first mechanized, steam-powered sugar factory in the Russian Empire (1834), and became one of the first Ukrainian beetroot sugar producers. Their families' production expanded the technological boundaries of the era, laying a scientific basis for Ukrainian horticulture, pomology, selection, and related fields, which were evolved by their descendants.
Fedir's son Vasyl, whom Ukrainian scholar Serhii Hannytskyi calls a Ukrainian Henry Ford, patented an evaporation apparatus that halved fuel consumption for sugar beet processing and developed new sugar distillation methods in a chemical laboratory.
Thus, the beginning of the 19th century was marked by the formation of Ukraine's entrepreneurial class with its unique approaches to work.
During the forced industrialization in the 19th century, Ukrainians continued their work-centered mindset, now taking on the challenges of the rapidly changing world. Even traditional crafts like Opishnia pottery became industrialized, blending cultural roots with modern demands.
As a late example of Ukraine's unique pottery tradition, it stood out for its thin walls and multi-colored curved patterns and was renowned for decorative sculptures and children's toys. In the 1930s, the Soviet pottery artel "Artistic Ceramics" was created in Opishna, which later turned into one of the largest earthenware factories in the union.
However, mass production would have a negative influence: industrial style came with incorporating easel painting and Soviet symbols into product designs. Of course, it ruined the intuitive nature of this kind of pottery.
However, the tradition was preserved by people who continued to make items by hand upon techniques learned over generations. Throughout Ukraine's history, its people showed that tools and technologies created and used were not merely for convenience, but were instead extensions of a deep cultural belief that work is both a duty and a source of pride.
Working songs accompanied many processes the folk were involved in for previous centuries, including hard work. Generations created and then passed over various work songs that reflect the history of Ukrainian labor.
Performed since centuries B.C., they became a momentous source of knowledge about the predecessors' doings, attitudes, and reflection towards it, and related problems. For example, the folk song below shows how farm workers would cheer each other on, promising themselves to rest only after the work was done:
What now seems like a Tolkienish poem once was an important source of spirit. These sorts of chants were also believed to have magic powers of improving productivity in pre-Christian times.
As Ukrainian lands have long been dominated by agriculture, many folk work songs are dedicated to work in the field. Today, they are known as harvest songs.
The fact that some work songs have endured for thousands of years suggests that the act of work itself occupied a central place in people's minds and that this was a virtue that people felt was important to instill in future generations.
The tendency persisted during the serfdom when serf songs began to appear. Since most serfs were illiterate, the songs are the only way to hear their stories and feelings today.
Their lyrics not only revealed the gruelling nature of their work but also the unfair attitude towards serfs despite it. Thus, some of those songs had a satirical tone, while others reflected a deep love for the work itself — the fields, plants, and land, and for simply spending time close to nature even though the singing was very weary.
The thing was that the peasants loved to work and were used to it, but they desired to do it as free people.
When the Soviet Union came, however, they instituted songs that sought to teach workers how they should feel about work, instead of letting them sing in their own voices and ways.
Less than 100 years of peasants' freedom had passed when Soviet rule came to Ukrainians with its desire to win the industrial race with the whole Western world. The grandchildren of those who knew nothing but working themselves to the bone got to experience this life for themselves during the 1920-30s, not in the fields but in factories.
The Soviet rule began with rapid industrialization, they needed to gain popular acquiescence to what it would involve. Working songs about heroic labor became an instrument for this.
Sadly, many of those deeds described in the songs would soon be erased by WWII.
During the Second World War, many Soviet factories were damaged or destroyed by the Nazi invasion, along with workers' housing stock. Thus, human resources were needed again to rebuild it all, and new Soviet songs appeared again in Ukrainian to encourage the people:
The pace of reconstruction after the war was indeed astonishing. By 1948, the Bilshovyk factory, which had been fully destroyed during the war, had been completely rebuilt and was working at its full pre-war capacity. What made it possible was the toil and blood of Ukrainian workers.
"The successes of industrial growth in Ukraine, as in the USSR as a whole, were ensured mainly by attracting additional labor, that is, by an extensive effort," explains scholar Oleh Bazhan.
These days, Ukraine is facing another wave of post-war restoration and reconstruction as a result of Russian aggression.
Although it is too early to talk about special songs, Ukrainians sing and dance to Ukrainian music during their tolokas. During these community clean-up events, many people rebuilt their own homes instead of waiting for government reconstruction while living in temporary accommodation. Altogether, these tendencies further prove that Ukrainians' drive to work is intrinsic to their spirit. It is at the heart of the Ukrainian nation.
All songs were taken from the Ukrainian Soviet Song anthology by Pavlo Omelianovych Kozytskyi, Platon Ilionovych Maiboroda, Isak Abramovych Vilenskyi, and Oleksandr Fedorovych Znоsko-Borovskyi, 1953.
