The Role of Taras Shevchenko in The Promotion of The Ukrainian Language and Literature Among Medical Students in Wartime

Abstract

This paper examines the role of Taras Shevchenko as a figure in promoting fiction reading among students of the Bogomolets National Medical University. The relevance of this study is conditioned by the declining interest in literary fiction and the consequent need to sustain engagement with it among learners in non-philological specialisations. The author analyses the results of a student survey conducted during the preparation and implementation of the first (university) stage of the Tara Shevchenko International Ukrainian Language and Literature Competition for school and university students. A total of 99 individuals registered for the competition, while 47 proceeded to write the competitive paper. The analysis focused on the participants' motivational questionnaires as well as their essays on the topic: "Learn from others, yet cherish your own: which foreign experience should be introduced into Ukrainian higher education?". In processing the source material, a quantitative assessment of responses was carried out, and the participants were classified into groups according to the types of motivation indicated. For the essay evaluation, the following parameters were taken into account: genre conformity, linguistic accuracy, and clarity and coherence of exposition.

The analysis of the written works led to several principal conclusions. First, for the student youth, Taras Shevchenko emerges as a key figure associated with the Ukrainian language, literature, and the promotion of reading. Second, a certain tendency towards the reproduction of school-level narratives is observable among those contestants who, in their motivational letters, appealed to prior successful experience of participation in similar events. Third, while a correlation exists between the attention paid to the poet's oeuvre and the levels of linguistic proficiency, erudition, and originality of judgement, this correlation is not direct. The responses of the most creative students generally refrained from direct appeal to Shevchenko's figure, yet demonstrated an affinity with his value and moral orientations.