Ukraine: support to Artistic Creativity

Ukrainian national culture, arts in particular, were born well before 1991 when national independence was achieved. On the other hand, the impact of the Soviet period on the infrastructure of Ukrainian arts, on methods and rationales of public support, and on the social role and position of the artist has been so deep that its effects can be felt even today.

In Soviet times, a solid network of state-subsidized theaters, orchestras, dance companies, circuses, film studios, publishing houses etc was created, their purpose (and, consequently, the role of the arts in Soviet society) purely instrumental: to help the process of the formation of homo sovieticus.

Alongside public artistic institutions, another pillar of the arts system of Soviet times were Creative Unions, state-sponsored and state-controlled associations of writers, composers, artists, filmmakers etc.  Some of the Creative Unions also had special supporting funds (the Literary Fund, the Artistic Fund, and the Music Fund) to provide medical care, artistic studios, vacation facilities and other useful things for unionized professional creative workers.

Soviet artists enjoyed rather high social status and many of them were much better off than most people, provided that they were loyal to the regime and hopefully not very avant-garde. This is not true of the Stalinist period, of course, but the Soviet reality of the ‘80s was much milder and more human, so to speak. Still, there was a precondition Ukrainian (and other non-Russian) artists had to meet: they couldn't be ‘too explicitly national' (meant as nationalist).

After the collapse of the USSR, in independent Ukraine, harsh political control and censorship virtually disappeared, while being ‘explicitly national' became not dangerous but even fashionable. Yet the system of public artistic institutions and of

Creative Unions did not change much.

The All-Union Creative Unions of Soviet times effortlessly transformed into National Creative Unions kept most of the assets and even secured permanent budget subsidy.

National creative (artistic) unions subsidized by the state, 2006

Yet the manifold process of socio-cultural transformation that Ukrainian society has been undergoing these years strongly influenced Ukrainian arts, too.