The role of the media in the life of independent Ukraine is growing.

In 1990, the first non-government and private newspapers, magazines, news agencies, television, and radio broadcasting companies began to be incorporated. Today over 10, 000 releases, hundreds of on-line media sources, private and state-supported, are competing on the Ukrainian media market trying to fully cover the life of the community and political activity in Ukraine. The media today stems from the principles of a free press, journalism, and publishing business, transparency, and access to any printed matter, radio, or television program.

Print media

By the year 2000, the number of state periodicals reached 3816 titles, 1568 newspapers and 1720 magazines. Most publishers (53%) are private. Only 9% are state-owned. NGOs have 8.8%, and educational and research institutions 13.5%. The issues and subjects reflected by the press are mostly devoted to government policy, comments, news, advertisements, and entertainment. The regions publish over 6100 titles.

Most magazines are published in Ukrainian and Russian. Bilingual publications are the most numerous, followed by Ukrainian editions, and in third place is Russian-language ones. Some periodical are published in the languages of national minorities living in Ukraine.

Electronic media

The Ukrainian population has an access to radio and television programs.

Two nationwide state-supported television channels are operating in Ukraine: UT-1 and UT-2. Others include public television and a few dozen of private companies with such leaders as Inter, Novy Kanal, STB, ICTV, TET, UTAR, etc. There are more municipal and regional television and radio broadcasting companies.

Internet facilities are now in the focus of particular attention together with over digital technologies of data processing and exchange including Ukraine's entrance into global information system.

Music

Folk music in Ukraine reflects the gains and traditions of the Kyivan Rus. These were mainly ritual songs sung a cappella. Historical songs (dumy) and kobza-playing appeared as typical Ukrainian folk genres in the sixteenth century. The Hlukhiv School of singing and Kyiv-Mohyla Academy were the core of musical education. In from the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries Ukrainian choral music reached its peak owing to the works ofDmytro Bortniansky, Maksym Berezovsky, and Artemi Vedel.

The first Ukrainian opera, Zaporozhets za Dunayem (A Zaporozhzhian Cossack Beyond the Danube), by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky was written in 1863. Ukrainian classical music was dominated by Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912) and in the twentieth its traditions were further augmented by Levko Revutsky, Borys Liatoshynsky, Stanislav Liudkevich, Volodymyr Barvinsky, Kost Dankevych, and Hryhory Maiboroda.

Independence has encouraged the development of all musical directions: Ukrainian song is being restored, there are new musical genres in popular music: Cossack songs and song poetry, Polissia magic pop, and Kolomiya rap. Numerous new festivals and competitions have sprung up, among which the most popular are the Tavriya Games. Opera art festivals, international organ and piano music festivals have become a tradition.

Religion

Ukraine has over 24,000 religious organizations and societies. During the years of independence, the number of religious centers increased from 104 to 232, monasteries to 261, clerical education institutions to 122. Sunday schools to 7,000, and church brotherhoods to 50.

In 988, Kyivan Rus' adopted Christianity, and Orthodoxy became the dominant religious trend. Now it is represented by three branches; the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate, 70%), Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate, 20%), and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (9.8%).

In 1596, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) was established. Prohibited in 1946 and legalized in December 1989, this church has restored its structure. Its societies are most widespread in Galicia, Transcarpathia, and the Ukrainian Diaspora. The Roman Catholic Church has 782 parishes and 39 monasteries.

Evangelists of all kinds are organized in 4500 religious societies. There are 172 Judaic and 368 Islamic societies in Ukraine.

Sports

Ukraine has always been one of the leading countries in the world sports arena. During the first postwar Olympics of 1952 in Helsinki, 25 Ukrainian athletes representing the USSR won twenty medals: ten gold, nine silver, and one bronze. If Ukrainian athletes had been an independent team at that time, they would have ranked fifth in the unofficial team championship.

These are many Ukrainian Olympic champions, world champions, and European champions known the world over: gymnasts Larysa Latynina (she won nine gold. Five silver, and four bronze Olympic medals from 1956 to 1964). Borys Shakhlin, and V. Chukarin; trackmen Valery Borzov, and V. Holubnychy; weight-lifter Leonid Zhabotynsky; fencer H. Kriss; and yachtsman V. Mankin. For over 25 years the Kyiv Spartak women's handball team has been at the peak of its glory, it won USSR championships 20 times consecutively, 13 times won the European Cup (the team is registered in the Guinness Book of World Records).

