Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
: Шестидесятники,
romanized
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
: ''Shestidesyatniki'',
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
: Шістдесятники,
romanized
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
: ''Shistdesiatnyky''; "people of the 60s") were representatives of а new generation of the Soviet
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...
, who entered the cultural and political life of the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
during the late 1950s and 1960s, after the
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw ( rus, хрущёвская о́ттепель, r=khrushchovskaya ottepel, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfskəjə ˈotʲ:ɪpʲɪlʲ or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period ...
. Most of them were born between 1925 and 1945, and their worldviews were formed by years of Stalin's repressions and purges, which affected many of the Sixtiers' immediate families, and
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, in which many of them had volunteered to fight.
The Sixtiers were distinguished by their liberal and anti-totalitarian views, and romanticism, which found vivid expressions in music and visual arts. Although most of the Sixtiers believed in
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
ideals, they had come to be strongly disappointed with Stalin's regime and its repression of basic civil liberties.
The Sixtiers can be roughly divided into two groups: the "physicists" (those involved in sciences) and the "lyricists" (those involved in arts, such as writers, theatre and film professionals, etc.). Among some of the common attributes and pastimes of the Sixtiers were
Bard
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise t ...
(singer-songwriter) music, poetry, disillusionment in politics, and love for camping trips to remote regions of the USSR.
After the beginning of the
Perestroika
''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...
and
Glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
policies (in the late 1980s – early 1990s), the term "Sixtiers" was also used to denote the representatives of the new generation of communist elites whose political views were formed in the late 1950s – early 1960s. These include politicians M. Gorbachev, O. Yakovlev, philosophers A. Zinoviev, M. Mamardashvili, Y. Levada, political scientists A. Bovin, F. Burlatsky, mass media editors V. Korotych, E. Yakovlev, S. Zalygin and many others.
Some parallels can be drawn between the Sixtiers and the
New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
and
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
movements in the West, but even closer similarities can be found with the more intellectual-oriented
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
.
Ukrainian Sixtiers
The Ukrainian Sixtiers movement was dominated by national ideas. Many Ukrainian Sixtiers defended the national language and culture, and freedom of artistic creativity.
The most famous members of the movement were writers
Ivan Drach
Ivan Fedorovych Drach ( uk, Іва́н Фе́дорович Драч; 17 October 1936 – 19 June 2018) was a Ukrainian poet, screenwriter, literary critic, politician, and political activist.
Drach played an important role in the founding of ...
,
Valeriy Shevchuk
Valeriy Shevchuk (born August 20, 1939, in Zhytomyr) is a Ukrainian writer.
The most prominent books of the writer include “In the Midweek” (1967), “The Esplanade 12” (1968), “The Scream of the Rooster at Dawn” (1979), “On a Humbl ...
, Mykola Vingranovsky, V. Drozd,
Hryhir Tiutiunnyk
Hryhir Mykhaylovych Tiutiunnyk ( uk, Григір Михайлович Тютюнник, 1931–1980) was a Ukrainian writer,Roman HorbykGames from the Past: "The continuity and change of the identity dynamic in Donbas from a historical perspe ...
Vasyl Symonenko
Vasyl Andriiovych Symonenko ( uk, Василь Андрійович Симоненко; 8 January 1935 – 13 December 1963) was a Ukrainian poet, journalist, activist of dissident movement. He is considered one of the most important figures in ...
, Mykola Kholodny,
Lina Kostenko
Lina Vasylivna Kostenko ( uk, Ліна Василівна Костенко; born 19 March 1930) is a Ukrainian poet, journalist, writer, publisher, and former Soviet dissident. A founder and leading representative of the Sixtiers poetry movem ...
,
Yevhen Hutsalo
Yevhen Hutsalo (14 January 1937 – 4 July 1995 ) was a Ukrainian writer and journalist.
Biography
Hutsalo was born in Staryi Zhyvotiv, Vinnytsia oblast. He graduated from the Nizhyn Pedagogical Institute in 1959, and was first published in 19 ...
