Ukrainization

Ukrainization or Ukrainisation ( ) is a policy or practice of increasing the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language and promoting other elements of Ukrainian culture in various spheres of public life such as education, publishing, government, and religion. The term is also used to describe a process by which non-Ukrainians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians are assimilated to Ukrainian culture and language, either by individual choices or forcibly, as a result of social processes or policies. == Background == From the second half of the 15th century through the 16th century, when present-day Ukraine and Belarus were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Renaissance had a major impact on shifting culture, art and literature away from Byzantine Christian theocentrism as expressed in Church Slavonic, towards humanist anthropocentrism, which in writing was increasingly expressed by taking the vernacular language of the common people as the basis of texts. New literary genres developed that were closer to secular topics, such as poetry, polemical literature, and scientific literature. Medieval Church Slavonic works were translated into what became known as Ruthenian, Chancery Slavonic, or Old Ukrainian. The vernacular Ruthenian ('business speech') of the 16th century would spread to most other domains of everyday communication in the 17th century, with an influx of words, expressions and style from Polish and other European languages. During this period, the usage of Church Slavonic became more restricted to the affairs of religion, the church, hagiography, and some forms of art and science. Ruthenian became a standard language, later splitting into modern Ukrainian and Belarusian.

== Russian Empire ==