The Kyiv Dynamo soccer club is a permanent player at European club championships. Their coach Valery Lobanovskiy is world-renowned. The club excelled twice winning the Cup of the Cups. In 1975, they won the Super Cup ofUEFA. The forwards of this team Oleh Blokhin and Ihor Bielanov were named the continent's best players. Andriy Shevchenko, the Dynamo veteran now in Milan, has scored 24 goals in the Italian Skudetto and became a leader of the 1999/2000 season. During the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta, Ukrainian team took the ninth place among 197 countries, winning nine gold medals. Along with experienced athletes the new Ukrainian generation is deserving praise and proudly presents Ukraine at the world sports arena. The success of the gifted boxers Vitaly and Volodymyr Klychko is another vivid example. Andriy Medvediev ranks among the world's top group tennis players.

In the 2000 Sydney Olympics 234 members of the Ukrainian team will compete in 27 events, utilizing their talent and sportsmanlike exertions to prospect for gold. A representative team of Ukrainian sportsmen has left for Sidney, the capital of the 2000 Olympic games, to fight for prizes and gold medals.

Theatre

The roots of the Ukrainian theatre lie in the mythology of the ancient Slavs. There were prince and retinue theatres in Kyivan Rus'. In 1573, the first puppet theatre was founded. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the professional Ukrainian theatre was established.

Les Kurbas is considered to be the founder of the modem Ukrainian theatre. Despite the suppression by the Soviet power of national traditions, Ukrainian theatres continued to develop, with the number of theatres and drama troupes constantly increasing. Many Ukrainian producers and actors were recognized all over the world. Independence has encouraged the dramatic arts. Private theatres have emerged, and festivals are held featuring the best acting groups from many countries of Europe, America, and Asia. These were: Mystetske Berezillya ("The Art of Berezillya", Kyiv), Zolotyi Lev (Golden Lion, Lviv), and Serge Lyfar Ballet Competition. New artistic approaches have been expressed by I, Borys, S. Danchcnko, S. Moiseyev, and V Petrov. Producer Roman Viktiuk is now widely known thanks to his work. He is actually making the greatest impact on the world theatre aesthetics at the end of the twentieth century. Among stars of the contemporary Ukrainian stage, there are such names as Bohdan Stupka, Borys Kozak, Fedir Stryhun, Ada Rohovtseva, and Valeriya Zaklunna.

National Traditions and Rituals

Ukrainian national traditions, customs, and oral folk literature reflect Old Ukrainian pre-Christian, and Christian cultures. The rituals derive from the folk calendar, religious celebrations like Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, Ivana Kupala (St. John's Eve), New Year, and the autumn folk festivals dedicated to the end of the agricultural work.

Ukrainians have typical wedding habits, family traditions connected with crafts and jobs (the first day of sowing, beginning of the harvest), along with traditional symbols (straw didukh, decorated pysanka Easter eggs, holy water, and traditional dishes like kutia (boiled wheat with honey and poppy seed), paskha Easter bread, varenyky (something like ravioli), and pancakes. The rituals include folk dances, carols, fortune-telling, and blessing with water.

Visual Arts

Many monuments of ancient cultures and nations are preserved in Ukraine. These are, among others, the stone churches and cathedrals of the Kyivan Rus'. The traditions of old Rus' art were always closely related to the West European heritage. Among the dominating architecture styles common to Ukraine from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries were the Cossack baroque, rococo, classicism, and romanticism. In southern Ukraine, especially in the Crimea, there are relics of Armenian, Greek, and Italian cultures along with Tatar mosques. Gardening became an art. The twentieth century has been an age of urban planning proving for the erection of huge industrial structures and public centres.

The mosaics and frescoes of the St. Sophia Cathedral (eleventh-twelfth centuries) and other ornaments of Kyiv churches have been preserved. The surviving paintings of the Kyivan Rus' are, however, not numerous. With the waning of the Middle Ages the Renaissance became the dominant influence on Ukrainian culture, its icon paintings, and later i n portrait styles. Gradually, the visual arts began to evoke national sentiments. Classicism and realism in Ukrainian art were greatly influenced by the heritage of the poet and painter Taras Shevchenko. Many Ukrainian and Russian artists from the mid-nineteenth through early twentieth centuries devoted their works to the picturesque and poetic nature of their native land (Illya Riepin, I. Aivazovsky, and A. Kuindzhi).

The early twentieth century was marked with an intensive spread of the avant-garde in painting and sculpture. The new movements were evident in the work of V. Yennylov, K. Malevych, O. Bohomazov, the sculptures of Oleksandr Arkhypenko, who was a pioneer of Cubism. The most famous Ukrainian painters of the twentieth century are well-known: Mykola Boichuk (Monumentalism), Heorhy Narbut (Neobaroque), Tetiana Yablonska. Hryhory Yakutovych, and Mariya Primachenko.