From November 9 to October 27: Ukrainian Language Day and the Radio Dictation

Ukraine has a day marking its written and spoken language: the “Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language” (День української писемності та мови). It was established by presidential decree in 1997, and fell every year on November 9 through 2022, before moving to October 27 from 2023.

To mark the day, Ukraine’s public broadcaster airs a “National Unity Radio Dictation” (Радіодиктант національної єдності) every year, in which the whole country writes down the same text. A writer’s text is read aloud by an actor, and listeners take it down by hand and send it in. What follows is based on the wording of the presidential decrees and announcements by the public broadcaster (Suspilne Movlennia), all checked as of September 2026.

The 1997 Decree, and the Day of Nestor the Chronicler

The commemorative day was established by Presidential Decree No. 1241/97 of President Kuchma, dated November 6, 1997. Its text is short: it states that, in support of a proposal from civic organizations and in consideration of the important role the Ukrainian language plays in uniting Ukrainian society, this day is established. The date, it states, is to be set on the feast day of Nestor the Chronicler.

Nestor was a monk of the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU), published by the University of Alberta’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, he was born around 1056 and died around October 27, 1114, in Kyiv. He wrote lives of saints and continued earlier chronicles, and is said to have completed a version of the Tale of Bygone Years around 1111–1113. How this book came to be, and its surviving manuscripts, are covered in “The Tale of Bygone Years Was Compiled Three Times in 1110s Kyiv.”

The word “писемність” in the day’s name refers to writing, to the written word. In its 2025 announcement, the public broadcaster introduces Nestor as the reputed author of the Tale of Bygone Years and as regarded as one of the founders of the old Ukrainian written word.

2023: From November 9 to October 27

On July 28, 2023, President Zelenskyy, by Presidential Decree No. 455/2023, revised the dates of several commemorative days at once. Its first clause rewrote the 1997 decree’s “November 9” to “October 27.” Presidential Decree No. 1241/97 now reads, in effect, “to be celebrated every year on October 27, the feast day of Nestor the Chronicler.”

It is easier to understand not as the commemorative day itself moving to a different day, but as the calendar used to reckon the same feast day of Nestor having changed. The “October 27” IEU gives for his death is a date in the old (Julian) calendar; converted to the calendar now generally in use, it becomes November 9, 13 days later. With the church’s move to the new calendar in 2023, the date of the commemorative day was revised to match. How the same presidential decree also moved “Ukrainian Statehood Day” from July 28 to July 15 is set out in detail in “‘Ukrainian Statehood Day’ Was Set on the Feast of St. Volodymyr.”

The now-vacant November 9 was given a different commemorative day by the same decree: the “All-Ukrainian Day of Cultural Workers and Masters of Folk Art.”

Not a Day Off

The “Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language” is a commemorative day set by presidential decree, and is not among the public holidays listed in Article 73 of the Labor Code. Neither October 27 nor the former November 9 is a day off from work or school. The list of public holidays, and the fact that Article 73 has been suspended under martial law, are set out in “Independence Day Is August 24: Ukraine’s Public Holidays, and How Martial Law Suspended the Rules on Days Off.”

The Radio Dictation, Begun in 2000

According to the public broadcaster’s own explanation, the radio dictation was begun in 2000 by a team at the state radio station “Ukrainian Radio” (Українське Радіо). Its purpose is to unite, around the language, Ukrainians and people who know Ukrainian both inside and outside the country, and the public broadcaster also states that it is “not meant to test participants’ literacy.” It is now run by the public broadcaster (the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine) and continues as a program of Ukrainian Radio.

The date is set to align with the commemorative day, though not always exactly on that day. The public broadcaster’s 2023 announcement explains that the dictation, previously written every year on November 9, was moved to October 27 that year in line with the presidential decree. In 2024, however, October 27 fell on a Sunday, so the dictation was held on Friday, October 25.

How 2025 Was Conducted

The 2025 dictation began at 11:00 (Kyiv time) on Monday, October 27. The public broadcaster’s advance announcement gave the following details.

• Listen/watch: broadcast live on Ukrainian Radio and Radio Culture (Радіо Культура), on the TV channel Suspilne Culture (Суспільне Культура), on Ukrainian Radio’s YouTube channel, and via the “suspilne.radio” app and the government’s “Diia” app
• Write: anywhere you like. Write alone, or gather with others at work, a library, or a bookstore
• Send it in: either by letter (addressed to 26 Khreshchatyk Street, Kyiv, postmarked by October 28), or by photographing or scanning your written text and emailing it by 11:00 on October 29. Once the text is made public, emailed submissions are no longer accepted
• Scoring: submitted entries are graded by a panel of specialists, with results announced later

The 2023 announcement states that the dictation usually finishes in about 30 minutes. Since the broadcast can also be watched online, people can take part from outside the country. According to the public broadcaster, among the 38 countries from which entries arrived by email in 2025 was Japan. 11:00 in Kyiv on October 27, 2025, corresponded to 18:00 the same day in Japan (Ukraine’s summer time had ended the previous day, October 26).

The text’s title is announced on the day of the dictation itself. The full text is published on the public broadcaster’s website a few days later, so participants can check their own entries against it.

Writers and Readers, 2022–2025

The 2024 text was written to mark the 100th anniversary of Ukrainian Radio. In the 2025 scoring, six people wrote with no mistakes at all, and the public broadcaster lists the most common error as the use of punctuation such as dashes and exclamation marks.

How Many People Take Part?

The number of participants varies depending on how it is counted. The figures the public broadcaster publishes are mainly “the number of entries sent for scoring” and “the number of broadcast or online views.”

• 2018: 32,799 entries were sent for scoring, of which 311 people made no mistakes (from the public broadcaster’s 2025 retrospective article)
• 2024: the public broadcaster has published one article saying “more than 500,000 people took part across the public broadcaster’s platforms,” and another saying it “drew more than 700,000 views”
• 2025: as of October 30, views across the public broadcaster’s platforms stood at about 800,000. As of November 27, views of the live broadcast on Ukrainian Radio’s YouTube channel stood at about 470,000

Not everyone who watched necessarily wrote the dictation, and not everyone who wrote necessarily sent in an entry. If you come across a claim that “hundreds of thousands wrote it,” it is worth checking which figure that claim is based on.

The 2026 Dictation

As of September 24, 2026, the public broadcaster has not yet announced the date, writer, or reader for the 2026 dictation. In 2025, the date was announced on September 29, and the writer and reader on October 10.

Preparations are already under way. According to the public broadcaster, the second season of the program “Radiodyktant bez pomylok” (Radio Dictation Without Mistakes), which helps people prepare for the dictation, began on July 15, 2026, and airs on Ukrainian Radio every Monday and Wednesday at 7:15. The public broadcaster has also published, in August 2026, the justification document for its procurement of the service that will grade and compile the entries submitted for the “National Unity Radio Dictation 2026.”

The commemorative day itself is fixed by presidential decree as October 27, but the public broadcaster decides and announces the date on which the dictation itself is held. Anyone who wants to take part should watch for announcements from the public broadcaster and Ukrainian Radio. Where to learn Ukrainian in Japan is covered in “Ukrainian Courses and Classes Offered at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Osaka University, and the University of Tokyo.”