Christmas in Wartime in and beyond Ukraine

Abstract

Christmas in Ukraine has a long and distinguished history and is deeply rooted in culture and religion. Many deeply rooted traditions in Ukrainian culture can be observed during the Christmas season, including building a vertep (a nativity scene) and singing traditional songs like koliadky and shchedrivky. Nonetheless, the problems posed to Ukrainians have forced people to modify their traditional celebrations to the new conditions. As a result, Christmas has been significantly impacted in Ukraine throughout these turbulent times. Christmas celebrations during the war were more modest than usual since families had to make do with what they could find. Christmas trees were frequently in short supply, therefore ornaments were made from whatever materials were available.