Ukrainian Music Day Date in the current year: September 19, 2026

Often, Ukrainian music is reduced to folk songs and the work of kobzars, while Ukrainian musical culture from the 17th to 20th centuries is exclusively viewed in the context of the Russian and Soviet cultures. However, Ukrainian musical culture developed within its own traditions, including not only folklore, but also classical, church, and popular music.

Although they lived and worked in the Russian Empire, Maxim Berezovsky, Dmytro Bortniansky, Artemy Vedel, Andriy Halenkovsky, Oleksandr Lyzohub, Semen Hulak-Artemovsky, Mykhailo Verbytsky, Mykola Lysenko, and many others are considered Ukrainian composers first and foremost, since their music was inextricably linked to Ukrainian culture. Hulak-Artemovsky, for example, wrote the first opera with a Ukrainian-language libretto, Zaporozhian Beyond the Danube, while Lysenko created numerous folk music arrangements and composed works based on Taras Shevchenko's poetry.

The establishment of Soviet rule dealt a severe blow to Ukrainian musical culture. Many musicians and composers were repressed, and the music of those who had left the USSR was banned from study or performance. Nevertheless, modern Ukrainian musical culture began to take shape in the second half of the 20th century despite the principles of Socialist Realism that dominated the official cultural sphere. One of its most prominent representatives was the tragically deceased Volodymyr Ivasyuk.

In 2026, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine designated the third Saturday of September as Ukrainian Music Day. The press release announcing this new holiday stated that its main goals are to highlight the contributions of Ukrainian musicians, composers and producers to national culture, support cultural resistance against Russia’s armed aggression, and strengthen the Ukrainian cultural sphere, free from Russian influence.

The date of the holiday was chosen to commemorate the inaugural Chervona Ruta Festival, held in September 1989 and named after the song of the same name by Volodymyr Ivasyuk. This festival is widely regarded as a turning point in the development of modern Ukrainian music, as it brought it out of the predominantly informal sphere to which it had been confined during the Soviet era and onto the mainstream public stage.

In the final years of the Soviet Union and the early years of Ukraine’s independence, it was the Chervona Ruta Festival that fostered growing interest in the Ukrainian language and culture and helped shape modern Ukrainian identity. Over the years since the festival’s inception, many well-known Ukrainian performers and bands began their careers on its stage, including Mertvy Piven (“Dead Rooster”), Pikkardiyska Tertsiya, Oleksandr Ponomariov, Ruslana, The V’yo, TNMK, Tartak, Katya Chilli, Yulia Lord, and many others.