; painting artists
Alla Horska
Alla Horska ( uk, Алла Горська; 18 September 1929, Yalta — 17 November 1970, Vasylkiv) was a Ukrainian artist of the 1960s, Monumentalism, monumentalist painter, one of the first representatives of the Ukrainian underground, und ...
, Viktor Zaretsky,
Boris Chichibabin
Boris Alekseyevich Chichibabin (russian: Бори́с Алексе́евич Чичиба́бин, p=bɐˈrʲis ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ tɕɪtɕɪˈbabʲɪn, a=Boris Alyeksyeyevich Chichibabin.ru.vorb.oga, uk, Бори́с Олексі́йов ...
; textile and painting artist Lyubov Panchenko; literary critics
Ivan Dziuba
Ivan Mykhailovych Dziuba ( uk, Іва́н Миха́йлович Дзю́ба; 26 July 1931 – 22 February 2022) was a Ukrainian literary critic, social activist, dissident, Hero of Ukraine, academic of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, t ...
Les Tanyuk
Leonid (Les) Stepanovych Tanyuk ( uk, Леонід (Лесь) Танюк, August 7, 1938 – March 18, 2016
Sergei Parajanov
Sergei Parajanov, ka, სერგო ფარაჯანოვი, uk, Сергій Параджанов (January 9, 1924 – July 20, 1990) was an Armenian filmmaker. Parajanov is regarded by film critics, film historians and filmmakers t ...
,
Yuri Ilyenko
Yuri Herasymovych Ilyenko ( uk, Юрій Герасимович Іллєнко, 18 July 1936 – 15 June 2010) was a Soviet and Ukrainian film director, screenwriter, cinematographer and politician. He directed twelve films between 1965 and 2 ...
; art critics Roman Korogodsky, Y. Smyrny; and translators Hryhoriy Kochur, Mykola Lukash and Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska.
The Sixtiers opposed official dogmatism, professed freedom of creative expression,
cultural pluralism
Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, whereby their values and practices are accepted by the dominant culture, provided such are consistent with the laws and value ...
, and the priority of universal values over class ones. They were largely influenced by the Western
humanistic
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
culture, the traditions of the
Executed Renaissance
The Executed Renaissance (or "Red Renaissance", uk, Розстріляне відродження, Червоний ренесанс, translit=Rozstriliane vidrodzhennia, Chervonyi renesans) is a term used to describe the generatio ...
and the Ukrainian culture of the late XIX – early XX centuries.
Cultural activities of the Sixtiers included informal literary readings and art exhibitions, vigils in memory of repressed artists, and theatre performances. The members of the movement also composed petitions in defense of Ukrainian culture. The Club of Creative Youth "Contemporary" (founded in 1959-60) in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
and the club "Snowdrop" (founded in 1962) in
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
became centers of alternative national culture. The Sixtiers restored the traditions of the classical pre-revolutionary intelligentsia, which aspired to spiritual independence, political alienation, the ideals of civil society and service to the people.
Since the freethinking Sixtiers failed to keep within the official ideological and aesthetic boundaries, their cultural activities caused dissatisfaction of the authorities. The end of 1962 marked the start of massive pressure on the nonconformist intelligentsia. The Sixtiers were not allowed to be published, and were accused of "formalism," "inaction," and "bourgeois nationalism". In response, the ideas of the Sixtiers began to spread in
samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
.
Faced with fierce resistance from the party apparatus, some of the Sixtiers compromised with the authorities, while others evolved into
political dissidents
Political dissent is a dissatisfaction with or opposition to the policies of a governing body. Expressions of dissent may take forms from vocal disagreement to civil disobedience to the use of violence.Culture of the Soviet Union
The culture of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the country's 69-year existence. It was contributed to by people of various nationalities from every one of fifteen union republics, although a majority of the influence was made ...
*
Silent Generation
The Silent Generation, also known as the Traditionalist Generation, is the Western demographic cohort following the Greatest Generation and preceding the Baby Boomers. The Silent Generation is generally defined as people born from 1928 to 1945. ...